Who are the Utah Jazz?

The Utah Jazz are bad. And then they are ok. And then they are bad again. And then they look really good. And then they are bad. And then they show flashes of being last year’s team. Oh, and sure enough they are bad again.

Who is this Jazz team? They have no identity and no consistency. For bringing almost the entire team back, they sure look like they have some gelling and adapting to do. I realize their schedule has been difficult. But that’s not a good enough excuse for how poorly they have played at times this year, last night included. I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I’m ready for this time to finally show their true selves.

Positive Residual put out an interesting image on twitter last week that had a few Jazz guys highlighted. It’s a graph showing a player’s estimated usage and their points per true shot attempt.

You’ll find Rudy Gobert up there as one of the most efficient scorers in the game. Shocker I know. He could use a little more volume in my opinion. Not a ton, just a light uptick. Down in the bottom right quadrant you’ll find Donovan Mitchell has a high usage but not so great efficiency. He’s not bad, but if he were shooting a little better he would be looking a lot better.

We’ve got 3 fan posts this week, so let’s just get right to it.

UtahMonarch could maybe use some uplifting, after wondering what the point of even cheering for the Jazz anymore is?

I’ll just come out and say it: I’m almost ready to say (*bleep*) the Utah Jazz...

Fesenko for President wishes the Jazz had gone after Nemanja Bjelica

At the start of free agency period last summer many Jazz fans were high on having the Jazz attempt to sign Nemanja Bjelica in free agency. He was a restricted free agent, who had come into the league as an older European stretch-4 power forward, who could really shoot the 3-point shot (with an overall game somewhat remniscent of a young Mehmet Okur), and who reportedly was good friends with Jazz point guard Ricky Rubio--and thus had some interest in signing with the Utah Jazz. It appeared that Minnesota would probably fail to match a contract offer to Bjelica in the $5-7 mil. per year range, because doing so would likely put Minnesota over the salary cap for the 2018-2019 season...

Fesenko for President comes at us again with some truth about how Jazz fans can hate the Lakers again.

As Jazz fans, let’s all get excited once again at being able to sincerely despise the Lakers as one of our most hated rivals.

It feels like a rebirth.

Whenever I see a statistic about John Stockton, I’m about 100% likely to post it in the Tuesday downbeat. Well it’s your lucky day, because I have 2 of them for you.

Impressive stuff. Part of me is beginning to wonder if we couldn’t bring him back for a 10 minute stretch to start the game...

Even more impressive. More than impressive. Mind blowing.

Is that the most unbreakable record in the NBA? In professional sports?

Jae Crowder started in favor of Derrick Favors Sunday night and the Jazz had their highest scoring performance of the season. Favors is an incredible basketball player. He’s absolutely a starter in the NBA. Unfortunately, he should be starting at center. Tony Jones caught up to Derrick to ask him about coming off the bench prior to the game against the Kings.

He did indeed play the same amount of minutes. He was also really good in those minutes. You know who else was good? Rudy Gobert and Ricky Rubio. Maybe it was just a coincidence that these 2 had one of their better games all season. But maybe it wasn't. I think it might be time for Quin Snyder to consider a more permanent change in the starting lineup after last night’s embarrassment at home against the Pacers.