Utah Jazz 2008-2009 Playing time and Rotation:

One of the greatest strengths for the Utah Jazz this season is the versatility of the roster. Even Jerry Sloan has seen it and he's fiddled with a variety of line-ups, everything from the very small (5'10 Brevin Knight, 6'1 Ronnie Price and 6'5 C.J. Miles as the 1, 2 and 3) to the very large (6'8 Paul Millsap at small forward, 7'1 Kosta Koufos at the four, and 7'1 Kyrylo Fesenko in the middle). In all only two players out of our total 15 man roster are an exclusivists in that they only play one position. Brevin Knight is a pure point guard who does not have the offensive range, or size to play shooting guard. Similarly, Kyrylo Fesenko is too big to play power forward, and he would be a liability on defense trying to guard people like Amare and David West one on one. Everyone else can play at least two spots -- and as a result, gives Jerry Sloan and the rest of the Jazz Brass a lot of chances to fiddle away. Here's a visual representation of the five different positions, and the guys who could conceivably play there during the course of any given game:

Point Guard	Shooting Guard	Small Forward	Power Forward	Center
Deron Williams	Ronnie Brewer	Andrei Kirilenko	Carlos Boozer	Mehmet Okur
Ronnie Price	Kyle Korver	Matt Harpring	Paul Millsap	Jarron Collins
Brevin Knight	C.J. Miles	C.J. Miles	Andrei Kirilenko	Kyrylo Fesenko
Andrei Kirilenko	Morris Almond	Kyle Kover	Mehmet Okur	Kosta Koufos
C.J. Miles	Andrei Kirilenko	Morris Almond	Kosta Koufos	Carlos Boozer
	Deron Williams	Paul Millsap
	Ronnie Price
	Matt Harpring

Unfortunately, the game is only 48 minutes long, and you can only play a maximum of 12 total guys in any given game. You would think, then, that there is a maximum total of 48 minutes available for each position, and thus -- 240 minutes per game to dish out. The math makes sense so far but gets more complicated when you look at the actual MPG from the team last season. Basically, the math does not add up. This is because not every player plays in every game. For example there are 48 minutes to give out at center . . . and last year our centers averaged 33.2 mpg (Okur), 10.0 mpg (Collins), and 7.8 mpg (Fesenko). That adds up to 51 minutes, which is 3 minutes over. Further muddying the waters is that Carlos played some five last season as well. As you can see, trying to reverse engineer a playing time chart based on the MPG played last season is not as easy as one would have previously thought.

I first tried to construct a playing time chart based upon the 240 minutes total theory, but that basically would result in some very upset players (we can't reasonably expect to give Matt Harpring DNP's all season long). Last season if you added up all of the MPG averages for all players (making up for Brevin Knight by using Jason Hart's time) the total was 277.9 mpg. That 37.9 extra mpg makes up for how some players do not play in every game, and how other players end up getting injured and so forth. However, that was for a total roster of 14 people -- and this season we have a full 15 man roster. In order to get what the new total should be I found the average playing time of what we had previously (278/14) and added that to 278. Thus, when I constructed my playing time chart I made it out of a total 298 minutes, and not 240. What do I end up with? (All the MPG for last season was rounded up or down accordingly)

	2007-2008 MPG	Proposed 2008-2009 MPG	+ / -	Justification?
Point Guard
D. Williams	37	37	0	He doesn't need to play any more or any less, though our depth allows for him to play less this season.
R. Price	10	10	0	Price will play in more games this season than Knight, and this, will average less MPG as his mins will fluctuate.
B. Knight	23	10.5	-12.5	Knight will be playing nearly 13 mpg less than he did last season with the LA Clippers, and he will be playing in less games as the 3rd string PG. However, the games he will be playing in will be games where he plays more mpg as they will be games where Deron is out of.
Shooting Guard
R. Brewer	28	29	+1	Brewer needs more playing time, but it's hard to get more.
K. Korver	22	21	-1	Kyle is playing great right now, but for us to be a really good team, he may have to just play better with less time, as we need defense.
M. Almond	4	9	+6	Almond is going to spend most of the season with the Flash again, and not see significant burn during the season. That said, he's going to play more MPG in the NBA this year.
Small Forward
C.J. Miles	12	16	+4	C.J. is starting for now, and needs to make the best of his time on the floor -- lest others take it from him.
Andrei Kirilenko	31	37	+6	I have my reasons, you can read about them here if you wish.
Matt Harpring	18	13.5	-4.5	This is justified by his MPG trends over the last 4 seasons compounded by his cumulative injury history.
Power Forward
Carlos Boozer	35	35	0	Boozer seems to do well in this amount of playing time, though in a contract year he may want more, though . . .
Paul Millsap	21	23	+2	. . . Paul Millsap is also in a contract year. There are only so many minutes to go around at the PF, so expect Boozer to be the back-up Center for us this season.
Center
Mehmet Okur	33	35	+2	Memo plays better when he plays more, need empirical proof? Read this take.
Jarron Collins	10	6	-4	Collins needs zero MPG, but it's not going to happen. Too bad!
Kyrylo Fesenko	8	11	+3	The only way that he's going to be the defensive big that we need is if he gets some time actually playing against guys like Bynum, Dwight, Yao and Oden. Nearly a quarter of every game he plays in should feature him getting said experience.
Kosta Koufos	n/a	5	+5	His job this year will be to play well in Orem, playing more MPG than Almond did in the NBA as a rookie will just be the icing on top.

This does cause some problems when trying to understand how any random, given game will go. The way I look at it, a random game somewhere after the all-star break will feature Morris Almond (Flash), Kosta Koufos (Flash) and CJ Miles on the IR. Harpring will be back, and playing minutes for us (you know, because he's Matt Harpring). So this is how I could reasonably accept the playing time to be divided:

PG		SG		SF		PF		C
D. Williams	37	R. Brewer	29	A. Kirilenko	35	C. Boozer	25	M. Okur	35
R. Price	7	K. Korver	19	M. Harpring	10	P. Millsap	21	C. Boozer	10
B. Knight	4			K. Korver	3	A. Kirilenko	2	K. Fesenko	3
Totals	48		48		48		48		48

Sure, this is playing 11 guys like Jarron Collins gets the DNP-CD . . . but I can see Price picking up two fouls in the 1st half making Knight need to get off the bench. Similarly, Okur could sit at the end of the first half letting Fes get some burn. I think it is important to stress that Jerry Sloan will like to keep 3 PGs on the active roster for as many games as he can. Back when the Jazz only used to keep 12 people on the roster there were always three PGs signed. (Yeah, like back in the Stockton, Farmer, Les days when current Memphis Coach Mark Iavaroni used to start for the Jazz) Also, I think Sloan wants to have at least 5 bigs: three of which will be Boozer, Okur and Millsap. For this game I felt like he'd want to have the veteran Collins there, as he always seems to be on the active roster for games, and Fesenko -- as Koufos would be currently assigned to the Flash at this point in time. I would rather have Harpring be on the IR, and have CJ be active . . . but Harpring is going to play this season, even in my hypothetical scenarios.

This is way more than I ever wanted to type about this . . . it's not like Sloan is going to listen to me, and recognize the optimum playing times for certain players (i.e. Memo @ 35+, AK @ 37, etc.), and let them play that much time. So in a way this was completely pointless . . . but in another way, this is the essence of blogging. It's all very Taoist in that regard.

Wages of Wins on Morris Almond

This is a bit older (Oct 14th, 2008), but a necessary look at Morris Almond from one of the most respected stat guys out there -- David Berri from The Wages of Wins. Basically he appraises Mobe to be better offensively (well, scoring-ingly) than the average NBA shooting guard, but below average when it comes to rebounds (by 1 rpg), steals (by 0.6 spg), personal fouls (by 0.7 fpg), assists (by 2.5 apg) and turn overs (where he gets 1.4 more turn overs per game). For the record he does block more than the average NBA shooting guard.

So, yeah -- you're saying "tell me something I don't already know" . . . well, I come from an unconventional school of thought. One where you eventually have to look at the type of player you have not based on what he is not, but on the type of things that got him to this stage. Almond went to high school with Atlanta's Josh Smith -- and recognized that he did not have the all around game (or athleticism) to do what Smith did; so he had to carve out a special niche for himself to excel in.

Almond's rookie stats don't look great compared to the average NBA shooting guard . . . unless you a) recognize that these are rookie stats, and b) you actually look at the stuff that Almond has really put in the time to work on -- and excel in. No one said on draft night that Morris Almond was going to be an NBA ready defender or playmaker from day one. What people said is that the kid can score at the NBA level.

According to the stats from the article above he can. The average NBA shooting guard (over 48 minutes) scores 20.8 ppg, goes to the line less than 5 times a game, and shoots a little above 48 adjusted fg% and about 80 ft%. What about Mobe? Dude scores a whopping 33.1 ppg (you know, almost 13 more ppg than "average"), he gets to the line 10 times a game (twice as much as 'average') and shoots a better percentage from FG and FT range.

So yeah . . . below average (by some really small margins like 1 rpg, or 0.7 fpg), but above average by some huge margins when it comes to what he is good at.

Still . . . Jerry Sloan isn't going to play him until he gets the all-around game he's going to need if he's ever going to be a starter . . . so yeah, see ya in Orem, Mo' ! And check out the article (link at the top of the post) from The Wages of Wins if you want to go a little deeper!

2008-2009 Utah Jazz Pre-Season Stats!

Yeah, here are the normal stats (and a few that I made up as well) . . . but presented by offensive stats and then defensive stats, any chart I try to post here ends up looking insane when I try to put it all in one. (And the image file would be similarly huge -- almost as huge as my expectations for this season!) Also if you are a huge Lyde or McNamara (or whatever that 3rd guy's name is) fan, I'm sorry, I did not bother to input their stats in my spreadsheet. You know, I don't really care about them that much. And Jazzfans? Deep down inside, neither should you. (oooooh, burn, take that Mwukelounke!) I respect Gabe Muoneke deeply as a person and a professional athlete. It is a shame that he was cut on the 22nd of October. He will no doubt catch on with another club and continue his successful climb to the NBA.

Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak for NBAE/Getty Images

Offense -- MPG is minutes per game; GMS is # of games played; PPG is Points per Game; FG%, 3PT% and FT% should be startlingly obvious. PPS is Points per Shot, as seen as the # of Points / Field Goals Attempted (FGA). SPM is Shots per Minute showing how frequently someone shoots a shot -- the smaller the number the more often the player shoots the ball when on the court. Ast and A:TO are assists and the Assist to Turn Over ratio.

	MPG	Gms	PPG	FG%	3PT%	FT%	PPS	SPM	Ast	A:TO
A.Kirilenko	24.0	7	9.0	47.2	16.7	75.7	1.75	4.67	2.86	1.54
B.Knight	15.0	5*	3.2	55.6	0.0	75.0	1.78	8.33	4.00	2.86
C.Boozer	25.2	5	14.2	49.0	--	79.3	1.45	2.57	2.00	0.45
C.J.Miles	19.9	7	6.6	32.5	33.3	69.6	1.15	3.48	2.00	1.27
D.Williams	21.3	6*	11.0	47.7	28.6	91.7	1.50	2.91	6.67	3.64
J.Collins	7.0	2*	1.0	33.3	--	0.0	0.67	4.67	1.5	undef
K.Fesenko	14.6	6**	2.6	26.7	--	54.5	0.87	4.87	1.00	1.00
K.Korver	22.3	7	11.0	50.9	57.1	100.0	1.40	2.84	1.71	1.20
K.Koufos	9.6	5*	4.2	55.6	100.0	0.0	1.17	2.67	0.40	0.33
M.Almond	17.4	5	8.3	36.4	33.3	66.7	1.00	2.64	0.20	0.17
M.Okur	21.3	7	10.1	49.1	37.5	63.6	1.29	2.71	1.24	2.00
P.Millsap	26.7	7	10.6	52.7	0.0	64.0	1.35	3.40	1.29	1.29
R.Brewer	23.6	7	10.9	54.5	40.0	60.9	1.38	3.00	0.86	1.20
R.Price	20.8	5	6.4	44.8	0.0	66.7	1.10	3.57	2.80	1.40

* Brevin Knight got injured after playing only 3 minutes in one game; Deron Williams got injured after playing only 6 minutes in one game; Jarron Collins got injured and had to be pulled after 7 minutes in each game; Kosta Koufos got injured after playing only two minutes in one game. All four of these player's stats are therefore not completely indicative of what their averages should have been.

** Kyrylo Fesenko was selected as an injury replacement to shoot free throws in the game Deron Williams was injured in. He did not play any minutes in the game, and his only statistics were going 2 for 3 at the free throw line. So his stats are similarly not completely indicative of what his averages should have been.

Jarron Collins has an undefined Assist to Turn over ratio as he has three assists and zero turn overs.

Defense -- MPG and GMS are the same from above. ORPG is Offensive rebounds per game. RPG is rebounds per game. SPG is steals per game. BPG is blocks per game. B+S/PF is (Blocks + Steals) / personal fouls. PFPG is personal fouls per game. TOPG is turn overs per game.

	MPG	Gms	ORPG	RPG	SPG	BPG	B+S/PF	PFPG	TOPG
A.Kirilenko	24.0	7	1.67	2.86	0.57	2.29	2.22	1.29	1.86
B.Knight	15.0	5*	--	1.20	1.80	--	1.13	1.60	1.40
C.Boozer	25.2	5	3.00	10.2	0.80	0.20	0.31	3.20	4.40
C.J.Miles	19.9	7	0.43	2.14	0.57	0.29	0.27	3.14	1.57
D.Williams	21.3	6*	--	1.33	1.83	0.17	6.00	0.33	1.83
J.Collins	7.0	2*	1.00	2.00	1.00	--	0.67	1.50	0.00
K.Fesenko	14.6	6**	1.80	3.80	0.20	0.40	0.25	2.40	1.00
K.Korver	22.3	7	0.43	2.57	0.43	0.43	0.43	2.00	1.43
K.Koufos	9.6	5*	0.80	2.80	--	0.60	0.43	1.40	1.20
M.Almond	17.4	5	0.80	1.60	0.40	--	0.15	2.60	1.20
M.Okur	21.3	7	1.14	3.71	0.86	0.29	0.32	3.57	0.57
P.Millsap	26.7	7	2.71	6.43	1.57	0.36	0.60	3.57	1.00
R.Brewer	23.6	7	1.00	2.71	1.14	0.29	0.91	1.57	0.71
R.Price	20.8	5	--	1.20	0.80	--	0.33	2.40	2.0

Player Analysis --

• AK looks a little sluggish though this may be a reflection of me pouring over his stats the last few days and this is entirely a too small sample size of games where he's averaged only 24 mpg. His points per shot is pretty much a career high though -- more a reflection of getting to the line over 5 times a game in so few minutes on the floor.
• I'm impressed with Knight, I didn't think that he'd be able to get 1.8 spg in his limited minutes, but he proved me wrong. His APG and A:TO ratio were right near his averages though, so that's awesome. Why did he bother taking a three pointer though, he knows he's not good at those?
• Boozer did not play a lot of games, but finishes the preseason averaging a double double, but I'd like to see his FG% go up a bit.
• CJ needs to find his shot because, man, he isn't doing too much of anything else on the floor.
• Brewer came to play this season, and you can tell. He's hitting 40% of his threes this season so far, and he's still shooting 55 fg%, which is flat out insane. Dude needs to pass a bit more though.
• Deron Williams does not foul people, his stats are insane as a result. The two things that Chris Paul was ahead of him was in SPG and FT%, Deron is getting 1.8 spg and shooting over 90% from the line this Pre-Season. Wow!
• Collins, Fesenko and Koufos all have their good points and their bad points. Koufos shoots a high percentage (though he missed all 6 of his FTs in preseason), Collins never turns the ball over and dishes, and Fesenko is a good quote. (Well, to his credit Fesenko did have that one good game where he had a double double -- one of the few for the entire team this pre-season. The problem was that it was ONLY ONE GOOD GAME) If you mixed them up you'd end up with one good basketball player and one really bad one (and one really bad Golf Cart driver).
• Korver has been shooting the lights out, 50.9 fg%, 57.1 3pt%, and 100% from the FT line. He doesn't do much else but shoot, but compared to Almond he looks like Oscar Robertson.
• Okur looks like he's sleepwalking again . . . less than 4 rpg from your starting center is bad. It looks worse when compared to his efforts in the post season last year, where he had games of 18 and 19 boards among his average of a Playoff double double. His assists to turn over ratio is 3rd best on the team though, but his FT% was horrible.
• Paul Millsap played the 2nd most minutes and got the 2nd most rebounds. He stole the ball a lot, but I'd like to see some more blocks -- and please improve that fg% man!
• Ronnie Price, like so many other guys, was quite banged up, and he didn't make any of his threes.
• The fact that Koufos and Almond shoot the ball more frequently than everyone else on the team (except Carlos Boozer) is not going to help them earn playing time under Sloan. Those two and Fesenko are going to spent a lot of time in Orem this year again from what I've seen in these Pre-season games.
• Matt Harpring currently has no stats, and there are a lot of fans who would like to keep it that way

The D League is not poop.

It's come to my attention that I may have been overly critical of the NBA developmental league. In my defense, I don't think I was clear in my original statements, so allow me to elucidate my point of view. I do not think that the D league is poop. In fact, I think I enjoy the NBA DL on more pure levels than I love the NBA. I've longed for a real farm system in the NBA for years and I'm happy that we finally have that (though not every team has their own affiliate). The NBA DL is a fantastic place filled with stories of hard work and a path to greater glory. Personally, I think a guy like Randy Livingston should be the first guy in the NBA-DL Hall of Fame as a player (at least on some life time achievement level at least).

Without sounding like one of those "some of my best friends are _______ (insert previously maligned group name)" after the fact apologies I do have to say that I watch NBA-DL games even when my team isn't playing. Some people love the NBA developmental league more than I do, and that's cool . . . but I wanted to say sorry if I sounded like I thought it was pointless.

I just think that in the selfish world of making Morris Almond a better NBA player he's only going to get better by playing against other NBA players. (Like defending other NBA guys, or getting passes, screens and so forth from other NBA guys) This was the number one observation I made after watching him play in the Rocky Mountain Review a few months ago. His ceiling is pretty much maxed out in Orem. That's my personal opinion. I know that the Jazz keep close ties to the Flash, and Jerry Sloan's nephew is the head coach down there in Orem . . . but that doesn't mean that there is complete equivalency between the two systems. There just cannot be, because there is such a talent gap. In Orem Almond may drive the ball to the free throw line, have defenders prevent him from shooting a good shot, and have him reverse the ball to an open Kevin Kruger . . . only for him to brick an open jumper.

Photographed by someone for NBAE, I'm guessing . . . and here's is Almond posting up, when was the last time the Jazz posted up a SG (or SF, for that matter) in the course of a regular game? They almost exclusively get the ball off of screens and cuts, not post ups. Something tells me that these are plays that don't help Almond get better for Sloan's non-SG posting up offense.

Though, Kruger is a statistically accurate shooter for a guard at 43.5 fg% and 38.8 3pt%, I've seen this happen more often that I'd wish for. If Almond was playing with the Jazz a) he'd be passing the ball to NBA talent, and b) Deron would be the one driving, and Morris would be the guy with the open shot.

In some ways I get the feeling that KOC, Sloan and the rest of the Jazz brass may look at the NBADL as a chance to ship people off to (and have them improve magically) while not really developing them directly; or even worse, just a place to stash someone who is on contract and forget about unless there are injuries to the senior team. (Like what happened with Fesenko last season when Boozer and Memo went down and he had a whale of a game against the LA Lakers in a Jazz win)

When C.J. Miles went to the d-league he was 18 years old and had no college experience -- it clearly helped him both times he was sent down. Morris Almond is in a different situation has he'll be 22 this season, and had 4 years of college. (And he already spent most of the season with the farm team, so he's experienced that already)

I think that guys like Kosta and Fesenko need the farm team, because it can help them get better for playing with the senior team. The farm system has helped guys before in the past (like CJ). I just fail to see the long term utility of it for SPECIFICALLY Morris Almond.

That's just my two cents. In closing: NBA D-League is awesome, I just would rather Almond play 10 mpg for the Jazz and get into 60 games under Sloan than play 35 mpg with the Flash and end up playing in 10 NBA games this season.

Things to look for this season: Morris Almond

If you've been following this blog for a while (perhaps by some court ordered mandate or potential Gitmo torture method) you may have noticed that I associate C.J. Miles' trials and tribulations to that of the works of Shakespeare. (And really, it's almost apt!) Morris Almond (or 'Mobe' as I like to call him) requires a whole other author to describe him -- probably Charles Dickens. Most specifically the whole "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" bit from A Tale of Two Cities. For Almond the two cities are -- obviously -- Salt Lake City, Utah and Orem, Utah. These are the respective homes of the NBA's Utah Jazz and the NBA-DL's Utah Flash franchises.

Orem, Utah	Salt Lake City, Utah
Morris Almond is the star player for the Utah Flash, the NBA-DL's Impact player of the year who gave teams 50 twice that year and was involved in everything from the All-Star game, H.O.R.S.E. and set league scoring records.	In the Salt Lake he is a guy who only gets burn in garbage time, and seems to be unremarkable in any distinct way . . . save for his lack of hustle on defense and below average quickness and court vision. (3 assists last season, total)

Morris Almond is coming off quite the 'tale of two cities' Rookie campaign in 2007-2008 -- if it wasn't made absolutely clear by now already. This season his Rocky Mountain Review Summer League ball had ups and downs, but over all it showed us that he is a dynamite scorer with NBA ready moves -- but does not really grasp the team game yet (hence the name "Mobe", like "Kobe"). His work so far in the Pre-Season has been -- pretty much -- more of the same of what we expect of him -- just in less minutes.

• 8 points per game
• 12 FGM - 29 FGA (41.4 FG%)
• 7.25 Field Goals Attempted per Game
• 1 Shot for ever 2.45 minutes played
• 1 - 3 from the three point line (33.3 3pt%)
• 7 - 9 at the free throw line (77.8 ft%)
• 1.5 rebounds per game (RPG)
• 0.25 assists per game (APG)
• 0.50 steals per game (SPG)
• 1.25 turn overs per game (TOpg)
• 17:45 average minutes per game (MPG)

Ideally he'd have more than 1 assist in 4 pre-season games -- but let's not forget that is probably better than what he was getting in Summer League this past season. Some of his troubles must stem from the fact that he is essentially two different people depending on if he's with the Jazz or the Flash. In Orem his role is that of 'The Man' and he knows that on every offensive possession his team has the best chance of making a bucket if the ball goes through him. It's pretty much a continuation of what he had to deal with his last two seasons at Rice in the NCAA's. When he's wearing a Jazz uniform it's completely different -- he's at the bottom of the totem pole and his role is completely different. The offense doesn't run through him, it's his job to be a cog in the larger Utah Jazz offensive machine.

In some ways we kind of know who he is, and what he can do -- there's very little benefit to having him run in the NBA-DL anymore because it's not like that improves him as a player, nor does it better prepare him to play with the Jazz (as what the Flash need out of him is pretty much the opposite of what Jerry Sloan wants to see from him). That said, what three things should we look forward to this season from Morris Almond?

1. Pass the Rock more -- Being a good offensive player is more than just being able to give other teams' buckets. If he's not going to get on with the hustling, rebounding and defending -- the least he can do is learn the playbook and make passes. I'm sure it's quite discouraging to actually pass the ball to an open guy in the NBA Developmental League, only to have him clang the shot. I watched every Summer League Game and I saw Morris passing the ball, only for his team (and his boxscore) to be rewarded with nothing. Pretty much he's been somewhat classically conditioned to dislike passing. Here I am being all Mr.Psychology and getting past the FA-err and try to figure out why he's seen as an offensive black hole. Whatever the cause, he has to break out of it. My solution would be with the Cognitive-Behavioral therapy of systematic desensitization. Basically, the more time he plays with other guys who can make shots the more and more he'll understand that positive results can happen when he passes the ball. He hasn't really played with good players (even in garbage time he's running out there with Jarron Collins, and not Mehmet Okur), so it's not like he's had good targets. If he's running around against second string guys with Korver, AK and Millsap I'm sure we'll see some more passes -- after all, passing is contagious.
2. Get caught up in a numbers game -- See what I did there? I put him on the bench in our team in Salt Lake City . . . I guess assuming that a) Brewer and Miles start and b) Harpring is still out for part of the season. The grim reality is that there are too many talented people for too few minutes. (96 total at the wings -- Brewer and Andrei need at least 30, and Kover needs around 20, so that leaves 16 TOTAL to be divided between C.J., Morris and Harpring) If you just take out guys playing small forward there's only 48 minutes to go round for four guys -- which is just insane any way you slice it. The time Morris does see on NBA courts are going to be high pressure situations for him as he tries to make a name for himself and earn more playing time. Basically this could just lead to him jacking a lot of shots as that's probably what he does best. That's quickly not going to fly with the Jazz brass, and even though it doesn't make him better, makes it harder for him to adjust to his role on the Jazz, and reinforces bad habits -- eventually may lead to him playing the majority of this 2008-2009 season in Orem . . . just like last year.
3. Take it out on the NBA-DL -- And that's just going to make him angry, and cause him to go all Hulk like on the NBA-DL out of frustration. (After all, he can audition for other teams that way, as it's filled with scouts, and after he drops 50 a few times next year some Shooting Guard anemic teams may drop Kevin O'Connor an e-mail or two).

I may be in the minority here, but I really think that the bad parts of the NBA-DL outweigh the benefits of sending Morris down there. I don't know what they do down there in Flash practice, but when it's game time they want to win, and they do that by having Almond shoot a lot. I only watched about 5 or 6 Flash games last season, and it doesn't look like they do anything but post him up, or run plays for him. Jerry doesn't call those plays in Utah -- so it's not like sending him down there makes him any better prepared for playing for Jerry. The best way to make him earn playing time with the Jazz is to -- I dunno -- have him be on the active roster? And for the record, he had more asissts per game with the Flash than Harpring did with the Jazz (and with better shooters) . . . I just say put Harp on the IR, and have Almond and others take his place. (unless we are playing Ron Artest or Carmelo Anthony -- he completely takes those guys out of their games)

YouTube Tuesdays! The man they call Mobe

As far as roster depth at SG goes, it's not like the Jazz brass are in a bad spot. Sure, there's no Superstar playing SG in our offense, but it's not like our offense is built around a Superstar Guard who takes a lot of shots either. Do any of the Jazz guards have what it takes to be a superstar? Probably not, but out of what they currently have, you can clearly see that at least ONE of them may one day be an NBA All-Star. Having to divvy up 48 minutes between three point ace Kyle Korver, super athletic Ronnie Brewer, a 4th year player who is only 21 (C.J. Miles) and the Impact player of the year in the NBA-DL (Morris Almond) isn't as bad as having to split that same amount of time between Greg Ostertag, John Amaechi, Curtis Borchardt and Jarron Collins. (and yes, we almost made the playoffs with that at center) That's why I suggest that the Jazz brass are not in a bad spot, because they've been in much worse spots before.

Today we're going to see Morris Almond break the D-League scoring record, and while the length of this video does not span a large sample size of the game, we can clearly see the makings of a solid offensive player. Certainly, it's not a bad thing if the 4th guy on your shooting guard depth chart can score 50+ in a game (which Almond has demonstrated in his games of 51 and 53 points last season) in an American professional basketball league (which the D-League is). I probably look at Almond's game a lot differently than other Jazz fans who are holding out for a complete player. I don't expect him to be Ray Allen. I don't expect him to be Dell Curry either -- Almond's game somewhere in-between those two.

Morris Almond wowed fans and opposing coaches alike last season in the NBA-DL, though this season he must try to impress Jerry Sloan with the other parts of his game besides offense. Photo by NBAE/Getty Images.

As I live in Detroit I get to enjoy a lot of exposure to Pistons players (heck, Preeti (if you don't know who she is then sucks to be you) had dinner with Chauncey Billups tonight); one player that I've had a good hard look at has been Rip Hamilton. He's not the most athletic guy around, nor is he a great one on one defender. (If he was, then the Pistons wouldn't get killed by LeBron every other game) Rip isn't a complete player -- he's not going to dunk on other guys, or beat 3 guys off the dribble like Kobe does. On offense he runs other guys through the Reggie-Miller-hamster-wheel-of-death, gets open, and makes jumpers. Aren't those the only shots that SGs really get in our offense anyway?

With this information (that the only shots for SGs in our half court offense happen to be the types that Rip gets and makes) I heartily envision a spot on the floor for Almond in the future. Why? Because Morris Almond (if plugged into such a system) can perform that well. He has all of those moves already and can be just as efficient. He only looks like a chucker who never gets assists because we've only seen him play with marginally capable point guards and really bad players everywhere else. Just check out the video, and try convincing yourself that if he played with Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer and the pass-happy Andrei Kirilenko that he wouldn't be able to keep the defenses honest more than Brewer does with his broken shot.

Almond Tops Scoring Record [1:37] Uploaded by sanskrit953263 -- Earlier in the season Almond had scored 51 points, and he breaks his own (and the NBA DL's) record with this performance on January 30th, 2008. He ended up shooting 19-34 (3-7 from three, 12-14 at the FT line), and added 6 boards, 2 steals and 2 assists. He's never going to get to shoot it that much in a week of NBA action next season, but it's not like he was chucking the ball, he's the only offensive player on his team (hello triple teamed?) and he still managed to shoot 55.8 fg% on his way to 53 points !!!

The YouTube comments section is interesting to read, especially how non-Jazz fans suggest that he has some, albeit minor, Kobe-like skills with scoring the ball. (Particularly with his post up game, which is good for a guard, and as his Jazz teammates Paul Millsap and Ronnie Brewer tease, how he never passes the ball) That's basically why they named him Mobe. Looking at how smooth he plays on offense, I can easily see why the name has stuck.

Do I think he should start? No. Do I think he should get a chance to show his stuff with good players? Yes. Realistically, he is a season or two away from being a legit NBA player. Watching him in summer league I came to the conclusion that he was not learning anything new by playing with guys worse than him. For him to get better he needs to play against guys who are better than he is -- essentially, NBA players. His defense is not so hot (but he does try and has a good blocks to foul ratio, one of the better ones on the roster for sure).

But . . . is defense really a Jazz priority in the first case? We win games by out scoring them, our paint area is patrolled by our small forward and our bigmen don't play any defense. To fix our defense we'd have to break down a lot of our current structure. It's almost better to keep getting better at offense, because we sure as heck can't stop anyone from scoring. I guess this is what will only make Almond that much more important to our future -- I'm sure that he will become the best offensive player out of him, Korver, Brewer and Miles. Again, Rip Hamilton has flaws, but he can be an All-Star, I'm sure we can coax 12 ppg out of Morris Almond 2-3 seasons from now.

RMR Game 1: Spurs 28 -- Jazz 9

Really, that's the only score that matters -- the score from the 3rd quarter of last night's game. In the 1st, 2nd and 4th quarters combined the Jazz were +6. In the 3rd quarter the Jazz were -19. Ultimately the Jazz got cracked pretty hard.

W5 (5 factors that influenced the game):

• Who: George Hill -- who killed it
• What: 3rd quarter collapse -- Went from +3 to -16
• Where: Orem -- where I can see 5 guys on our RMR team play in the near future
• Why: Foul Trouble -- our young bigs were in it
• How: Experience and Talent -- our RMR team is short on both

Reactions:

Ty Corbin (Utah coach):

"[it wasn't pretty] . . . some of the things we worked on in camp we didn't come out and execute tonight . . . we would like a lot better effort than we had tonight . . . we didn't think defensively we could have played as hard as we would like . . . we had a spurt in the 3rd quarter where the first guy to touch the ball took a shot, we can't play that way . . . we've got a lot of work to do.

"[Fesenko and Koufos] have a long way to go . . . two-a-days hurt them, Koufos especially, his head maybe spinning a little bit . . . he got into foul trouble a little bit early, and then he started pouting a little bit

"[looking] to see where [Almond's] growth is from last year, he had a pretty decent time in the D-League last year, struggled with [the NBA team], want to see if he's grown and scoring is not the only thing for him, he's got to learn how to play defense a little bit better, and pass the ball more and execute the offense a little better." (Corbin, via. nba.com, 2008)

Here are what the players thought:

Deron Williams (Utah, PG, non-participant):
	"[Koufos] is still 19. I don't know how much he's gonna help this year . . . he can run the floor. He can shoot the ball. Play with his back to the basket a little bit . . . he's just gonna have to learn how to defend . . . the main thing with him is just convincing him that he doesn't need to score. He just needs to rebound, and defend, and block shots. That's what we really need," (Williams, via. espn.com, 2008)
Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images
Morris Almond (Utah, SG/SF):
	"It was the first game, and the good thing is that we have a game tomorrow. This one is in the past, and under our belts . . . we had a solid first half, we were in the game, but it kind of got away from us in the 2nd half . . . the key is learning and getting better and playing a whole game. I just try to take what's there, I'll always be a shooter, but at the same time the game is more than just catching it and hoisting it, if I can get to the basket I try to do that." (Almond, via. nba.com, 2008)
Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images
Kyrylo Fesenko (Utah, C):
	"That was probably my worst game ever." (Fesenko, via. espn.com, 2008)
Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images
Kosta Koufos (Utah, C/PF):
	"It was a blessing [to play], I'm still trying to learn the system, I'm getting better every day, work hard, and just try to do my best . . . just play smarter . . . just gotta play my game." (Koufos, via. nba.com, 2008)
Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images

What's next? The Atlanta Hawks, RMR Gm. 2