Good Knight

by Basketball John on May 14, 2009 2:56 PM MDT Comment 3 comments

The post you've been waiting for all off-season, Brevin Knight.

Outside of Deron Williams re-signing with the the Jazz last summer, there wasn't much going on with the team. A little tweak came last July though when the Jazz swapped PGs with the Clippers.

The much maligned Jason Hart was sent back to LA from whence he came in exchange for the much traveled Brevin Knight.

For whatever reason, Hart never worked well in the Jazz system. That's weird because normally backup PGs have pretty decent seasons under Sloan. But his terrible shot clock management at the end of quarters, not to mention his terrible shot, drew the ire of many Jazz fans.

In comes Brev Brev. The Jazz would be his 9th team having lasted no more than three years with any one team in his 12-year career. It was a welcome trade because he was a solid vet that would compete with Ronnie Price for the backup position to Williams.

Shums was prophetic in his statement:

Seems like a wash

(unrelated, but from the same post comes clarkpojo's foresight )

When Deron went down in the pre-season, Sloan went with Price as the starter and Knight came off the bench. It was more of a platoon though as both averaged right around 20 minutes a game.

Once Deron came back, playing time slowly went to Knight over Price. By the end of the season, it was pretty much all Knight. Even in the months from Dec-Feb when Knight couldn't make a shot, at all, really. He went 0-18 at one point. And these were just normal, mid-range jumpers. Over those three months he put up a barely Mendoza-like .230 going 18/78.

So did we gain anything by trading Hart for Knight? Barely. Personality-wise, good guy-wise, and chemistry-wise we won hands down. As far as the stats go, well, it was pretty much sixes:

Brevin had a slight edge in PPG and he beat Hart pretty handily in assists and FG%. Okay, so we got the better of the deal, but at times during the season it seemed like Hart incarnate out there.

You can see that Price might have been the better option overall especially when the second team seemed to struggle on offense. We saw in the last game of the year against the Lakers what kind of spark Price could give us. Given Price's age, it seems like a no-brainer.

The Brevin Knight era in Utah has likely ended. I could see the Jazz re-signing Price and drafting a PG this summer as well as bringing in some other FA.

So good night, Mr. Knight. Someday you'll be a Jazz trivia question on a desktop calendar. Good luck on your next team:

View Brevin Knight in a larger map

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his terrible shot clock management at the end of quarters, not to mention his terrible shot, drew the ire of many Jazz fans.

This also turned out to be pretty much a wash.

by Patrick517 on May 14, 2009 4:53 PM MDT reply actions

This is a fantastic post. Very well done and very funny.

I was afraid that the link to my comment was going to show how dumb I was. I remember thinking that Knight would be a nice upgrade over hart. But my biggest gripe was that we had a full roster and saving money on the trade wasn’t a good thing, unless we were able to use that money on another person. And I am just glad that I have proof that i was all for signing Chris Andersen a long long time ago. I think we would be in the Nuggets’ place if we had have done that. We would have switched positions. I am confident that this is the case.

The more you try to erase me, the more that I appear.

by clarkpojo on May 14, 2009 10:22 PM MDT reply actions

Knight V. Price

Knight proved early in the season that he could be more responsible with the ball, while Price was full-speed-ahead no matter what. Apparently Sloan would rather watch a good shot get missed than risk the turnovers and mayhem of a one-man fast break….which brings us to another name that ought to be in this conversation – Dee Brown. Does anybody wish he was the backup? His shooting is just as deplorable as the others, but he’s a spark and a good locker-room guy, and a pal for our star, and a fan fave.

Brevin was so frustrating at the end of the year when you could pretty much count on a -8 for his two minute stints, which meant Deron’s minutes had to make up for that. I don’t blame Brevin for sucking, but I definitely think Sloan botched it by not giving time earlier to Price.

….and Koof. Have we mentioned that yet? arrggggghhhhh…..

I'll make it coach.

by MTN on May 15, 2009 8:20 AM MDT reply actions