The Terrible Selfie Edition - The Downbeat - #1609

By moni Apr 24, 2015, 6:29am MDT

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Are the Jazz more inclined to trade their draft picks this year because the team is so young?

Dennis Lindsey:

I think certainly we have to be mindful of where the team moved the last third of the season, and look at those opportunities. We would’ve looked at those opportunities anyway, even if we, let’s just say, improved to 30 wins. But I think we definitely have to look to see if there’s something that can accelerate the process.
But I’m also a little greedy too. I’ve got a coaching staff that is very good with young players. That’s why we hired Quin. That’s why we set up the staff the way we did, and they’ve been able to advance a few young guys well beyond their years of experience.
So again, I think we have an advantage there, an inherent advantage. So all of a sudden, [if] we do have a young prospect that we really like, I think the ace is the hole is, is that we have a coach that can accelerate his growth, who’s willing to play him.* And so, I don’t wanna give up that prematurely just ’cause we have an idea that we need a vet.

On the free agency front, Randy Rigby was asked about the fragility of locker rooms and the importance of team-building:

The, one of the most critical foundational points of team-building is communication. And I’ve seen it impact teams. I’ve seen it impact relationships inside teams. I’ve seen it impacting coaches and players inside that. And that’s where it starts unraveling.
And I would say communication and selfishness, and that, when all of a sudden, you have individual players that are more concerned about their own stats, their own contracts, and their own future than the good of the team, and then you have a lack of communication, or sometimes over-communicating your selfish attitudes inside the locker room, that creates, that starts that whole unraveling, and the negative attitude that can be in a locker room…
So you’re constantly trying to communicate those type of principles, communicating the principles of teamwork and pass and working together. You gotta constantly be driving that into these players because if you don’t, they’re gonna go to the lowest grade, and that is their own selfish desires and attitudes. And that’s when teams start unraveling.