The Jazz will probably be waiting until the last day to sign a player to replace Maynor. That day is tomorrow which is also the first day for 10-day contracts.
The leading man for the job is of course Dontell Jefferson. In his last two games he's had 27 & 6 and 17 & 6 & 7 (rebounds).
The DLeague showcase is going on starting today in Boise. The Flash will play tomorrow afternoon. You can watch the Flash and Jefferson (if he's still with them) play online.
I've been looking for a magic bullet for the team's lackluster play. There's probably no one stat that's the issue so much as it is a confidence issue as Deron said.
However, the offense has struggled. And when you compare November and December, one thing that jumps out is that the Jazz have jacked up three more threes a game in December then in the month previous. That's normally not a problem if you're making them, but their % went down to 31% from 34.5%.
That's not to say they were great in November either because they weren't.
But even with an injured team last season, they were still 7th in the league in points per game (106.7) and 8th in offensive rating (110.1). This season we're 16th and 14th respectively.
Those extra 3P attempts and subsequent misses emboldens Sloan and his
I'm starting to think that we only have two more seasons of Deron after this.
Of course one of the things the Jazz might do to turn things around is putting Matthews back into the starting spot. That might help some, but at this point, is that going to do much to get the team playing up to where it should be?
Playing with basically the same personnel over the past three seasons suggest no.
In addition to the issues the Jazz need to address for a shooting (making) guard and some interior toughness/D, isn't the biggest issue some veteran leadership? I wrote on VoteDeron about Deron needing someone that can put him in his place as it were. We've had Harp and Collins as vets but I don't know what kind of impact they had on Deron.
What we did see was Derek Fisher filling in that role nicely. Not only being a mentor to Deron but to the rest of the team. So as we talk about trades coming up, who's a vet that could be brought in that might help out? I really think that's a lot of what this team is missing.