Did The Utah Jazz Decide To TANK?

Did The Utah Jazz Decide To TANK?

We now have more clarity than ever before regarding the direction of the Utah Jazz particularly for this season and what the implications could be for next season can genuinely be roughly estimated based on what moves have been made in last night’s game as well as what the rest of the season will be

Looking like from a starter standpoint and just the rotations that we see will hard put out on a nightly basis with that being said it’s your boy Ray hoes thanks for tuning this video if you like the Utah Jazz go ahead and smash like button subscribe and turn on post

Notifications we do this almost every day let’s go Ahad and get into this one everybody knows that Keon George has to a certain degree B that lovely little boy wonder that a lot of people would like to talk up and believe that he is the All-Star caliber player at some

Point in his career that could be the missing piece and the missing Cog in the machine for the Utah Jazz in their rebuilding process we know what Walker Kessler is we found out that oaji wasn’t going to be the most ideal candidate and so he got trade away in that Kelly o Lin

Deal to the Toronto Raptors but we also have Bryce sensal and Taylor Hendrick who now will have more minutes available to them more so for Taylor Hendrick because he does play more of that big role and he can kind of fit in as a wing which is why aaji and oin being removed

Affords him and also tht more minutes to play on the court understanding this after the game against the Golden State Warriors and which they lost 107 to 129 things really got a little bit itchy because not only was it a 22-point loss and admittedly not the worst loss that

The team has incurred during this season it was another one under the reign of Keon George being the starting point guard and while that may not seem that significant when I go through his statline and explain exactly why I feel that way I think you might come to feel

The exact same getting into it he played 29 almost 30 minutes in that time he shot got two of 10 from the field one of six from three had one rebound four assists two turnovers and one personal foul not good shooting didn’t turn the ball over too much but just really bad

Shooting splits right box score plus minus of A- 32 now the issue with starting him in this game admittedly you want to get him those liveaction reps as he has had the most for any of the three rookies this entire year again he started a 16 game span earlier on in the

Season after tht got switched out and that didn’t really bold well for him there weren’t that many WS to speak of and for the most part he underperformed from a shooting standpoint and defensively he’s continued to be unimpressive defensively and offensively things have gotten a little better some

Games but over the past two specifically things have really taken a turn back and he’s regress to his prior form which isn’t that efficient now on the season he’s averaging 11.2 points 2.8 rebounds and 4.2 assists to go along with two turnovers and he shoots 38.2% from the

Field and 32.9% from three to go along with a respectable 82.1% shooting from the free throw line so the shot is there and he is capable of hitting jumpers but at the same time while he shoots better from three off of the dribble he needs to develop into the person that can

Shoot off of the catch which should admittedly be a little bit easier All Things Considered since most people are a lot better at shooting off the catch and suck at shooting off of the dribble he kind of has the awkward switch but that just goes to show that he has the

Capability of being a shooter also detailing the fact that he shoots 82% from the free throw line while it might not be on the most attempts per game it’s still on a significant enough amount to go ahead and warrant some level of importance after the game in

The press conference when the media was asking questions to the guys and to the coach Hardy will hardy had this to say about moving keontay George into the starting lineup he said it’s time Keon stepping into that role is ultimately what’s best for our team moving forward

To give people a little bit of a grasp and understanding of just what Keon has done in his starts these are his overall stats in Starts Now mind you he’s had 17 he AAG 12.2 points playing in 28.3 minutes per match had 3.2 rebounds 5.8 assists half a steal 2.5 turnovers and

Shoots 33.5% from the field on 11.2 attempts and shoots 30.6% from three on 5.8 attempts overall from the free throw line he shoots 79.4% on 3.7 attempts which is mid isn’t that great and so I default to the game that we just played against the Golden State Warriors

Because that’s the most recent and most of his starts were from significantly earlier on in the season when we were not on our winning streak so considering the fact that he was alongside Jordan Clarkson who doesn’t really serve as a great backourt mate for him really the

Only person that he does the best with is probably Chris Dunn because Chris Dunn has that Effectiveness on defense he’s also a heavy communicator and at roughly the same size and similar weight he also has the ability to show Keon George how things are done while also

Educating him on how he does it and what he needs to do to be just as successful as himself understanding this though after losing this particular game against the Warriors there was so many questions in the air particularly because konay George was given the start considering the fact that if Chris Dunn

Has started this team probably wins again in roughly 20 minutes of action Chris Dunn had a box SC plus monus of a plus seven despite going one of six from the field and honestly just not having his best shooting night ever he did have a decent number of rebounds assists he

Even had three steals to go along with it and didn’t turn the ball over to an egregious degree because of that he was able to really lock in and gave Curry a lot of trouble however for somebody’s first initial matchup against Stephen Curry in the season it was a very bad game to

Start Keon George we saw last game against the Suns we saw Taylor Hendricks get about 17 and a half minutes guarding Kevin Durant for the majority of that time and while he did get broke off a few plays he also had his own plays against against Kevin Durant Most

Notably being the block at The Rim but at the same time Taylor Hendricks just has a better feel for Defence for defense he has a higher defensive IQ and it seems like he just has more knowledge of where he needs to be on the court his shooting needs a little bit of work

Simply because when it comes to him being in motion he struggles a little bit but when he’s stationary and has the opportunity to just get a simple catch and shoot he does tend to get the job done I believe that his game will translate significantly better for the

Utah Jazz sstem the George has so far and honestly I’m slightly tempted to see if Bryce sensal can make the most of a possible opportunity in the upcoming minutes but I don’t 100% know for certain just yet I need to see a little bit more of keontay George before I jump

The gun now the Utah Jazz after losing this one went from being one game under 500 to now two games under and the reason why it’s significant is because they lost to the Warriors who were at 500 and are now one game above 500 effectively losing a game that would

Have put us back in the 10th place and inside of the playing role in that same situation the ninth seed is the Los Angeles Lakers who are finding their footing once again they are currently 28 and 26 now that’s problematic because we really expected a lot from our guys and

We thought that they would be able to get the job done it just hasn’t really panned out that way and things are not looking on the up and up since the trade headline we lost fono we lost Kelly oenk we lost oai abaji who were all three key

Role players and while they didn’t have the most magnanimous degree of effect on the team you would argue that they all played a decent enough role to affect wins and losses after trading them we were still optimistic and I myself individually after coming to turns with

The fact that Danny a was doing what is best in favor of the Jazz franchise future it’s still didn’t sit well because those guys had a chemistry like no other so it put guys in a situation because the players were under the mindset that they were going to go to

The playoffs with that roster that they had and considering that Danny a just decided to blow it up and not have that conversation with certain guys like a when of course you know Lowry marinin who’s supposed to be the heart and soul of the team it kind of rubbed a lot of

Guys the wrong way inside the locker room reporter Sarah Todd actually had this to say in regards to the state of the locker room after the game it is very clear that the jazz players feel pretty apathetic post trade deadline that’s not great for wanting to build Championship culture hype that just goes

To say that they’re displeased nobody expected this team to end up in this sort of waters you also saw them trade those three supporters for three lesser guys that ended up one being bought out in Kevin Knox and I guess a first and a second round pick which are effectively

Not really the most useful in the moment though they could potentially be in the future there’s no guarantee of that as well Andy Larsson actually had this to say after the game himself that might be the single most frustrated locker room I’ve ever seen after a regular season

Game it’s because it’s not about tonight it’s about where the team is for the rest of the season basically alluding to the fact that once will hardy elected to go ahead and sit Chris Don on the bench and put Keon George into the fire before we all see him to be ready they’re

Conceding the rest of the season and willing to tank now if that is the case then you might as well just roll out the entire bench and allow those guys to run let Taylor Hendricks get the start over somebody let Bryce sensal get the start let Kyo Lewis Jr get some burn for

Pete’s sake because it puts you in a situation where you have all these guys that have been playing for something all season and now it was all completely pointless to them now the team’s over under for the season was roughly 35 and a half games and I still think they have

The ability to go ahead and supersede that but with keontay George at the helm in his high level of inconsistencies particularly as a starting point guard I just don’t think that that’s likely anymore I believe that that 35.5 is actually pretty accurate we might end up

Winning closer to 34 games if I’m going to be quite honest with Chris dun at the helm I had them predicted to actually hit 40 wins WIS out of their 42 even after the trade deadline so with this little switch at the helm and will hardy letting everybody know that he plans on

Sticking with it it puts a lot of guys in some uncomfortable positions because there’s only but so much you can say about it in this one in particular it was a rough matchup because there looked like no point in the game where konay George could put up a fight of his own

Not only did he hit very few shots but he also could not guard Stephen Curry for the life of him reporter Andy Larson also had this to say about the matchup one of those youthful inexperienced games for Keon so far he looks tired playing more minutes than usual and

Chasing Steph around screens and keeping up in transition has worn him out and quite honestly he did look tired but he also looked completely out of his element because you took a guy that doesn’t play defense to the highest degree overall and just genuinely struggles on that side of the ball and

Forced him to be something that he has never been needed to be before and quite honestly never been forced to be before and you put him against the greatest shooter that the NBA has ever seen so every time he makes a mistake he is punished for it and put on full display

It’s very difficult because there’s no perfectly ideal scenario for him in this world and really he’s going to catch a lot of hate because of his upcoming play we do believe in giving experience to Rookies and letting them play on the court in meaningful games but if you

Throw somebody out there and the team ends up going down egregiously and he just gets cooked the entire time there’s no learning experience in that there’s just a whole bunch of tape of you being a poor basketball player and really that just destroys somebody’s confidence konay George needs a boost not a setback

And if you submerge him too much he’s going to drown he’s not going to learn how to swim it genuinely concerns me that we’re willing to go this far for him in particular because I believe that he’s one of those guys that just is going to take a little bit more time to

Cook and get ready Taylor Hendricks to me seems like a player that you can play now and even when he’s not hitting his shots he plays defense so well his issues are relatively negligible across the stat line and at worst he’s going to be a slight negative for example today

In his 19 minutes he only had a box score plus minus of a negative -2 despite going all of two from the field with both of those shots being three-pointers he also had four rebounds and one block to go alongside that understanding this it makes things a little bit frustrating for the Jazz

Faithful because not only are the fans frustrated because they didn’t want to go into rebuild they wanted to see a genuine playoff team it also makes the players uncomfortable because they wanted to go to the playoffs as well and they wanted to play meaningful basketball games so when you consciously

Decide to switch your lineup and put a man who’s not ready for the fire to go ahead and jump out there it makes things very difficult because not so much the that the older guys don’t believe in him but they also comprehend that he’s not there yet and so you’re putting him in

The line of fire when he’s just quite simply not ready to deal with the kitchen it’s too hot for him and we saw it today when Stephen Curry was doing him dirty and then there was so many coverages in which you saw him go under

The screen or go with the ROM man or not play high enough on the screen and again this is Stephan Curry this isn’t just some guy who’s okay at shooting threes this isn’t a guy that is a more of a slashing type point guard this is a guy

Who makes his living from Beyond The Ark so if you go under a screen he will punish you if you don’t pay attention to the screen he will use the screen and if you run along the court with him and you don’t pay attention to what he’s

Actually doing you’ll get lost in the s and that’s what happened to him the entirety of the game there was no saving konce George and when they kept putting him out there on that floor he kept getting flambay every time Steph Curry got the opportunity now there was other

Matchups that he saw against Klay Thompson and other of the smaller guards but those matchups didn’t go particularly well for him either and that was honestly a slightly concerning part but considering that most of his reps were against Stephen Curry on defense those are the ones that I wanted

To focus on I do understand that obviously as the rookie who’s playing Steph for the the first time it was going to be a rough game he was going to be shell shocked but there was no genuine point in the game where I felt like he even remotely had a tip for Tat

Play he never had one opportunity where he really went after it and overall things just looked pretty ugly through and through to the point where the game was Out Of Reach when he was in the game but when he was out of the game things looked a lot more respectable and it

Looked like a genuine basketball game that you will want to go to watch but I digress maybe you guys disagree with me do you believe that keontay George is ready to start what do you think is going to take him a lot more time and this is a clear sign of concession from

The front office and the coaching staff saying that we’re going to go ahead and tank this year so that we can keep this year’s draft pick and convey next year’s instead as always it’s your boy wraith Hoops I’m interested to see what you guys have to say in the comment section

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