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The Downbeat #1012: The "You Just Had To Plan A #WhiteOut" Edition

Irony escapes Utah, NBA draft notes, KABONGO!!!!!, and MOLO YOLO.

By Mychal Lowman
Jazz fans plan whiteout. Confused by irony.
Jazz fans plan whiteout. Confused by irony.
Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

It looks like people are trying to organize a "White Out" when the Jazz play the Oklahoma City Thunder tonight.

Logistics of planning this aside this idea opens up pandora's box of common Utah jokes.

And from TWO YEARS AGO:

Jazz fans, you have NO IDEA how easy of a joke this is. This is not just irony, this is wading in a pool of irony while taking irony shots while floating on an inflatable irony dinosaur. Even hipsters think this is too ironic. It's like sending a 3 legged cat to a starving pack of wolves. But I do love the investment of all the fans to get in on the fun. Did anybody tell the pink ladies?

The NCAA tournament has now ended. Congratulations Louisville. Now we'll see a host of draft articles getting posted. Here are some of the important dates to keep in mind.

April 28 - NBA Draft Early Entry Eligibility Deadline

May 15-19 - 2013 NBA Draft Combine (Chicago)

May 21 - 2013 NBA Draft Lottery

June 17 - NBA Draft Early Entry Withdrawal Deadline (5 p.m. ET)

June 27 - 2013 NBA Draft

via Hoopsworld.com

Speaking of the draft the Jazz currently hold the 17th and 21st picks in the 2013 Draft. Here are the PGs available in the Jazz's range.

[Author's Note: Trey Burke will not be available for the Jazz as a result of #PlayoffPush and Trey Burke's exception tourney. See also this tweet from David Thorpe.]

CJ McCollum - Lehigh

Chad Ford:

McCollum clearly hasn't played a minute since our last update. So how did he rise seven spots on our board? Look at the competition below him. With almost all of those players struggling, scouts are warming back up to McCollum, who was dominating his league before an injury to his left foot. Some GMs believe McCollum can make the transition to point guard much the same way Damian Lillard did. If he can, he could be five or six spots too low on our Big Board. If he's an undersized 2? This may be just a little bit high.

Shane Larkin - Miami (Florida)

Chad Ford:

It's really been the stellar play of Larkin that has propelled Miami a No. 2 seed and pushed Larkin into first-round consideration for the NBA draft. Other than Trey Burke, Larkin has been the steadiest, most poised point guard in the country, with a perfect balance of scoring and passing. If he were just a few inches taller, he'd be a lottery pick. Larkin has said he's returning for his junior season, but if he has a huge tournament, will he declare for the draft?

Lorenzo Brown - N.C. State

Chad Ford:

Brown inspires a bit of a love/hate relationship among NBA scouts. He has great size for his position, is a good athlete and averaged over seven assists per game this year. At times he can play like an obvious first-round pick. But his lack of consistency on the floor, his poor shooting percentages, combined with several back-to-back disappointing seasons for his team give scouts pause. NBA teams want their point guards to be able to lead and for whatever reason, the Wolfpack haven't been able to string together a dominant season despite having plenty of NBA talent on the floor.

B.J. Young - Arkansas

Chad Ford:

Young has declared for the 2013 NBA Draft. Young was poised to be a possible lottery pick at the start of the season. Teams loved his size, athleticism and his scoring ability as a combo guard. However, Young struggled to live up to the promise of his freshman year. While his numbers are virtually identical across the board, his shooting percentages plummeted as a sophomore and by the end of the season he was no longer in the starting lineup for Arkansas. Young is now considered a bubble first rounder by scouts.

Russ Smith - Louisville

Chad Ford:

Smith is a poor man's Allen Iverson. He can score the basketball off the bounce as well as anyone in college basketball. But it's the other comparisons to Iverson that scare NBA scouts. The real Allen Iverson was an incredible scorer but was also difficult to coach and struggled to get his teammates involved. Like Smith, he was a shaky perimeter shooter (Smith is 6-for-17 from 3 and shot 33 percent from 3 for the year). He also is averaging more turnovers than assists in the tournament, and for the season has just 11 more assists than turnovers. For a 6-foot guard, that's a real issue at the next level.

While some NBA scouts like him enough to have him in the second half of the first round, there are also a ton of scouts who don't have him in their top 60. And the advanced statistic guys won't be doing Smith any favors either. Our own Kevin Pelton looked at everyone in our Top 100 through the lens of projected WARP. Smith with a projected -0.2 WARP. That put him at No. 69 of our Top 100 players. For comparison's sake, since 2002, only one player out of the 100s with a projected WARP that low turned into a regular NBA player -- Nick Young.

Myck Kabongo - Texas

Chad Ford:

Kabongo's stock took a huge hit when he was forced to miss most of the season because of NCAA sanctions. He played well, for the most part, averaging 14.6 PPG and 5.3 APG. However, his turnovers were up and his shooting percentages were way down. He clearly was still getting his legs underneath him. Nevertheless, scouts continue to see promise in him, and if he declares for the draft, could be snatched up in the second half of the first round by a team in need of a point guard.

  • Pure Point Guard
  • Excellent Floor Vision/Leadership
  • Makes Very Few Mistakes
  • Good Athlete With Quick First Step
  • Great First Step to the basket
  • Good shooter with range out to the 3 point line
  • Committed Defender
  • Great Kid
To be honest while reading most of Chad Ford's player evaluations the best fits for the Jazz and best values for the Jazz are C.J. McCollum and Myck Kabongo. If you think about it the Core 4 is collectively about 21 years old. You'd want an incoming point guard to have the same maturity level as those players. That way he can gel right away. I can see why Amar and Chad Ford are intrigued by Kabongo. He looks like a top 10 player that never got his shot to prove himself. Kabongo could be a fast riser once team workouts start and he is able to play head to head against his draft competition.

For those saying it's the worst draft in recent memory reminiscent of a flaming tire fire a weak draft. Here's what Jonathan Givony from DraftExpress.com had to say:

I think it's a fairly normal draft in terms of depth. It's relatively standard compared to what I've seen in years past.
At the top, you're just not seeing that franchise-changing prospect. There's no LeBron James, there's no Derrick Rose.
One year ago today, everybody was saying the same thing about last year's draft. (Portland Trail Blazers rookie) Damian Lillard comes in, and guess what? He's one of the 15 best point guards in the NBA. This thing has a funny way of working itself out.

Jazz should be able to find good value.

Ric Bucher had this to say about MOLO YOLO time:

Let me take you into the mind of a closer with a game on the line: Mo Williams, Utah Jazz guard, looking to ice a game vs. the Warriors' Sunday night with 34.5 seconds left, sees that the Warriors are guarding Al Jefferson with rookie swingman Draymond Green. The right basketball play? Dump the ball to Jefferson, of course, and let him go to work. After all, Jefferson had gotten a good look against the Warriors' actual big men all night, surely he could get something easy against Green. Wrong. That is exactly what the Warriors wanted Williams to think, so they could then double Jefferson hard and rely on their scrambling defense to create a rushed shot by someone other than Williams -- Gordon Hayward, Randy Foye, Paul Millsap, anybody. Williams didn't give that much of a thought because he wasn't looking to make a basketball play, he was looking to create a shot to win the damn game. That's what you're paid to do when you're a closer; that's why an NBA coach puts the ball in your hands at the end of a game. Now, Mo had had limited success against the Warriors' Klay Thompson in the second half after having his way with Steph Curry through most of the first two quarters; he knew he could get a shot off against Klay, but he also knew he could get a better one against Draymond. "Klay had seen me all night," Williams said. "I wanted to get him off me and work on Dray." Green was in either to induce the post pass to Jefferson or switch out on Williams, something that was sure to leave Williams a wide open shot if one of the Warriors' big men were charged with doing that. Andrew Bogut had made that painfully clear when he was forced into a couple of switches on Hayward, who buried 3s over him. So Williams used a screen from Jefferson to lose Thompson and force Green to pick him up. Then he moved Green over to where he wanted him and threw a couple of dribble-drive feints at him. "I saw him on his heels and that was it," Williams said. "I just needed a little space." Williams buried the 3 for the seal on a 96-90 win. This is why teams don't run the elaborate plays suggested by those envisioning the game as one part benevolent, one part utopian. In short, entrusting the decision-making and shot-making to one particular player, if he's willing to embrace it, makes it far harder to prevent a quality shot than devising a play where multiple players make the right decision and aren't forced to do something outside of their skill set. The latter essentially hands the controls to the defense; a sound one will force the ball to a worse option almost every time.

You know what they say. When you have the chance to ice the game there's only one player you'd like on your team: LeBron James

Kevin Durant

Chris Paul

Deron Williams

Joe Johnson

Kyrie Irving

Carmelo Anthony

James Harden

Kobe Bryant

Dirk Nowitzki

Hedo Turkoglu

Adam Morrison

Banana Stand

Dwyane Wade

Steph Curry

Anybody But Mo Williams

Mo Williams.

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