Scouting Report: Week Five

/ sgodfrey630

ICYMI: Playoff seeding, awards, and other predictions are here for your pleasure. Or, read about the various combinations lurking to dethrone the Warriors. Read that here.

The Jazz didn’t have the best week, losing two of three at home and watching their big guy go down, too. Here’s what’s next.

Monday at home vs Minnesota

While watching the Utah Jazz from his new home in Boston, probably decorated by Magnolia Farms, Gordon Hayward must be thinking:

  • Whoa, those guys in Salt Lake really need my offense (Jazz ranked 28th out of 30 teams in points a game at 96.9)
  • Can you imagine if I broke my ankle in Vivint on a Sunday? Grown men would be crying and I’m sure congregations across the state would fast and pray for my well-being.
  • Why didn’t Joe Ingles take my number, and become #20? I thought we were bros, bro.
  • Do you think Zupas remembers when they food poisoned me? Did they know I was leaving and was just seeking out preemptive revenge? Yup, I bet that’s what happened.
  • It would’ve been awesome to match up against Jimmy Butler and the T-Wolves four times a season, basically them vs us for the division crown (cause, c’mon, Carmelo is on the Thunder!)

Alas, Hayward is watching his new team and I still don’t really like talking about him so we’ll focus on Jimmy Butler instead.

In a recent feature with ESPN, Butler takes writer Sam Alipour into the great outdoors of Minnesota. Butler, a dude who loves Taylor Swift and country music, was excited to camp, canoe, and eat smores on an off-day while talking about his new team and teammates. If you haven’t read it, it’s entertaining and you can find it here.

One quote that made the rounds last week was when Butler was asked his expectations for the year in which he said he expects to win a championship in Minny. He recognizes the franchise hasn’t been to the playoffs in 13 years but everyone on the team has adopted a new mantra: screw history (or something slightly more profane).

Alipour then asks Butler a generic question: Are you happy? To which Butler replies, “yeah, I’m happy — I’m out here in nature, baby! I’m fortunate. It’s the start of something beautiful here with a young core and an organization that really knows what they’re doing. I got a real chance of winning a championship here. God, like, I wake up smiling every morning knowing that we got a chance to be really good”

Now, I’m not on the hype train that Minnesota can compete for championships but they are certainly a talented team, with a great coach, and will be in the playoffs (currently sitting 3rd in the conference which may regress a bit). They beat the Jazz by three early in the season, but I was excited to see if how Rudy slows down Karl Anthony-Towns (averages a team-high 21.3 points a game on a team-high 55% shooting) and if the length of our wings can match up with the length of theirs.

The bad news, however, is that Rudy is out which means Derrick Favors gets the task of fronting Towns. Favors is a strong defender, but I’m sure Towns did some excited jumping jacks when he heard Gobert was out.

Wednesday at New York Knicks (5:30 PM tip)

The other day, I waited in line for a special Harry Potter exhibit at the Shops at the South Town shopping center in Sandy, UT. It sounded fun, but I didn’t realize the exhibit opened the day before, nor that Utah has a very unhealthy infatuation with the Wizarding World.

We show up at 11 AM and didn’t get in until 1:30 that afternoon. It was awful. I got hot and dizzy. I was hungry. I was in line where kids were crying and spilling drinks on the floor and laying in line to sleep while they waited and I just wanted to do that too but I’m an adult and that’s taboo. So I just waited. And it sucked.

And that’s how the Knicks have been for the last few years now. It sounds like fun to have Carmelo and Phil Jackson and maybe a Derrick Rose or Joakim Noah of old, but really, you just realize it sucks and is awful and there’s no point and you’d rather be a little boy trapped in a broom closet with a rude Muggle family than have to watch The Knick disaster also known as The Triangle, circa 2015.

Thankfully, Melo and Phil and the past-their-primes Bulls are gone and it’s the Kristaps Porzingis show now. All Kristaps, all the time.

New York is a surprise success this year and its because they have a Unicorn – an athletic deep shooting big –  leading them in the Big Apple. Porzingis is averaging 30(!) points a game, second to the other NBA Unicorn Giannis Antetokounmpo at 31.5 a game. Porzingis does it all over the court, but it’s even more impressive when you realize 50-year-old Jarret Jack is the starting point guard and leading the team in assists (5.5/game).

If the Knicks can develop teenager Frank Ntilikina, the backup point guard but future, the tandem can prove dangerous. Ntilikina is an intriguing prospect from France that New York snagged with the 8th pick in the recent draft. He’s coming along slowly, plays about 20 minutes a game, but is a 6 foot 5 PG who likes to run the floor and set up teammates while also being able to use his length to get his own offensively, too. Just imagine this for the next ten years.

Friday at Brooklyn Nets (5:30 PM tip)

In the first non-Gobert game of the year, Favors stepped up and proved he can still play basketball. He played so well (24 points, 12 rebounds), in fact, that many are wondering if we should still trot out two-big lineups once Gobert returns. It’s quite the conundrum.

Obviously, the Jazz aren’t trading away Gobert as he is an All-NBA center who has dictated the Jazz’s identity as a defensive force. He will finish top three in Defensive Player of the Year voting again this year, and for many years to come, so long as he is healthy.

That said, pairing him with Favors is less than ideal only because it limit’s Favor’s potential offensively. On top of that, spreading the floor is a little harder to do with two behemoths sucking air in the paint. The Jazz are trying to space the floor, but the toilet gets clogged too easily.

In fact, according to Bball-Reference, the Gobert-Favors pairing is a -3.7 points per 100 possessions in 216 minutes together. It’s not the lowest two-man combination on the roster (that title belongs to Gobert and Rubio at -10) but it is still a negative. Many Jazz fans have seen how beneficial Thabo Sefolosha has been off the bench as a small-ball four, and the metrics back it up as he has a positive pairing with either big.

As the Jazz move forward without Gobert, it’ll be up to Sefolosha and Joe Johnson (when he returns from injury) to complement Favors down low and provide the spacing the Jazz need to thrive. It’ll be interesting to see how the next 4-6 months progress offensively without Gobert as we know how much he will be missed on the other side, too. It’ll be more telling, however, to see how the Jazz and Quin Snyder move forward once Gobert returns.

Saturday at Orlando (5:00 PM tip)

Aaron Gordon normally just did this:

via GIPHY

But now the Magic are using him at Power Forward and it’s like he took some of Michael Jordan’s secret stuff from Space Jam.

Aaron Gordon is averaging nearly 20 points a game, 8 rebounds, and a freaking 23 PER! Earlier in the season, Gordon went off for 41 points against the Nets, making him like a Shaq 2.0.

On top of that, the Magic are 8-4 and averaging 110 points a game which ranks 4th in the league and shooting 40% from deep as a team, good for 1st in the league. They are hot and I’m not sure why.

Part of the reason why is that Orlando is finally figuring out how to piece their roster together. Their frontline – Gordon, Nikola Vucevic, and Gobert’s buddy Evan Fournier – all average more than 17 points a game and Jonathon Simmons, the ex-Spur, comes off the bench for 15. Elfrid Payton and Shelvin Mack (hi, old friend!) are playing solid point guard minutes, spreading the ball around effectively. A lot of credit also needs to go to head coach Frank Vogel who led the Indiana Pacers to their glory days vs the LeBron Heat a few years ago. Last year was his first in Orlando, and it was rocky, but this year is proving time is working the wrinkles out.

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