Editorial: Quin Snyder has the power to unleash the Utah Jazz offense, and should

Let me preface everything I am about to say with one statement: I like Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder overall, and I am not of the opinion that the Jazz should fire him. At least not yet. I'll just dive right in by saying it, his teams have yet to live up to the hype of Snyder being heralded an offensive mastermind. As a matter of fact, when you look at the on-court results I think he is downright terrible when it comes to coaching the offense. Many of you are probably thinking this is a bit harsh. I do understand that he is only going to be as good as the players out on the floor and we have been dealing with one injury after another AGAIN this season, but how long are we as fans going to give him a pass.

At this point it seems like excuse after excuse. We were so quick to get out the torches and pitchforks to burn Tyrone Corbin at the stake for his painful to watch offense, but in my humble opinion watching the Jazz now is just as painful as it was 4 or 5 years ago (at least on offense) if not more so.

Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

In all honesty I don't want to see Quin get let go because our team really has come a long way in the last couple of years, especially on the defensive side of things. But what I think the Jazz should really do is bring in an offensive specialist to be one of the assistants (maybe Jeff Hornacek when he inevitably gets fired from the New York Knicks) that could have total control of the offense.

Not to live too much in the past but we need to get back to our roots to find our identity on offense and becoming a passing, cutting, "fast-breaking" team again. And by pass I don't mean to pass it around the arc for 20 seconds before trying to run a play and then having to fire up an ugly 3 somewhere. We all have heard the definition of insanity is when you keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I'm sure I'm not the only one who hates watching them take ugly 3 after ugly 3 and keep missing them.

That brings me to my main point....... I think the real root of the problem is that Quin is trying to be too much like one of his mentors Gregg Popovich, both on and off the sideline. I know I am probably going to get roasted for having this opinion, but enough with trying to be like the San Antonio Spurs coach or the Spurs organization for that matter. I'm tired of hearing about how great the Spurs are at this and how consistent they are and how well they move the ball from one side of the court to the other, if I wanted to see the Spurs play a game, I would go be a Spurs fan.

[Ed note: I added this GIF here because I felt like it. And I’m mad with power as the Editor of this blog. This wasn’t in the original text that was submitted.]

Remember that the Spurs have openly admitted to copying the Jazz as a model for their organization in the first place. But what have they done to help them have so much success? They copied parts of what we did but then they tweaked it and made it their own. In other words they have their own culture, their own identity and it's obviously worked for them. We need to get back to having our own identity and style, not trying to copy every last X and O in some other team's playbook. And you can't say that it can't be done because the Los Angeles Clippers are a perfect example. They play to their strengths, and don't try to fit a round peg in a square hole.

One of our strengths on most nights is that we have a younger team and we could get out and run more teams ragged if we had a faster style of play. I could rant for hours about how frustrating it is to watch the Jazz pass the ball around aimlessly, go for like a whole quarter without getting a field goal, or even run a fast break; which used to be one of the most exciting things about watching a Jazz game.

But I'll just sum it up by saying that I wish Quin would come up with a more creative offense and build an offensive identity that we can call our own. I know he can, he is a very smart and well educated guy he just needs to be himself.

The secondary point to all of this is that Quin needs to be himself with interviews and the media in general. Forgive me while I vent for a minute. STOP telling every one that our team "sucks" compared to teams with superstars, or that "we are not very good". Save that kind of talk for practice/motivation for the team behind closed doors. It frustrates me because it just reeks of trying to copy Popovich and the way that he handles the media. This is where I really miss a guy like Jerry Sloan. If you can't already tell I think the Spurs coach perhaps receives a little too much praise, and his laissez-faire demeanor with the media is less transparent and honest as others who better speak their minds. I wish that we could have a coach that didn't try to copy every single mannerism, including personality.

I'm not saying be exactly like Jerry Sloan either, but for goodness’ sake give the paying, loyal fans something to be excited about each and every game. When we are playing a team like the Golden State Warriors, don't say things like "yeah they're just way more talented than we are. We probably don't stand a chance".

COMPETE, COMPETE, COMPETE............who gives a crap who is on the other team? It's a five on five game and we can beat anybody if go out there and play our butts off and play with a little chip on our shoulder. I'd like to hear a little bit more of that kind of attitude, at least with what he says in public. Who knows maybe if we integrated some of that Jerry Sloan style toughness back into our identity, we wouldn't have players sitting out for like half the season because their pinky hurts or they need to "rest". But that is a whole different post for a different day.

To sum up, I just want to say that I know a lot of people on this site probably don't agree with most of what I have said. But that's the great thing about it, you don't have to agree with me. I know you are all just as passionate of Jazz fans as I am and everyone has a different approach to things.

The one thing we can agree on is that Quin is a good coach overall and I want to see him succeed because that means our team as a whole will succeed. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter how we get back to the top of the proverbial NBA mountain but if we continue to stay loyal and passionate I know one day we will get to share in a championship celebration with our Utah Jazz.