The Downbeat: The Worth of Rodney Hood

It’s your Tuesday Downbeat, where we talk some Rodney Hood, Rudy Gobert, Boris Diaw, and more. Also, the NBA season countdown is now down to 28 days!

It’s no secret that Rodney Hood will be a restricted free agent next summer. What is still a secret, or unclear at least, is how much the silky smooth lefty will earn. Various websites have ranked the upcoming class of 2018, and Rodney consistently comes in around 20.

CBS Sports has him at 19th.

Coming off a subpar season, he's primed to break out because he has the talent to be a great two-way guard. He's consistent, shooting roughly the same percentage on guarded catch-and-shoot opportunities as off the dribble. Hood looked like a vital piece of Utah's future in 2015-16. He needs to get back to that level in an expanded role after the departure of Gordon Hayward.

Yahoo placed him at 20th.

Hood’s production dipped amid injury after a breakout sophomore season, but he will now be asked to serve as Utah’s primary perimeter scorer after the departure of Hayward, and has the potential to reestablish himself as a max-deal candidate.

Hoops Rumors has him at 20th as well, and I’m sure there are more examples out there. So what does the ~20th best player and restricted free agent get on the market and is he worth it? That’s what Dennis Lindsey and team have to determine now and/or in the offseason. There were rumors that the Jazz have started extension discussions already.

Would you extend Rodney Hood now? If so, how much would you pay him?

Maybe this will help you in your considerations.

Bill Simmons had Richard Jefferson on his latest podcast. Towards the end they came around to talking about Rudy Gobert and how he became who he is. Here’s a snippet of Richard Jefferson’s thoughts.

One of the best things about Rudy is that he believes in himself. He’s got some swagger. Maybe it’s part of the French confidence... I’m not surprised at all, after being around him for a year, that he’s as good as he is right now.”

They follow that with talking about a previous Jazzman whose name kinda rhymes with Boredom He’s-Okayward. Simmons is suddenly much higher on said player now that he’s a Celtic. Imagine that. RJ’s biggest point is how unselfish he is, even to a fault, and that a lack of aggression is really the only whole in his game.

If you want to listen to that part of the interview, queue it up at about the 57:45 mark.

It’s that time of the week! Where there is so little NBA news that you Fan Posters don’t have much to write about. Don’t worry, we get it. I’ll spot you one and throw in some bonus content here.

How about talking about another favorite Frenchman? Boris Diaw recently put out a video where he discusses the reason he left the NBA and instead joined French team Levallois Metropolitans.

For those not watching the whole thing, I pulled a few quotes from it.

This decision wasn’t about the money. It was about joining a club that could benefit from my presence where I could help guide and teach the younger players. It was about bring my experience, my advice. It provided me with an opportunity to play at a high level and stay physically fit while waiting for a potential offer from an NBA team.

Good on you Boris for heading back to your home country and helping train some young talent over there. We’ll miss you as The Most Interesting Man on the Utah Jazz roster. We hope you find a place back over here, and Rudy Gobert agrees.

The Fastbreak Breakfast podcast recently had Andy Larson on to talk about the Jazz. Honestly, I had never listened to this podcast before, but I’m always willing to listen to Andy’s perspective. I’d recommend starting it around the 16 minute mark. Topics discussed:

• How far can an elite defense carry you?
• Can Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors coexist?
• Where is Alec Burks and what can he contribute?

Another interesting thought was towards the end. Keith, the podcaster, says he sees himself consistently ranking the Jazz fairly high this year. He has them at 7th to start the year, which was admittedly higher than most everyone else has them.

He says that he’ll do that despite what the W/L columns will say, because he thinks that the Jazz would beat several teams in a 7 game series even if the other team (like the Nuggets, Timberwolves, Raptors) may have more total wins.

This isn’t directly Jazz related, but I just can’t help it. Kevin Durant may have made an embarrassing mistake on Twitter early yesterday. And of course the Twitter world captured it before he could delete things.

Some investigative work by NBA reddit found his fake account on both twitter and instagram. The work is summed up by Tim Cato here:

Wow. Other than one Indecision, this offseason has been incredible.

Any one else out there claiming you don’t care what the haters are saying? And then creating a signature shoe with words that people said about you? And then accidentally forgetting to switch to your fake account when defending yourself to the haters?