The Downbeat: The Utah Jazz have State of the Art Facilities

It’s well known that the Utah Jazz have been renovating their home court in Salt Lake City. It will be awesome to see when it’s done and ready to go.

A little less publicized has been the renovation of the practice Facility. Maybe I’m looking into this too much, but I feel like these things can matter to players and could be influential in a free agency decision at some point.

Joe Ingles was rather impressed himself.

And because the conversation between Ingles and Ricky Rubio was too funny, I’ll include a few of those tweets as well.

Wow. I absolutely love the personality of this team! An exciting time to be a Jazz fan indeed.

Over on Hoops Hype they ranked the top 30 power forwards for the 2017-2018 season. Our guy Derrick Favors came in at a respectable 9th.

Just over a year ago, Favors looked like he could be one of the five best power forwards in the NBA for years to come. Injuries screwed up Favors’ 2016-17 campaign, as his points per game dropped from 16.4 to 9.5. The Jazz are among the group of good teams fighting for the final playoffs spots in the West, and having a fully healthy Favors would likely put them above the competition.

Favors is an excellent defender, and before last season, was one of the few players who had the legitimate size and strength to battle in the paint, while being mobile enough to challenge matchups on the perimeter. On the other end, the biggest sign that he wasn’t in great playing shape, was that his finishing at the basket took a tumble off the cliff.

Personal projection: he’ll be better than that.

It’s Tuesday, which means some Fan Posts get highlighted right here in beat number 3.

We thank TMANKY this week for giving us something to read and think about, as the power forward position is looked at closely and considered the key for the Jazz:

Simply put the Jazz have an abnormal amount of options at the 4 spot. Favors, Jerebko, Johnson, Sefolosha, Ingles, and doubtfully O’Neal will all see time at the 4. Favors and Jerebko fall into the traditional 4 slot with Jerebko being a better shooter and Favors being better at everything but outside shooting. Johnson, Sefolosha and Ingles are all bigger wings, perfect for the small ball 4, and each has their own strengths, giving versatility. With 8 possible wing players, minutes at the 4 will have to be used to spread the wealth for them...

These options present the versatility to do whatever Quin pleases on either end of the floor while managing the tradeoffs. Now the dilemma comes when you play around with these lineups and see the advantages each has.

It’s a good read and gets me excited to see what Quin Snyder can do with this group. Head on over and give it a click!

Nylon Calculus put out an interesting image showing the movement of players based on Real Plus Minus Wins this offseason.

This is also a reminder that the Western Conference absolutely dominates the Eastern Conference, at nearly every position in fact. Count me among those that think the NBA should move towards putting the best 16 teams into the playoffs, regardless of conference.

Speaking of player movement, there was a gif put out on twitter that got some great responses.

Trust me when I say you want to go read some of those captions. I’ll add a few of my favorites that weren’t responses, so they are a little harder to find:

“This is actually my second favorite garden. Kyrie, have you ever been to the Olive Garden in Times Square?”

“You can have the team, I just want the coach”

“I mean, what was I supposed to do? My Player’s Tribune piece hadn’t been published yet.”

And because this is SLC Dunk and people here are pretty funny and creative as well, I want to see who can come up with the best caption!