SLC Dunk

Former Jazz Bigman Thurl Bailey dunks on Sixers Manute Bol

2012-05-17T17:09:00Z

There's a lot of stuff to get to still this year, but I thought I would mix it up a bit by putting in a post that takes, literally, seconds to digest. Here's former Utah Jazz Bigman Thurl Bailey, all 6'11 of him, dunking on the Philadelphia 76ers Manute Bol. Manute was 7'7 (or 7'6 depending on sources). Manute had a really tough life and after his NBA career ended he focused on bringing peace and future prosperity to his home land. He ended up having to leave his native Sudan for a while after things started going crazy over there. Despite being a professional athlete in the US, he chose to spend a lot of his time doing work in refugee camps and assisting other people in his homeland. (One of his camp attendees was actually a young Luol Deng, who now plays for the Chicago Bulls) Bol had a really tough life has his homeland went into 'super duper civil war', which was not resolved until a year after his death.

On the other hand, Thurl played the part of Goliath in a straight to DVD musical Bible stories movie. Here's Thurl dunking it on Manute:

Always, of course, this was uploaded by Adam @ProdigyJF (twitter) / MemoisMoney (YouTube). He doesn't get the assist for this post, without his work there would be no post.

Breaking Down Al Jefferson's Rebound Tactics [Frame by Frame]

2012-05-17T15:20:00Z

Note: my visuals have been severely minimized, please just click on the picture to view a larger version of it. After all, moving your head 2 inches away from the screen draws attention from your boss... and we certainly don't want that now do we?

Rebounding is one of the most misunderstood fundamentals of basketball. It is too often seen as "just that thing big athletic players naturally do"—but that can’t be further from the truth. Rebounding is all about technique and mindset; two things that all players can develop.

If you look down Al Jefferson’s stat sheet, you see that he is averaging nearly 20/10 a night… and you must be thinking "man this Al Jefferson dude must know how to rebound—I better watch some video of him to learn his technique". However, if you watched the actual games he played in (or listened to the Red & Blue Show), you would be cussing out Al Jefferson for his lack of effort in the pursuit of the ball. Throughout the season, I too confused as to how Al Jefferson was able to post 10 rebounds a night despite the alleged lack of effort. In this article, I hope to straighten many of these confusions out as I break down some frame by frame stills that capture Al Jefferson’s logic when he goes up for a rebound.

Before I can start analyzing Al Jefferson’s rebounding, it is important to understand the different components of rebounding. Rebounding, specifically defensively, depends on positioning and a determination to get the ball. Positioning is done while the shot is in the air, or as coaches like to call it, the "dead time". In this dead time, you always assume a miss so it is imperative to do your work early to put yourself in the best possible position to grab the rebound. This involves bodying your man up, boxing him out, and anticipating the rebound location. Once the ball hits the rim, it’s primed for someone to snatch it, and that is when pure determination comes to play.

Positioning & Boxing Out

If there was one thing coaches couldn’t stress more about rebounding, it’s doing your work early by boxing out. Boxing out is so important because it creates a seal on your opponent not only to give you the best position to get the rebound, but it also stops the pursuit for an offensive rebound by your man. To help illustrate proper technique, take a look at these stills of Biedrins and Duncan. Notice their activity during the "dead time", along with where their eyes are.

As you can see in these pictures, immediately after the shot is taken, Biedrins and Duncan both immediately take their attention off the ball handler and focus on boxing their man out in order to get position for the miss. Because of their activity during this dead time, their man (Evans and Jefferson in this case) are either stopped or slowed down from getting the offensive rebound. (Even though Biedrins was not able to fully seal off his man, the intentions were right in terms of immediately concerning yourself with your man and not the rebound itself.) Judging from the way they shifted their line of vision from the shooter to their man and boxed out immediately, you can see that they assumed a miss and motivated themselves to get in a position to grab that miss. Now look these stills of Big Al (pay attention to Al’s man, along with the direction of his vision):

Once the ball handler shoots the ball, you can see that Big Al is standing under the basket and watching the path of the ball. This a huge no-no, because he spending the "dead time" watching the ball instead of boxing out and that is due to the fact he’s not assuming the ball will be a miss. You should be reacting to get the rebound during the dead time, but Big Al isn’t starting to react until the ball hits the rim (look at the third frame in both stills.) By doing this, you now only have the time from when the ball hits the rim to when the ball is grabbed—as opposed to the time from when the ball is shot, hits the rim, and then when it’s grabbed. He lost all the "dead time" and now has very little time to do the proper work to get positioning (boxing out) for the rebound. Another consequence of Big Al not bodying up his man is it opens up an opportunity for his man to get an offensive rebound. This happened both times when Jordan and Gortat were able to go around Big Al and easily get the offensive rebound as Big Al turns to them and slaps his hands in disappointment.

This was a repeating pattern, I am not just cherry picking situations like this. From all the different rebounds he was/was not able to get, there was this same trend. He was consistently caught ball watching and often did not battle for early position (boxing out). Rarely did I ever see Big Al initiate any contact. The only time he bodied his man up, it was when the opponent initiated the contact—and even then Al wasn’t able to (or refused to) battle back. Here is an example of that happening:

Desire and Timing

So what is Al Jefferson doing right? Surely 10 rebounds a night doesn’t magically appear on the stat sheet because David Stern loves the Jazz. It turns out he does a great job in terms of using his agility, jumping ability (yes, I said agility and jumping ability), and as cheesy as it sounds, determination to get the rebound. As I watched the film of Al’s rebounds, very rarely did I ever see him mistimed his jumps. Along with the timing, the technique of jumping for the rebound was outstanding. It was always balanced, jumping straight up off two feet going strong with both hands. This helps explain the reason Al Jefferson doesn’t like to box out, because it distracts him from timing his jumps. As you can see in the above picture with Al and Pekovic, Al is unable to use his solid technique because being banged by Pekovic.

Along with his great technique, he also does an amazing job with predicting the location of the rebound. 70% of all rebounds come off on the weak side, and Al understands that. Big post defenders are usually unable to take advantage of this statistic because they are pretty much pinned to their man, and the location of their man will determine the angle they use on a rebound. But when Big Al is free-roam rebounding, he makes it a commitment to get to the weak side—I may even argue it is in his instinct to. This is evident in these two scenes:

In this one you can see that once the ball is shot, Al Jefferson is in "no-man" land, so he runs in to get the rebound. See how he immediately goes for that middle spot in front of the rim—that will give him the best chance to grab the rebound (which is likely to bounce towards the weak right side.) I’m sure many of you will be saying that Big Al is only running to that location because he acknowledges Marc Gasol’s presence there, but I know that is not the case because look at where Big Al is looking in the second frame. He is focused on the spot, and not on Marc Gasol. Another reason is that I know Al is worrying about getting to the spot and not Marc Gasol is because Al doesn’t make an attempt to slow down Marc (like bodying him up or cutting his path). Al simply uses his agility to get that covenant spot before anyone else.

This picture shows that Big Al has that natural instinct to expect the rebound off the weak side. In this scene Vince Carter shot the ball and it rebounded back towards him (the strong side) (and yes, Big Al was caught ball watching). It is really hard to capture Big Al’s reaction in stills, but when the ball hit the rim and recoiled back to the left strong side, Big Al’s head remained focused on that weak side for a split second delay before turning his head to the direction of the ball. This shows that once the ball hit the rim and Big Al reacted that rebound was to be had, he expected it to bounce towards the weak side even though it didn’t.

Wrap Up- What I Found:

When it comes to rebounding, we see that there are a couple of golden rules that should be given special attention when rebounding.

1. Battle for Good Position- this involves using "dead time" to do your work early by boxing out, assuming every shot is a miss, and not watching the flight of the basketball.

2. Use Proper Technique- this involves timing your jump correctly, going up strong with both hands and feet, and anticipating the rebound in the weak side.

What we saw from Al Jefferson is that he does not do a good job in battling for good position. Too often is he caught spending the "dead time" just standing stagnant and watching the ball go through the air. In addition to allowing his opponent to challenge for an offensive rebound while he’s watching the ball, it subconsciously makes Al assume the shot is a make. From the stills, you saw that he doesn’t want to body people up, it almost seems like he resists it judging from the Pekovic-Jefferson scene.

Despite his deficiency with the first rule, his technique is very good. He’s just one of those people who have a "knack" for the ball by consistently going up strong for the rebound. He also makes up for the lack of contact caused by boxing out by using his agility to run to best spot statistically to grab a rebound. It seems as if the reason Big Al doesn’t concern himself with boxing out and/or bodying players up is because he is focused on his technique. When you don’t have a fat guy that you’re trying holding off (yeah that’s you Pekovic and Blair), you can rebound well with the great technique Big Al does.

You can follow me on twitter @AlecLam14 (he's a pretty good follow if I do say so myself)

Make it Happen, KOC! - The Downbeat - #751

2012-05-17T14:02:25Z

Locke is conducting season reviews on all the players at Locked on Sports. Be warned, though—it's pretty heavy.

Each player's analysis will be divided into seven parts (Al's has been finished, Millsap is currently at part 2), and there are a whole lot of stats in them. And besides being filled with a whole lot of stats, some of them are pretty obscure. Paul Millsap, apparently, has an activity level of 583.5. What does that mean? I have no idea. And I couldn't find a handy link in which the more obscure stats are explained.

But there is enough written commentary to get a feel for what Locke feels the stats say.

But of all the commentary, this to me says the most. It's specifically about Al Jefferson. But to me it says much more about the plan of the Jazz coaching staff:

He went from 38% of his offense being post up to 48% this year. Last year he was 74th in the NBA in post up and this year he is 19th, a huge improvement. His shooting percentage out of the post increased as well from 42.7% to 47.5% this year. A year ago he got a higher percentage of his offense off the cut and he is more efficient in those plays.

No shock that Al go a huge percentage of shots as post-ups, nor that he did a lot more this year than last. And I'm glad he's improved. But no matter the improvement, it's still nowhere as effective as his scoring off cuts. Synergy says he shoots 48% on post-ups and 64% on cuts.

And while Al deserves some criticism for this (the post iso does seem to be what he prefers), the big issue is the coaching staff. They're the ones who make the game plan. They're the ones who design the playbook. They're the ones who decided to do fewer of the more effective plays and more less effective ones.

I'm certainly not calling for Ty's head. My hope is just that he improves. That he abandons less-effective ideas and takes hold of more effective ones.

The more I investigate, the more I'm convinced that simple system changes could have a strong effect in how well the Jazz play next year.

By now you probably know that Kevin O'Connor was:

Put on the NBA's new Competition Committee, and
Voted in fifth place in the annual Executive of the Year Award

First the second of the two: I don't really like this award. And here's why: the Jazz have a pretty decent chance of being a great team by about 2013-14. That will be Year 4 of Favors/Hayward plus Year 3 of Kanter/Burks. As long as KOC plays his cards right during the next year, seeking and finding the right guys around them, they'll be really good.

But if things work out, why will the be so good? Because of the moves KOC made in 2010-11—picking Hayward (a fairly outside-the-box pick), the Deron trade for Favors, the guys acquired with the picks from that trade (Kanter, and the mythical GS pick), and getting a steal in drafting Burks at 12.

Real teams are built over years, with some good long-term thinking. The Executive of the Year Award rewards the GM who makes the most splashy instant-gratification moves that year. So in a way I'm glad KOC didn't win the award.

The Competition Committee makes decisions about rule changes to improve the NBA. It used to be made up of all 30 GM's. Now it isn't. It's both smaller and more diverse, including coaches, GM's, owners, and one player.

This is the committee that would decide on things like anti-flopping rules, eliminating offensive goaltending, etc. Amar already wrote up a detailed explanation and listed the other members of the committee, so you can check that out if you want more of the details.

I'm excited about KOC being on this committee. Mostly because it gives us a whole new set of complaints and dreams that we can now end with the refrain:

"KOC, make it happen!"

This is about the Spurs. But it's also about the Jazz. We all freak out at times over the thought that one of our favorite guys may leave Utah for the bright lights of elsewhere. I think losing Deron—and knowing the trade was necessary because the chances of him staying at that point were a bit slim—scarred us a bit.

So ... how do we make our stars desperately want to stay with us? Well, here's what Chris Ballard at SI wrote about the Spurs, Popovich, and Tim Duncan:

The story of Duncan's career begins on an island, in the summer of 1997. That's when Popovich flew down to St. Croix to meet his team's No. 1 draft pick. On the first day, Duncan took his new coach swimming. Out they went, one man tall and assured, the other short and as pale as the sand, his arms churning furiously. Duncan led them past rocky outcroppings into deeper water, the shoreline of the island quickly receding. Popovich began to think about how far out they were, about what lay beneath, about the waves cresting off the rocks. Still, he kept going, determined not to show weakness.

Over the next three days—or two or maybe four, neither can remember—the two men swam and lay on the beach and ate, talking about life and family and priorities. Everything but basketball. Despite a difference of nearly 30 years, they connected in a way few athletes and coaches do. Today Popovich tears up just talking about it. "I really cherish that time," he says. "It was like an instant respect and understanding of each other. Almost like we were soul mates."

From that point on, the two were on the same page. Other than a brief flirtation with the Orlando Magic in 2003, when Duncan was a free agent—he and Pop stayed up late drinking beers in Pop's backyard, talking it through—Duncan never wavered in his commitment to the team. This, in turn, allowed Popovich to build his highly successful system, the tenets of which were simple: The offense runs through Duncan, the defense runs through Duncan, and if you don't like it, you're gone. It holds true to this day. "I like role players who aren't very good but have a skill," Pop says with a chuckle, though he is not joking. "I know who's going to have the ball on our team, and need players who understand this."

Kevin O'Connor, Greg Miller, and Ty Corbin—if you want our young studs to stay with us, if you want them to have loyalty to match their greatness, if you want to be able to have time to build a team—because it takes more than two or three years to build the right team—if you want these things as much as I do, then:

Build treat them like this and work to build this kind of relationship with them.

A couple of pictures. First, it was my 6-year-old's birthday last week. Here's his birthday stash:

And second. At the final game of the regular season, the Jazz Dancers were at the ESA doors, passing out the most random "The first three thousand fans will receive" gifts of all time: A Derrick Favors Cooking Apron. Yes, I have six of them now.

NBA Player Salaries for 2012-2013 -- Who looks to be overpaid in the $8.0 million or up club?

2012-05-16T20:25:39Z

The 2011-2012 NBA Season is not over quite yet, well, it is for the Utah Jazz. Being a Utah Jazz blog it's never too early to start looking at what needs to happen this off-season. The #1 thing I want the Jazz to do is to at least PLAY in the same league as the rest of the teams. This means adopting the successful practices of other teams, instead of regressing into further and further insular doctrines. This may mean trading young players for older players. This may mean trading productive fan favorites to make room for young players with more potential. This may mean adopting advanced stats gurus. This may mean adopting a more friendly relationship with social media and blogs. This may even mean changing our playbook to actually incorporate the three point shot -- and getting guys who can make that shot.

There are a lot of things I'd want the Jazz to do under the blanket of joining the other teams in the league. There is one really big thing that a lot of other teams do that the Jazz have (for the most part) avoided doing. And that's overpay for a bad player.

Let's take a look at all the players currently under contract next year who make at least $8.0 million dollars, shall we? And let's look at them divided by player class (Bigman, Wing, or Point guard), and compare their Career WS/48s. Not included in these lists are free agents (Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, etc?), or reference to player ages, sizes, injury history, or experience. It's just Bigs, Wings, and PGs -- how much they are on the books for next year, and how good have they been according to WS/48. (Because not everyone likes PER, including myself, and there are arguments that I've been using softer stats lately)

Concerns:

I really don't want the Jazz to dish out half the GDP of Endor for a bad player. Or grossly overpay an okay player just to be here either. This isn't just related to signing free agents, we need to also look at our own roster first. We have a bunch (4) lotto picks who may not all be getting the playing time to deserve their hefty contracts right now. Enes Kanter made over $4 million this season, and played only 800 minutes. If we're going to be smart moving forward we need to be smart now. Do we have anyone really overpaid on our team right now?

Method:

I looked on a few websites and collected every playing who is signed for next year, and making at least $8.0 million dollars next year. I categorized them into player classes, and then ordered them from most expensive to least. Last, I also inputted their WS/48 values. Values that are grossly below the values of their peers (in terms of relative similarity in Salary) will be deemed to be overpaid. This is still going to end up being subjective -- like would Monta Ellis be a PG (as I classify him, in terms of his USG% and TO%) like I place him, or be a wing? Still, hard to argue with the numbers for some of these guys. Let's take a look.

The Numbers:

Bigmen (Centers, Power Forwards)					Wings (Shooting Guards, Small Forwards)					Point Guards
Player	Team	2012-13	Career		Player	Team	2012-13	Career		Player	Team	2012-13	Career
		Sal ($ M)	WS/48				Sal ($ M)	WS/48				Sal ($ M)	WS/48

Dirk Nowitzki	DAL	$20.9	0.212	.	Kobe Bryant	LAL	$27.9	0.184	.	Chris Paul	LAC	$17.8	0.238
Amare Stoudemire	NKY	$19.9	0.174	.	Rashard Lewis	WAS	$22.7	0.133	.	Deron Williams (PO)	NJN	$17.8	0.136
Dwight Howard (ETO)	ORL	$19.5	0.187	.	Carmelo Anthony	NYK	$20.5	0.129	.	Derrick Rose	CHI	$15.5	0.140
Pau Gasol	LAL	$19.0	0.178	.	Joe Johnson	ALT	$19.8	0.097	.	Tony Parker	SAS	$12.5	0.146
Elton Brand	PHI	$18.2	0.156	.	LeBron James	MIA	$17.6	0.233	.	Rajon Rondo	BOS	$11.0	0.137
Chris Bosh	MIA	$17.6	0.161	.	Dwyane Wade	MIA	$17.2	0.196	.	Monta Ellis	MIL	$11.0	0.073
Zach Randolph	MEM	$16.5	0.112	.	Paul Pierce	BOS	$16.8	0.167	.	Jose Calderon	TOR	$10.6	0.131
Andrew Bynum	LAL	$16.1	0.174	.	Kevin Durant	OKC	$16.7	0.167	.	Jameer Nelson	ORL	$8.6	0.123
Carlos Boozer	CHI	$15.0	0.161	.	Rudy Gay	MEM	$16.5	0.081	.	Rodney Stuckey	DET	$8.5	0.087
Al Jefferson	UTA	$15.0	0.127	.	Andre Iguodala	PHI	$14.7	0.127	.	Mo Williams	LAC	$8.5	0.088

LaMarcus Aldridge	POR	$14.0	0.146	.	Manu Ginobili	SAS	$14.1	0.216	.	Devin Harris	UTA	$8.5	0.117
Marc Gasol	MEM	$13.9	0.149	.	Luol Deng	CHI	$13.4	0.125	.
Tyson Chandler	NYK	$13.6	0.152	.	Danny Granger	IND	$13.1	0.132	.
Emeka Okafor	NOR	$13.5	0.115	.	Ben Gordon	DET	$12.4	0.092	.
Josh Smith	ATL	$13.2	0.102	.	Kevin Martin	HOU	$12.4	0.148	.
Andrew Bogut	GSW	$13.0	0.109	.	Hedo Turkoglu	ORL	$11.8	0.117	.
David Lee	GSW	$12.7	0.144	.	Corey Maggette	CHA	$10.9	0.129	.
Al Horford	ATL	$12.0	0.155	.	Richard Jefferson	GSW	$10.1	0.128	.
Joakim Noah	CHI	$11.3	0.173	.	Stephen Jackson	SAS	$10.1	0.066	.
DeAndre Jordan	LAC	$10.5	0.113	.	Gerald Wallace (PO)	NJN	$9.5	0.037	.

David West	IND	$10.0	0.133	.	Marvin Williams	ATL	$8.3	0.102	.
Andrea Bargnani	TOR	$10.0	0.064	.	John Salmons	SAC	$8.1	0.075	.
Luis Scola	HOU	$9.4	0.125	.	Caron Butler	LAC	$8.0	0.089	.
Andris Biedrins	GSW	$9.0	0.134	.	Thaddeus Young	PHI	$8.0	0.116	.
Paul Millsap	UTA	$8.6	0.156	.					.
Anderson Varejao	CLE	$8.4	0.149	.					.
Shawn Marion	DAL	$8.4	0.158	.					.
Brendan Haywood	DAL	$8.3	0.120	.					.
Tyrus Thomas	CHA	$8.0	0.083	.					.

Bigmen Avg		$13.3	0.142		Wings Avg		$14.2	0.129		PG Avg		$11.8	0.129

The obvious thing is that if there are some guys who are overpaid -- there are also guys who are steals. I think for the most part the Jazz have an absolute steal in Paul Millsap. Arguments can be made that they do have one in Devin Harris as well. But don't misunderstand these values, this doesn't mean Devin Harris is a Top 10 PG, this list doesn't include guys who make less than him who are better than him (guys on rookie deals), or current PG free agents (Steve Nash, etc).

Analysis-ish Stuff:

If you care about bang for your buck, and you put stock into WS/48 (and this is really the crux of this argument), then you must admit that for his career Al Jefferson's performance has not been equal to his $15m contract in 2012-2013. That doesn't make him a bad human being, or a bad NBA player -- or even someone we need to get rid of at all costs. It just means that for his career he hasn't been as good as he's getting paid to be. It means that he is overpaid. This next season Big Al COULD VERY WELL BE WORTH $15 million. We don't know, next season hasn't started yet. For the record, There are a number of players who have WORST WS/48 than Big Al who are scheduled to make +$2 million to -$2 million than him next year: Zach Randolph, Emeka Okafor, Josh Smith, and Andrew Bogut.

Devin Harris may not be perfect, but he's good enough to stay until we find the "next" starting PG for this team to replace him. He's not breaking the bank either.

Paul Millsap should not be moved, period. He's efficient as a player, and is making peanuts right now.

As for WS/48 -- I don't think it's in the best interest of Jazz fans to discount an advanced metric that ranks John Stockton as the 15th best player of all time in the entire NBA/ABA history. Do you?

Also thanks to all the people who explained Rashard Lewis' contract to me on twitter. It still makes me sad though. He's clearly overpaid in my estimation. As would be Monta Ellis, Joe Jonson, Rudy Gay, Ben Gordon, Stephen Jackson, Gerald Wallace, Josh Smith, and Tyrus Thomas. And we all kind of already inferred that. Hooray for redundant research!

SBN's Jon Bois breaks down NBA Team slogans, somehow "Get Loud, be Proud" was overlooked

2012-05-16T18:12:59Z

SB Nation's Jon Bois did a great job with this, looking at each NBA team's slogan, and putting that slogan in a category. AND THEN, charting that slogan against the other teams in that category -- based upon winning percentage. Fascinating. And horrible, if you have any background in marketing. Horrifying if you are a fan.

While the Get Loud / Be Proud anthem missed out, the Jazz were represented by this genius idea:

Check out the full post here.

NBA Competition Committee adds new members, including Jazz GM Kevin O'Connor

2012-05-16T18:03:35Z

The Competition committee is a small group, cabal if you will, of individuals who vote and discuss prospective rules changes to the NBA game. Everything from determining how flops are punished, to proposals to a four point line have to go through this group. The NBA's board of governors decided that this Comp committee needed to change. According to the SL Trib the committee "will now include two owners, four general managers, three head coaches and one representative from the NBA Players Association" (SL Trib, 2012). Fun stuff.

NBA's Competition Committee

General Manager	Bryan Colangelo	Toronto Raptors
General Manager	Kevin O'Connor	Utah Jazz
General Manager	Mitch Kupchak	Los Angeles Lakers
General Manager	Sam Presti	Oklahoma City Thunder
Head Coach	Doc Rivers	Boston Celtics
Head Coach	Lionel Hollins	Memphis Grizzlies
Head Coach	Rick Carlisle	Dallas Mavericks
NBA Player	TBA
Team Owner	Dan Gilbert	Cleveland Cavaliers
Team Owner	Joe Lacob	Golden State Warriors

As you can see from that list, right now 9 of the 10 members have been decided. And 5 of the members represent "smaller" markets (counting Toronto as a smaller market despite the fact that it is essentially a more polite version of New York city, with more parking spots). If the NBA player comes from a big market team, like Chicago, it will make it 'even' in terms of small market vs. large market.

Of course, it will remain to be seen how great a disparity exists between the markets despite any protracted gesture of 'fairness' by adding KOC to this group. Hope these guys can work together to help rectify a lot of the problems the league currently has. I think it would be good to have two refs as part of this group to. They are a major problem in this league, and would need to be involved if there was going to be a real look at flopping and any real attempts to remove it from the game.

The Downbeat #750 - The Well is Drying Up

2012-05-16T16:00:38Z

As you can tell from the clever DB title, Jazz news is starting to get pretty scarce. We've hit that lull happens every year between the end of the Jazz season to either the lottery drawing or the draft itself. This season we could spend a little extra time wandering the proverbial desert unless something gets shaken up on May 30th.

That being said, we could also have a wild summer starting with the draft depending on how the Jazz play things. Clark and Andy have done a fantastic job in laying out just about every conceivable scenario in which the Jazz use their assets, all we can do now is sit back and enjoy the ride.

One thing that I have been mulling over in my brain since the end of the Spurs series is what I call the Millsap dilemma. What I'm about to say may not go over well with a large contingency of Dunkers, even some of my peers on the Dunk roster, but I have come to a conclusion on the best way to improve this team and keep a player we adore. Millsap has to move to the bench. I am willing to go out on a limb and say that the Jazz will never win a championship with Millsap as their starting PF. As good as he is, they are simply too undersized for them to be effective and frankly, all things being considered Favors defensive prowess probably puts him pretty close to being the "best player" for the position.

Think about it. If Millsap embraced the role of 6th man ala Manu, Odom, Terry, or Harden, he would destroy 90% of the backup PF's and SF's in the league. To have that skilled of a player anchoring the bench is the type of thing that contenders are made of. Unfortunately, those same attributes that made him evolve from a second round pick to a fringe all-star are the same that won't allow him to be comfortable being relegated to a bench role- not for long anyway.

Over at her blog, Moni has the intel on DWill hanging out in Russia with his homeboy AK. This strikes me as quite odd. It always seemed that their relationship was a bit tentative when they played together here, so to see Deron over there attending games and going on double dates with AK and Masha a bit strange. Does he have ulterior motives? Is he trying to recruit him? For which team? It is entirely possible that Deron and AK developed a relationship after they left the Jazz. Deron seems to have matured quite a bit and for some reason is wont to surround himself with ex-Jazz teammates. Personally, I think it would be great to see them together somewhere just as it was when Memo joined the Nets. I think I will always be a bit sentimental towards those guys, especially Deron.

I hope everyone has continued to follow the playoffs. I haven't had time to follow as close as I like because of a new job, but they have been pretty great, especially this second round. I'm sure many of you have your "alternate" teams. I try to always keep mine in the East, so my alternate teams are the Sixers and the Pacers, and both teams managed to steal the second game on the road. Both of those series are going to be very good, but I don't think any of the EC teams have a chance against the Spurs and Thunder, that is becoming more apparent.

The official start dates for the summer leagues:

Orlando: July 9-13 (tentatively)

Vegas: July 13-22

With the Olympic team practicing in Vegas from July 6th to the 12th, it looks like the Jazz are going to have to be in the Vegas league, unless they decide to field a team minus Favors and Hayward.

Jazz Gordon Hayward joins elite group in Jazz History Books

2012-05-16T04:49:25Z

The Utah Jazz started off as the New Orleans Jazz. Their first season was in 1974-1975. Since then they've spent decades getting better and better. Part of why the Jazz have been good has been because of their success in drafting quality talent. Name some of the best and most popular players in Jazz history -- John Stockton, Karl Malone, Darrell Griffith, Thurl Bailey, Mark Eaton -- they were all drafted by the Jazz. Those five guys are locks to be on the All-Time Jazz roster. Other guys who the Jazz drafted, but are not playing with the team anymore, have been pretty great here too: Deron Williams and Andrei Kirilenko. Yes, this franchise has their share of duds too -- but a vast majority of the best/most popular players have been Jazz drafted. This is true for our current team too, one that boasts the talents of Paul Millsap, Jeremy Evans, and one dude from Butler. There's another similarity that ties all these guys together (save Evans -- whom I had to list as a current popular player; and Eaton who doesn't meet the criterion of this post).

What is it? Well, since 1974-1975 and last season there were 45 total times a Jazz player played over 2000 minutes in a season, while being 25 or younger. (Edited because I don't understand English) This season Gordon Hayward made the list. He was the player who did it a 46th time in franchise history. Bravo Gordon! The full list after the jump!

The List:

	At least 2000 minutes, while being 25 or younger
	Name	Season	Age	Minutes	Games	MPG
1	Adrian Dantley	1980-1981	24	3417	80	42.7
2	Adrian Dantley	1981-1982	25	3222	81	39.8
3	Adrian Dantley	1979-1980	23	2674	68	39.3
4	Karl Malone	1988-1989	25	3126	80	39.1
5	Karl Malone	1987-1988	24	3198	82	39.0

6	Andrei Kirilenko	2005-2006	24	2604	69	37.7
7	Deron Williams	2007-2008	23	3059	82	37.3
8	Andrei Kirilenko	2003-2004	22	2895	78	37.1
9	Deron Williams	2006-2007	22	2950	80	36.9
10	Deron Williams	2009-2010	25	2802	76	36.9

1	Deron Williams	2008-2009	24	2505	68	36.8
2	Darrell Griffith	1982-1983	24	2787	77	36.2
3	Darrell Griffith	1980-1981	22	2867	81	35.4
4	Karl Malone	1986-1987	23	2857	82	34.8
5	John Stockton	1987-1988	25	2842	82	34.7

6	Carlos Boozer	2006-2007	25	2557	74	34.6
7	Paul Millsap	2010-2011	25	2605	76	34.3
8	Ben Poquette	1980-1981	25	2808	82	34.2
9	Jim McElroy	1978-1979	25	2698	79	34.2
20	Rich Kelley	1978-1979	25	2705	80	33.8

1	Darrell Griffith	1981-1982	23	2597	80	32.5
2	Darrell Griffith	1983-1984	25	2650	82	32.3
3	Ronnie Brewer	2008-2009	23	2605	81	32.2
4	Thurl Bailey	1984-1985	23	2481	80	31.0
5	Louie Nelson	1975-1976	24	2030	66	30.8

6	Karl Malone	1985-1986	22	2475	81	30.6
7	Gordon Hayward	2011-2012	21	2015	66	30.5
8	Paul Millsap	2008-2009	23	2290	76	30.1
9	Andrei Kirilenko	2006-2007	25	2049	70	29.3
30	Deron Williams	2005-2006	21	2307	80	28.8

1	Thurl Bailey	1985-1986	24	2358	82	28.8
2	Ben Poquette	1979-1980	24	2349	82	28.6
3	Carlos Arroyo	2003-2004	24	2008	71	28.3
4	E.C. Coleman	1974-1975	24	2176	77	28.3
5	Mehmet Okur	2004-2005	25	2304	82	28.1

6	Jim McElroy	1976-1977	23	2029	73	27.8
7	Paul Millsap	2009-2010	24	2277	82	27.8
8	Andrei Kirilenko	2002-2003	21	2213	80	27.7
9	Ronnie Brewer	2007-2008	22	2088	76	27.5
40	Thurl Bailey	1986-1987	25	2155	81	26.6

1	Aaron James	1977-1978	25	2118	80	26.5
2	Andrei Kirilenko	2001-2002	20	2151	82	26.2
3	Rich Kelley	1977-1978	24	2119	82	25.8
4	Thurl Bailey	1983-1984	22	2009	81	24.8
5	Bobby Hansen	1985-1986	25	2032	82	24.8
6	Wesley Matthews	2009-2010	23	2025	82	24.7

I know you'll ask so:

No, Derrick Favors was no where close this past year. He was almost 700 minutes off. If he's not on the this list next season then we didn't bite the bullet and nut up as a franchise. (More on this later this off-season)

Special shout out to:

Spencer Campbell, over at TheUtahJazzBlog.com -- and the rest of the dudes who were in that one G+ Hangout months ago. I think he was the first guy to notice that Hayward was on pace to do something crazy in terms of playing minutes in a season -- and I did the quick calculation that it would be well over 2000 mins. I fully give Spencer the assist on this post for that. Great stuff from him, which should come as no surprise as you all visit his site daily, right?