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A Frustrating Season: An End of Year Retrospective

The 2017-2018 Utah Jazz season has been a study in frustration.

First, the bad, so so so much bad:

1) Injuries:

Exum:

I really think that losing Exum in preseason was a huge blow to the identity that this team was going to adopt. I do believe that, had he not been injured, Exum would be our starting PG.

Neto:

This beautiful, young overachiever being on the bench with a concussion has led to a real depth problem at the 1; contributing to several other negative factors that I'll discuss later. When Neto was playing, he was playing well and really fit the identity of the team. I'm looking forward to his return.

JJ:

Joe looked awful early season, presumably due to his injury. He's been back for a little while and he's not looking a ton better. With our injuries, we haven't really had a chance to put him in the best role for who he is and what he can do and that has led to him being a negative for our team this year.

Gobert:

Gobert didn't look great early season, but looks were deceiving; he was still extremely impactful on the defensive end. Having him go out really hurt our D and our identity has become confused, particularly after going on a great streak with an impressive offensive attack without our Star. He came back very quickly and was thrust right back into the thick of things, just as I'm sure he wanted, but he wasn't quite where we expected for him. Then he got injured again; leaving the Jazz without our Star for, presumably, nearly 2 months of the season.

Hood:

Hood has seemed made of glass; missing games on and off without any obvious signs of his injuries. I'm not sure how much this contributes to his play, but his consistency problem has continued.

2) Roster/Rotations/Fit

The Jazz have had trouble figuring out what and who works best. Q has really been sticking with Rubio starting at the 1 and playing extended minutes regardless of his impact on the game; particularly the offense. This includes the Trio of death lineup, which just does not work. Favors and Rudy worked better last season with Hill even though Favors wasn't 100%

Burks minutes have been confusing. He is a good rebounder, can get his own shot, shoots the 3 well, his D is improved and better than Hood's and he's a better and more willing passer than Hood. (Hood is rated at the very bottom of the league in Defense and passing).

Hood: the negatives about Hood are his defense and passing. He's scoring a good number of points, but not particularly efficiently and all too frequently outside of the offensive system (thus the poor passing rating). As reported elsewhere on the site, he's a 3 and no D guy. I think that anointing him the Hayward successor didn't do anyone any favors and his trying to fulfill that role is to the detriment of the Jazz; even if there are short-term successes.

Rubio: Man, what hasn't been said about Rubio and his fit with the Jazz. I'm not going to rehash it all; we all know that Rubio has not found a way to contribute when on the court.

Favors: Dude had a great string of games, but overall he's not rebounding well and that's costing us games. He hasn't been taking his jumper as much as he should in order to open up the pnr and his range doesn't seem to have extended this season from last.

Turnovers: while this has improved over the course of the season; it keeps cropping up and costing us games.

Rotations:So so frustrating. Way too rigid but at the same time often nonsensical who gets time, how much and with who else on the court. There are clearly combinations that do not work but that are out on the floor time and again.

Joe Inges: Passing up way too many open 3's. Less defensively effective without Rudy behind him. This is a function of his less than elite (for the NBA) athleticism.

The schedule: The December schedule seems tailor-made to destroy us. I don't think even Houston or GSW would have fared much better than .500 versus this schedule.

Direction: There doesn't seem to be a clear direction that the team is headed. Are we a lottery team/as bad as our record? Are we a low seed playoff team? Are we on the treadmill of mediocrity? I'm sure there's a vision in the Jazz FO, but it's not clear to me what the team is trying to do.

The Good:

Mitchell is a star. Not only that, but we haven't fully unlocked him. Our rotations haven't been optimized to take advantage of his abilities.

Gobert is superhuman and will likely return sooner than later

Neto should be back in the next game or 2

Exum may come back this season.

We are developing our youth well.

The schedule get's easier in January.

We've shown flashes of a dynamic and dominant offense and defense at various times this season.

Development: Mitchell and O'Neill are both developing into NBA players. Jonas has become a pretty good stretch 4. Exum showed flashes of great improvement before he went down.

Interesting: the frustration has kept me engaged, sometimes enraged and overall entertained enough that Hayward is already mostly forgotten.

All comments are the opinion of the commenter and not necessarily that of SLC Dunk or SB Nation.