Utah, we have a problem ...

Well this is certainly not what we were all hoping for when the season started. Rudy Gobert is out for 4-6 weeks, and the defense showed his importance last night. After treading water agains the Brooklyn Nets, the Utah Jazz got shellacked at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Let me start off by clarifying that I am not an advocate for tanking. There is too much talent left on this roster to be as bad as the Suns, Lakers, Mavericks, Bulls, Hawks, or Nets. “Tanking” only to get the 7th pick doesn’t get you very far.

BUT ...

For those that need some encouragement after a very disappointing loss, I found some mock drafts and draft profiles for you to drool over for a day or two: nbadraft.net, SI, sportingnews.com, and Bleacher Report. The Ringer also gave a good rundown of each top college player, which can be found here.

As of right now, it seems like there are a legit 4 candidates that could be the #1 overall pick. We’ll learn a lot more now that college basketball has started.

Hopefully we still have some good basketball ahead of us that’s a little funner to watch. For good or for bad we are Jazz fans and we’re here to stay right?

One bright spot this season has been the play of rookie Donovan Mitchell. He’s being thrust into a position where the Jazz rely on him to score, and he’s asked to guard opposing players like Jimmy Butler. He’s shown great progress even in just a few games, and has climbed the Rookie of the Year latter because of it.

I’ve seen some criticism that he’s shooting too much. I agree that he’s been shooting way more than we expected, and probably way more than he should have entering the season. Unfortunately, however, there are times when he is our only source of offense. I know there will still be some growing pains, but this kid has star potential and is progressing faster than most rookies do.

We got ourselves a collection of pretty good Fan Posts this week, with 4 contributions from this great community called SLC Dunk.

• FinallyRicky proposes that the Jazz need to make a trade
• anniegetyrgun gives us a new way to view this season, so if you’re down or frustrated and need to change your perspective give it a click.
• Imyourhuckleberry brings an interesting thought experiment on how many wins Gregg Popovic could get out of a bunch of backups. A good distraction if you want to get away from Jazz basketball for a few moments.
• BellFrazierRookies thinks the Jazz need a new starting lineup. Do you agree?

Sorry I wasn’t able to put in quotes from the articles themselves this time around. I got a little short on time this week. That doesn’t diminish the awesome stuff that everyone continues to add to the site!

There was an interesting interview of previous Jazzman Steven Howard by Respect Magazine. I’ve pulled a couple of the interesting quote here, but click on this link for the full article:

You had the opportunity to play for Jerry Sloan, Gregg Popovich, and George Karl. Can you share your thoughts on their coaching philosophy?

Jerry Sloan, for me, is one of my all-time favorite coaches and one look at him as a player with the Chicago Bulls. .IT really lets you know Jerry Sloan the coach because he was a very hard nose defensive oriented player, and he was the same way as a coach. His personality was blue collar, and I believed his teams really exhibited that trait as well. If you gave it your all he would have no problems with you and he was a huge reason why I got the opportunity to play in the NBA...

RESPECT.: You also had the opportunity to play with four Hall of Famers “Karl Malone, John Stockton, David Robertson, and Gary Payton.” What are some of the things you learned from them?

Karl Malone, because of the similar position we played on the basketball court. He probably did more for me as far as, molding me as a professional basketball player than anyone else. I really tried to emulate his workout, and even when I was not playing with the Utah Jazz, I would always tell myself “What would Karl do in this type of situation?”, and when I would train in the summer I would put myself through the workouts that I learned from him. He and I probably shared more on a personal level than I did with anyone else in the NBA. When it comes to John Stockton, I learned a lot about authentic leadership from him. John didn’t just act like a leader, he leads by example, he was great at setting the tone for our team. I remember during the pre-season we would do this conditioning test on the treadmill test. John would be the last one to get on the treadmill and he would request the time for the longest, so far on the treadmill and then he would go longer than that person just to let everyone know...

There are more cool quotes and insights there into the Jazz glory years. Wow were we spoiled to have such an all-time trio of Jerry Sloan, John Stockton, and Karl Malone. And don’t get me started about whether or not John Stockton was the best point guard of all time.

This probably isn’t news to most of you, but to some it might be. For those with Twitter, @NBA_Math is a great follow. They bring similar statistics as other websites, but tend to have a great visual representation of them.

Here’s a look at the league as a whole according to offensive and defensive efficiency. Higher up is better and farther to the right is better.

As expected, the Jazz defensive is really good and the offense is really bad. Up next is a look at just the Jazz roster so far this season.

This is.... not pretty. Rodney Hood has not had a very good year so far. Joe Ingles is the only player that is positive on both offense and defense. This also shows just how significant the Gobert injury is, and how much it will impact our defense. Buckle up everyone, because we could be in for a rough 4-6 weeks.

(I also can’t help but wonder how this would look if Dante Exum was available.)