FanPost

The Narrative is Wrong


When Deron Williams got traded the Jazz took a change of direction. Deron Williams has never been close to the same player and the Jazz have never been close to the same team. Because of the haul from that trade the Jazz have 2 #3 overall picks a small forward and an asset that helped us land Trey Burke. But we know all of that.

The narrative that this site and most fans have come up with over that time is that Ty should have been playing the youth and not get stuck in the middle. The Jazz needed to use the young guys and not rely on vets or vetzz as some put it. It has been the narrative that Ty prefers to play vets that are not as good as his more talented younger players. There has been a #FreeAlecBurks twitter campaign and countless comments about how inept Ty has been as a head coach. It has been said over and over that Al Jefferson was hurting the team and that he was an inefficient scorer. So the narrative was basically Ty is a moron, Al Jefferson sucks, the young guys are better than the vetzz, and that the media is trying to lie to the fans. A lot of fans still agree with this narrative. This blog continues to pound this drum. Even today Amar took another shot at Al Jefferson. Ask yourself "what if the Narrative is wrong?"

I know that most fans won't agree with me, but humor me for a second. Ask yourself a few questions. Does Tyrone Corbin know more about basketball than me? Has he been around the NBA and some of the brightest minds in the NBA over the last about 30 years? Has he been coached and worked with Sloan and Pat Riley? Is there a chance that he has a better understanding of NBA offense than I do? Is there a chance that he has a better understanding of NBA defense than I do? Is there a chance that he watched guys in practice and actually was playing the guys that helped us win the most?

I think if you really answer those questions honestly that you will concede that he knows more about basketball than you or I do. That doesn't mean that he is right all the time, but it does mean that he was making decisions from a more educated and informed position than you or I. So that also leads to the question, what if he was right? Is it possible that Al Jefferson was better than Favors and Kanter? Is it possible that Alec Burks isn't as good as he has been anointed? Is it possible that Hayward was at his best last year as the 3rd option and the first option with the second unit?

Al Jefferson gets killed on this site regularly for his lack of defense and his "inefficiency" as an offensive player. But what if that is wrong too. While Al wasn't a good defender maybe he isn't as bad as being portrayed. After all The Jazz are just as bad defensively this year without him. They have been last in P&R defense this year and are a bottom five defensive team even without having played against any top offensive teams to this point. So maybe we were too hard on Al.

As for Al's offensive inefficiency, that gets measured on this site by the un-advanced stat of points per shot attempt, that is a wrong narrative too. The Jazz running the offense through Al last year were 11th in the NBA in offense. His PPP of 0.97 was very good for a guy using that many possessions. Now he didn't go to the foul line and that is not a narrative, it is a fact. But last night Favors scored 20 points and on 19 shots and had 0 free throw attempts. Al Jefferson has the only 25-25 game in Jazz history and he was criticized for shooting 0 free throws in that game on this site. But Favors didn't get the same treatment from this site after the game. Instead Favors got an All Star vote last night form this site.

As for the narrative that Ty only plays vets and not the best players, that should be put to rest by now also. Last year the 5 guys that played the most minutes included Hayward and Favors. The year before also included Favors and Hayward. This year he is playing the 4 young guys the 4 most minutes.

As for the narrative that the media is just trying to cover for Ty. Remember last year when the media said the team could go 0-82 if we just rolled the young guys out and fans went nuts. It was true and obvious that the Media guys didn't really think the team would go 0-82 as much as they would just suck. Well now we are playing the young guys a ton and we suck. Maybe they were actually right even if it isn't what you want to hear.

So the next time you read a narrative just ask yourself if the narrative is true or if it just fits with what the author is trying to say. Don't read this and assume I am right ask the question. We have been fed things as fact that are far from fact. We need to look for the truth through the narrative. It is more important to be right than to try to tell a story. Let's be smart and right. Not truth benders to feed our predetermined opinions.

All comments are the opinion of the commenter and not necessarily that of SLC Dunk or SB Nation.