Examining the PF Situation

                                                    via flickr user Clint Gardner

Jazz Power Forward Depth Chart

I believe it was Flannery O'Connor who famously noted that a good big man is hard to find. The Jazz, then, are somewhat unusual insofar as four out of their five best players are most effective at the power forward position. Too many big men sounds like a nice problem to have, but in fact it's genuinely unclear how the Jazz should order their depth chart much less apportion their minutes.

The best way to start sorting out this puzzle is to take a close look at each of the pieces. I already broke down the situations of Andrei Kirilenko and Jeremy Evans in my post about small forwards. Even though Mehmet Okur and may be more naturally suited to be a PF, he has played center almost exclusively in his Jazz career; consequently, I'll save him for my forthcoming post about centers. That means that for today's purposes we might as well start with...

Paul Millsap

If you have a heart in your chest, I hope it goes out to Paul Millsap. After four years of serving as Carlos Boozer's understudy, this season was supposed to be Paul's turn to shine. He came into the league as an energy and hustle player, and year after year he has worked his tail off to round out his game. This is most pronounced on offense, where he blossomed from a guy who was only good for dump-offs and put-backs to an offensive weapon who can post up, drive to the basket, and even knock down jumpshots out to three point range. On defense his big weakness is his lack of size, and yet Sap has done absolutely nothing to increase his height. Perhaps this means that deep down inside he is a selfish glory-boy who only cares about his own offensive statistics.

Okay, obviously nothing could be farther from the truth. Paul has done everything asked of him and more. In spite of that, I think the Jazz need to trade him. Now let's be clear: Millsap is my favorite player on the Jazz and the embodiment of everything the Jazz brand has represented for the last 30 years. Like Charlie Sheen, however, I am passionate about winning.

                                                    via flickr user: Dinur

Given the present composition of Utah's roster, Millsap does not add a particular lot of value. At the power forward, any minutes he plays will come at the expense of other highly effective players like Al Jefferson and Derrick Favors. For this reason, the team is exploring the possibility of playing Paul as a small forward. But it's far from clear to me that this increases his value to the team. Playing out of position and being asked defensively to stick to his his man on the perimeter will only go against the very things that make him effective.

Right now the Jazz are like a homeowner who doesn't have a good shelf for storing his books and Paul Millsap is like a dryer. If they decide to just use the dryer as their bookshelf, it's true that they will have a place for their books and they will be able to realize all the benefits of using a clothesline to air dry their laundry. But even if they're really sold on the clothesline idea, it still makes a whole lot more sense to throw the dryer up on Craig's List and throw the proceeds towards the purchase of some bona fide bookshelves. That makes a heck of a lot more sense than filling up your dryer with paperbacks and declaring it a bookshelf. Perhaps it would be possible to hide Paul at the SF, but the bottom line is that he is a PF and is always going to be at his best when he can put his body into someone and go to work.

Fans (and sometimes GMs) fall into two basic traps when thinking about making trades. The first is to drastically overvalue the players they've come to know and love- which means that their trade ideas tend to be incredibly lopsided in their teams' favor. The other trap is to only talk about trading players who have no value. Sure, you could spare an end of the bench player... but it's not like other teams have much use for him either. I hope that in suggesting the Jazz move Sap I am steering clear of these fallacies. I believe that he is an effective player and has real value both to the Jazz and to other teams around the league. So long as the Jazz have a logjam at the PF spot, though, his value to other teams will be higher than his value to Utah. Sometimes when you really love someone you need to let him go. Even though we still get that lump in our throat when he looks us in the eye, the fact of the matter is that he deserves better than we in Jazz nation can offer him at this point.

Al Jefferson

In his seven year NBA career, Al has never played for a playoff team. One possible explanation for this is that he has never been surrounded with especially talented teammates. A quick glance at some old Minnesota Timberwolves rosters lend some definite credence to this idea. Another possible explanation is that Al's game is not conducive to making his team better.

Though he made significant strides over the course if this past season, no one would mistake Jefferson for a defensive menace. On the ball, he can be effective against both forwards and centers (even if they are taller than him) so long as they are not fleet of foot. His lack of speed hurts him not only in one on one matchups; it also hinders him from making necessary defensive rotations and presumably serves as his primary motivation for not even trying to defend the pick and roll.

                                                    via flickr user: Dinur

Even as Al became a better man-to-man defender, his biggest progress this past season came on the other end of the court. Though he continues to monopolize the basketball for unseemly portions of the shot clock, he has learned to feed cutters effectively and to work the high-low game with Millsap. Some of this growth simply derives from an increased comprehension of the Jazz's intricate offense; much of it, though, reflects genuine growth as a player.

Jefferson is Utah's highest paid player and one of the most deadly low post threats in the league. After just one season as a disciple of Utah Jazz basketball, he is already playing better than he ever has and looking less and less like someone who could have been responsible for the shortcomings of his previous teams. Even though he is still a defensive liability, he is nonetheless the centerpiece of the Jazz until the next generation grows into athletic maturity. As such, we should expect him to play long minutes at the power forward position, even if that forces the team to move to center...

Derrick Favors

Derrick belongs to a class of players like Al Horford, Chris Bosh, and Kevin Garnett who best belong at the power forward position next to a physical defensive center, but who see extended duty at center themselves because their teams don't have the option of pairing them with a bruiser at all times. Not only that, but Favors has the sheer talent to develop into a player of the caliber of those other names. In fact, if he had been born a year younger he likely would be considered a co-favorite to be the first overall pick in this year's draft.

When talking about Derrick, it's hard to avoid painting with broad strokes. He only played 22 games for the Jazz and only averaged 20 minutes in those games. In moments, he has shown the athleticism and defensive presence that make scouts drool. In other moments, he has shown very little because his game lacks the sort of polish that would enable him to consistently capitalize on his many gifts. Some players like Darko Milicic and Tyrus Thomas have shown similar flashes of brilliance without yet managing to put it all together. Others with much more famous names have started with raw potential and blossomed into elite players. Thankfully, there is good reason to hope he will turn into a franchise guy.

Being in Utah should be wonderful for Derrick's development. He will have the support of a passionate but patient fanbase, the full backing of the even-more-patient Jazz organization, and the opportunity to learn alongside other big men with the broadest possible range of skill sets. He is the future of the franchise. Even though nobody knows the day or the hour, we are are all waiting for the future to arrive.