FanPost

Bill Simmons puts his foot in mouth.



From this morning's Grantland Annual NBA League Pass Rankings

Jazz at #28 with 34 points in their arbitrary point system.

Utah Jazz

Simmons: We gave them 24 points just three weeks ago … and they gained 10 points in the preseason without playing a real game. We’ve never changed a League Pass ranking before. What happened???

Lowe: This is more crooked than Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference finals.

Simmons: I’m wearing a Dick Bavetta jersey as I write these next 19 words: I’ve never done a faster 180, in my entire career, than the one I pulled off with Dante Exum. Not only did Jalen and I crush the Exum pickin our preview, but when you and I worked on the first draft of this piece, here’s what I wrote: "For me, the Exum subplot is 100 times more fascinating than anything Philly is offering. He might be superduperduper raw, and on top of that, three lottery picks taken right after him (Marcus Smart, Julius Randle and my Rookie Of The Year Choice To Be Revealed A Little Bit Later) could be kicking ass right away. That has a chance to be one of this century’s legendarily bad lottery picks."

Lowe: This is more crooked than Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference finals.

Simmons: I nearly gave myself a concussion leaping on the hood of the Exum bandwagon as it started pulling away. Did you see him in the preseason? It looked like Kobe cloned the teenage version of himself and added an Australian accent. I’m all in! Easily my fastest flip-flop ever — and that’s saying something.

Lowe: Exum is the variance guy in Utah’s young core. They have six legitimately interesting young players — and possibly seven, depending on Rodney Hood’s development. But the buzz on Utah’s third- and fourth-year guys is sort of fading out. No one is flipping to a Utah game to see a Gordon Hayward jumper streak or some subtle rim protection from Derrick Favors. There’s a reason the Jazz tried to trade for the no. 1 pick: They know all these guys top out as second bananas, and maybe even third bananas. Exum is their guy with the unknown ceiling.

Simmons: And we were both shocked by how many 3s Utah jacked up in the preseason. And we haven’t even mentioned those eight games a year when Hayward improbably goes toe-to-toe against a playoff contender, or the coaching bump from "Ty Corbin" to "anyone else." Should we bump their ranking again? You could talk me into the high 40s after one drink.

Lowe: We definitely didn’t award enough credit for Quin Snyder’s style bump. It was clear given his work at prior stops: Utah was going to shoot a ton of 3s and try some really interesting stuff on offense. Synder watches film and sees crazy play-design possibilities that no one else sees. Everyone is jacking 3s for Utah in the preseason — Favors, Kanter, Jazz Bear, Matt Harpring. We made the right move bumping them to no. 28, and we’re going to regret not having them higher.

Bill mentions that they gave them 10 additional points after watching a few preseason games. The Jazz were originally at the bottom of the list. It's nice to see that the Jazz are already changing the way people look at the team. National writers are jumping on the Exum bandwagon and are saying good things about Coach Q.

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