The Basketball version of food storage

The Jazz front office seems to have some obsession with emulating Utah culture. First, our announcers talking about fry sauce endlessly. There is of course the seemingly disproportional number of white players on our team. I wouldn't be surprised if we  begin announcing draft picks by making puzzle scrambles of the players name that David Stern has to unscramble, or making a candy bar poster Stern can show : Don't Snicker but we Charleston Chews Enes Kanter to give a big PAY DAY  of a 100 Grand.....you get the idea. Utah culture will prevail in the Jazz FO.

Their latest imitation? Food storage.

For those of you not aware of what that is, food storage is where individuals store food (like flour, canned goods, etc) in case of an emergency--natural disaster, economic depression, famine, etc. It is very widespread in Utah and Southeast Idaho, the mainstays of the Jazz fanbase.

  Apparently, our team has decided to do this with power forwards.

The following Jazz players either are power forwards, are naturally power forwards first, or can play power forward.

Paul Millsap. Andrei Kirilenko. Derrick Favors. Jeremy Evans. Al Jefferson. Enes Kanter. Mehmet Okur. 7 players. Literally half our roster.

  There is a difference between depth and a logjam. Depth is the US National team putting Rose, D Will, CP3 and Rondo all on the sqaud. Some games one guy make play more than others, but the next night it may be someone different. The beauty of the depth is that there is almost no drop off between the starter and backup(s).

Then there is a logjam. To me this is where there are multiple players at a position who deserve playing time but at are different stages in their development and career. Hence, you have fully developed Jefferson and Sap. They deserve minutes. You have Okur in the twilight of his career. Favors, Kanter and Evans who need time to develop. It is a different scenario than depth.

  Simply put we need to do what is best for the team and what is fair to the players.

It's not fair for guys like Favors and Kanter, who have spent their entire lives more or less learning the game, to rot on a bench.

It's not fair for a workhorse like Sap to not start- and to be on a poor team.

People need to go. 

  In an ideal world, Sap and Jefferson would get their 35 minutes of burn. Kanter would get 20-25 his first year. Favors would get a solid 3 quarters of action. Evans 15-20 minutes to come and be a spark. Even a healthy Okur at this point should get 20 minutes or so. There just aren't enough minutes to go around though.

So what is the solution? It depends on who you ask.

Let me first say that we cannot be afraid of letting Favors, Kanter and Evans get playing time because they are young and raw. How else will true development occur? Continuing to give most of the minutes to AL and Sap may give us a few more wins now--but not enough to get us to the playoffs, and certainly at the expense of our future (as much as I love Sap, Favor's ceiling is higher. I also believe Kanter will be better than Al.)

  Here's a solution. Trade Sap. Send him to a good team, where he can compete for a title and contribute significantly. This should probably be done before the season starts. I'd hate to see him go. I'd probably to leave my house for a week. But it needs to be done, for the future of our franchise and out of fairness to him.

  We also look to trade Al sometime in December to the trade break. This of course depends on the health of Okur and how Kanter is acclimating. But assuming Kanter is reliable for 20-25 minutes and Okur is relatively healthy, we need to move Al next season. I know he's working hard--but let's face it, he'll never be good on defense, and he will never be efficient enough on offense to justify the poor defense. And even if Kanter is a complete and total bust I say we move Al. He is not in our team's future--and the present is certainly not competing for a title. So let him go.

  The hope for our team is the future. We need to everything we can to maximize our future. Right now, we have 4 lottery picks from the last two drafts. We cannot let them be benchwarmers.