Utah Jazz Xs and Os: Why did Tyrone Corbin fail to develop a Jeremy Evans Decoy play?

I am no basketball wizard. I have coached little kids, and in my second year of university I was on the team. But that's about it. Tyrone Corbin is the Head Coach of the Utah Jazz -- and has been around basketball for probably longer than I have been alive. He has surrounded himself with smart people, or failing that, people who have also played a lot of basketball. Some of them were Head Coaches themselves.

So why do our Xs and Os suck so bad? Why did we have the least imaginative out of bounds plays? And why did we never ever at least TRY to use Jeremy Evans as a decoy? He rarely plays, but he's got the physical abilities that mean in certain situations he can really destroy a defensive gameplan. How? By just running around to the basket and getting a double screen to "free" him.

Here's a play I just made up off the top of my head tailor made for last season's team -- with Mo Williams, Randy Foye, Gordon Hayward, Jeremy Evans, and Al Jefferson on the floor for the last shot.

The key point here is getting Jeremy "free" and have him run a very obvious loop to the hoop, drawing in the center and shooting guard with him. As this happens Gordon has to attack the middle of the floor drawing in the point guard and making the center change who he helps out on. If these things happen that should mean that Al Jefferson (or, you know, someone who knows how to screen like Enes Kanter) can occupy the power forward long enough to get Randy an open shot.

Check it out:

Beware / Be - aware : There could be bad words in the song in this video, I honestly didn't listen well enough to tell.

Mo has to keep moving on the other side, feinting to the ball early to confuse the erstwhile help defender, the opposing small forward. If there is a switch or breakdown that works fine . . . and if the players honestly don't think Evans is the primary target -- that is if they guess correctly that he's a decoy -- then dude is open going to the rim and ready for the lob.

If this is the kind of stuff you want to see more of, Xs and Os, we at SLC Dunk will be more than willing to do more of it. This is your blog, a blog for Jazz fans. And we're always happy to do more of what you want! And thanks again to all the fans for visiting this site for the last billion years. It means a lot that you guys still show up and participate.