The Downbeat #1259 - The "Somewhat okay"-st case situation

This team is really coming together. I mean it. Look at how well our most marketable player gets along with our head coach:

A higher quality version of the Burke's gif thanks to @Gfycat http://t.co/TFqOiOznWw

— Kris (@5kl) January 25, 2014

Well, okay, Trey Burke and Tyrone Corbin may not be on the same page right now. Or really no one but Jeremy Evans and Gordon Hayward appear on the same page during the course of any given moment of the season, but all jokes aside, this team is looking better. Playing better. And giving the fans some hope going forward.

I think the worst case scenario this season would be if the coaches played the young guys all of the risk free minutes, the team lost, and the players didn't look like they were getting better. The second worst case scenario is if the team played all the vets, the team lost, and the players didn't look like they were getting better. That second worst case scenario was the reality for the Jazz team for the last two seasons. (The dishonesty and delusion of not embracing a rebuild after trading Deron Williams = putting the team back 2 seasons.)

What case scenario are the Jazz this season? I think the best case scenario would be risk free minutes to the youth, losing (due to roster, not talent), and the team getting better. By my appraisal we don't have that. We have some minutes to some of the youth, we have losing, and some people are getting better.

The major downsides so far seem to be a reliance upon FORCING expiring vets into lineups despite evidence to suggest their incompatibilities with winning. And I think that goes back to Tyrone Corbin, for the fourth season in a row in a 'win now' mode he has failed to identify which lineups best help him win games.

Playing Marvin Williams at power forward is very nice, letting him spread the floor with threes -- but why didn't he let Paul Millsap do that the last two seasons? Or why is he not letting Enes Kanter do that this season? Ty seems to be stubborn, or learns very slowly. This isn't a statement based upon the fact that his coaching decisions aren't the ones I would make. This is based upon him not even knowing when to make offensive / defensive subs in a close game, and we needed Mo Williams to tell Derrick Favors to get in the game. Mo isn't the head coach. Ty was. As far as I am concerned, if you display a general lack of qualifications or certain level of job performance you are . . . just not fit for the job.

And that's the bottom line with Ty. He's a great guy. He went to South Africa in the off-season. He played in the NBA for a long time. No one will go on the record to talk about his faults. He was a role player who didn't like having better players jump ahead of him on the depth chart. And he "keeps the locker room together" by playing vets, except in the case where he plays vets and they still complain about him.

Like I said, Ty is a great guy. Maybe he's a great assistant coach too? I think that's a possibility. This could just be the case of the Peter Principle. And if that's the case, there's no reason to defend him to the death. It would be akin to making the same 'saving face' mistake of not admitting that the team was rebuilding the last 2 years that retarded development by 2 years. I know some members of the Jazz org suggest that the "Jazz don't do mistakes", but in an evidence based world, well, or a grammar based one, it would appear that the organization does.

You teach your kids to admit it, and learn from it. Not puff out their chest, and redouble their efforts to suggest they are right about everything -- and if you are critical it is YOU who didn't get it.

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These are amazing. I have nothing to say:

And lastly, my SEO needs some work because apparently this was made by a guy who makes financial videos on youtube:

I guess I've made it big time.

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Trey Burke is awesome. But he would be running away with this race if he was just making some shots:

Yeesh! C'Mon Trey, this is yours for the taking! (Full breakdown here.)

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I got this from Marvelous Moni, and I'm going to copy and paste the quote:

Locke asks Ty a question about how Phoenix is having success spreading the floor with five 3-point schooters, while the best defensive teams are playing two bigs, and asks Ty for his opinion on the best defensive scheme.

Ty's response: It's, you know, it's just guys playing with numbers. And I mean, that's, you know, when it's going good, they jump on the bandwagon and say this is where things should go because that's what they can make an argument for. But you look at the, you average things out, and go back to the old way of playing. So, that's what you have to deal with when, you know, somebody's doing something and it works out that particular night or for a short stretch, and everybody get on the bandwagon. That's how people are. And you know, they look at numbers, they look at games, and, "Hey, this is interesting, let's jump on this one." And then everybody else is criticized 'cause they're not doing it. So, it's just the way that the game is now. And so many guys got a voice in it, that, you know, you have to deal with it.

Locke then follows up with: All the best effective field goal percentage defensive teams had two bigs last year...

Ty responds: It's not just last year. So, but, you gotta deal with it.

Yup, we have another "it's just a numbers game" quote from Ty. - Moni, and visit the amazing blog http://jazzfanatical.wordpress.com/

Okay, let's decipher this. Corbin is suggesting that trends in Xs and Os that may have small sample sizes are misleading and the inherent "trendiness" of them make them appealing to write / ask about. Then he says that the traditional, or old way of playing, usually ends up being closer to a larger sample size average than any one trend.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that point, if that's the point he's making. The PROBLEM here is that he's suggesting that if he followed the trend of currently good defensive clubs by playing two bigs he would be giving in to peer pressure / following a trend. Didn't he just say that the traditional way of doing things is, on average, the better way of doing things? Does he not know that the traditional way of doing things isn't small ball, but playing two bigs?

This is why I continue to claim that Ty, for all his greatness as a human being, is unable to identify what helps him win the most. He's not even able to identify what a traditionally outfitted defensive unit it, and he PLAYED back then. Playing a small ball defense is PRECISELY a trendy one. And he's being told by Locke, gift wrapping the idea, that if Ty does the traditional thing Ty will be better for it.

Yeah. And again, this is not a personal attack. Ty just contradicted himself, or is ignorant to the fact, that in the efforts to champion traditionalism over any 'new information' unearthed by analytics, he is suggesting that playing two bigs on defense is anything other than a traditional way to play the game. It's almost as if he doesn't even remember playing against teams that started Charles Oakley, Buck Williams, Terry Cummings, and so forth.

The whole back and forth with David and Tyrone makes no sense unless you figure that Ty is only talking about offense. "On offense if you have these teams that bandwagon on the idea of playing two bigs, your offensive game plan has to learn to deal with it." That makes more sense than anything else he says. But if David is asking a question on how to be a better defensive team, why does Ty immediate try to defend his offensive decisions? Again, seems like the entire Jazz org is filled with people too proud to admit they were every wrong about anything, and try to make YOU look like the crazy person for even suggesting an alternative way to look at information.

No one is criticizing Ty for not following modern, trendy, bandwagon conventions. We're critical of him for trying to guard Blake Griffin and Kevin Love with Marvin Williams. And then on the flip side, not taking advantage of going 'small ball' by increasing the pace of play. (We're not even getting into how going small ball is a trendy, modern convention; or that analytics aren't anymore a numbers game than winning and losing is, because winning or losing depends on which number is bigger.)

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The Utah Jazz played the Brooklyn Nets waaaaay back on the fourth game of the season. The Nets weren't that good back then, yet we still lost. Richard Jefferson started in what would be a "kinda-" revenge game, and went 1/7 as our starters got blasted. Deron Williams finished the game with the W, and a very pedestrian 10 / 8 / 2 / 1 line. Back when he was with the Jazz that would be a halftime line for him against a team like the Golden State Warriors. Anyway, the Nets are playing much better now, and are 9-1 in their last 10 games. The Jazz will play these "actually playing well" Nets 10 games from now, our first game after Valentine's Day.

It will be a good test.

Tomorrow the Nets play the Boston Celtics, and it will be the first time they play IN Boston after the trades for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. It is going to be something, for sure. Williams had this to say:

Deron Williams, who had a less than welcome return to Utah where he spent five-plus seasons, said that Pierce "will be fine," and noted that while Pierce hasn't been "in this situation" before, he has been in high pressure situations and should be able to pull from those moments in getting through Sunday's game.

Williams then went on to joke that his circumstance in Utah was a little different than Pierce's, joking that at least "he's going to get cheers."

-T.Lorenzo, Nets Daily, 2014

It's obvious that D-Will was going to get boo'd in Utah though. He HAD to have known that regardless of all the good times, this is a fanbase that would forever tie him and is increasingly pouty antics to the mid-season departure of Hall of Fame coach Jerry Sloan. We don't blame Ronnie Brewer 's late game steal in crunch time for it. We don't blame Carlos Boozer's double double for it. But we do blame Deron. Even I do. And I really liked Deron when he was here. (Heck, Williams is averaging 19.8 ppg, 15.4 apg, 3.0 rpg, and 1.8 spg for me in NBA 2K14 's MyTeam mode...)

And let's be real here, some of those boos are far from being cheers, but are outright jeers. In 5 games against the Jazz, Deron is averaging 15.6 ppg , 8.0 apg, 2.4 rpg, and shooting a scorching .368 / .273 / .759. He has his career worst ORTG against any one team when playing against the Jazz, and tied for career worst DRTG. He is an amazing talented when pointed in the right direction, but it would at least make the Jazz fans shut up a bit if he went out there and have a great game against us.

If you look at his GameLogs for this season he does appear to be playing a little better now. We may actually finally get a Deron Williams revenge game. But, because I'm a Jazz fan, hopefully not . . .

. . . so out of the currently playing active NBA players who were former Jazz players, which guy do you wish was still on the team?