I like everything except Yurt over Kessler in the long term.

Yurt has been awesome for us but Kessler’s potential, rim protection and growth is very important to our rebuild. Once he gets back to 100% from the injury he should be starting.

Keyonte, Kessler & Lauri are the main core pieces we are building around. You have to play these guys together as much as possible. With Hendricks, Agbaji, Sensabaugh with potential to be added so far.

Mutli-year deals don’t necessarily correlate to playing time if said players continue to play bad. Especially if we’re going by the no free minutes mantra Hardy says he follows. But Sexton’s contract is so big that it sucks he just can’t ever consistently show any improvement.

Our reporters have already mentioned that a key reason THT still gets minutes is because his agent is Rich Paul. And the Jazz Front Office doesn’t want to piss him off by benching him too early in the year. Because then he can choose not to want to work with the Jazz down the road and he represents like half the league.

Clarkson still deserves minutes, I just think he should go back to being a 6th man for us if we keep him. But his contract he signed this past offseason was largely made to have him as more tradeable asset for us. It’s very possible we trade him at the deadline as much as I love him.

Be careful or he’ll tell you how shameful it is to disrespect his god, THT, and that his “stats” will show how amazing he is.

THT & Sexton just shot a combined 5-22 from the field, 2-9 from 3 with 4 TOs combined. I am so beyond sick of watching these two continue to get minutes over literally anybody on roster or G-League team. And there is no team in the NBA that would think playing these 2 together off the bench is a good idea other than us.

Clarkson had 4 turnovers again as well. As much as I personally love JC, his decision making as a starter is a glaring issue as well. And I am starting to get frustrated with his shot selection more this year.

Kessler needs to be starting long term over Omer. I think Omer has proven he deserves minutes, but Kessler is our best rim protector by far still. I would like to see him start tomorrow against Rudy & the Twolves.

Our road record is really bad, which can be expected from a young team, but I really hope this group can show improvement over the year.

We’re rebuilding, so it is what it is, but this is a pretty disappointing loss after they play so good against the Pelicans.

Agreed. I think he’ll still come back here for his last year in the league and retire though. Utah will always love Rudy.

Tell me you don’t understand what a 3 second defensive violation is without actually telling me.

Well I’m not surprised in the slightest from what we’ve seen from him.

What a great turnaround, super impressed by this group without Lauri. It seems like the group is starting to buy in more.

Omer, Simone, Ochai, Kessler for their effort on both sides, they deserve a ton of praise for stepping up big time.

The effort, defense and ball movement look so much better…

Keyonte George continues to improve almost every game and getting more and more confident. Just has so much potential man.

Couple of issues I had: Keyonte absolutely should have the ball in those late game scenarios over JC. The ball needs to run through your best court general & distribution. And I’d also like to see our starters come in earlier in close games in the 4th like that.

I hope we can carry this good play on the road and keep playing this brand of competitive & unselfish basketball.

The in-season tournament group play has not finished yet for everyone, so once that is finished this week and they know who is going to Vegas and not, they will release details on those games.

As for the opponent, nobody will know who, other than a team not going to Vegas.

I never said he was untouchable. I said the Jazz aren’t going to entertain a trade unless you offer a top 15 player or a ridiculous haul in return.

There’s zero reason for the Jazz to trade Lauri for anything less than that currently. They’re content building around him.

Let me make this as clear as possible and please pass this along to the rest of your fanbase.

Unless you include Chet or SGA, the Jazz will not even entertain a conversation.

Lauri is a perennial All Star, just barely entering his prime, averaging 25 on near 40/50/90 splits with low usage, on a team friendly contract for 2 years, a perfect #2 next to almost any star they bring in, and has talked about how much him and his family love Utah and all signs currently point to him understanding it may take some time and being patient with the rebuild. Similar to how SGA was with you guys.

The Jazz consider him a cornerstone to their rebuild and has significantly shortened our timeline. That is a player they want to build around and find a #1 through trades or the draft to pair with not trade away for anyone other than possibly a top 15 player in the league.

I love what OKC is doing and SGA & Chet are nuts. Best of luck the rest of year. But I’d say you’d be better looking elsewhere for a trade target currently.

Things can change quickly and if the Jazz don’t look playoff competitive next year it may be harder for them to convince Lauri to stay so who knows

It’s unfortunately part of being a rookie. Almost everyone goes through it. It absolutely sucks and shouldn’t be a thing, but he’ll learn to deal with it with it AND make the refs respect him more.

Feels like a fog cleared over the valley. I missed this feeling.

Much better effort out of that group tonight. Keyonte is our future, happy Kessler is back, Yurt deserves minutes.

Let’s get another W on Monday!

This is a good and realistic reminder for Jazz fans.

I’d just like to add that…

A) Jazz fans should expect the competitive effort we saw in the Suns games, as opposed to the Lakers.

B)I think it’s very possible the Jazz trade for a star player within the next year and coupled with internal development from some players. We don’t have to be bad for too long. Plus they kinda need to show Lauri they can be playoff competitive before he becomes a UFA after next season.

C) It’s totally fine for fans to still believe in this current Jazz team and believe they can figure some things out, get Kessler back, maybe make a trade and still improve upon last year. And have a 2nd half resurgence.

D) It’s also totally fine for fans to be realistic about this team, hope for internal development from our young guys like Keyonte, Taylor, Brice, etc… and be more excited for next season and possible trade targets.

Just have to enjoy the process and team for what it is, know that we have one of the best Front Office’s in the league, a good head coach and a good young core to develop around. We’ll be back in the mix soon.

Yeah, it’s been a long running joke. Coincidence or not, it’s pretty funny to still see .

The music was hella annoying, but good video overall.

HELL NO. I don’t want to see Durant for a long time.

But maybe by then we have another star player we traded for next to Lauri, a confident Keyonte & healthy Kessler.

Okay maybe, I’ll be okay by the playoffs.

Post Game Thoughts!

KD is simply unreal guys, we threw everything at him. I definitely need a break from watching him cook us alive. But also encouraging it took that performance to barely beat us.

I really liked both of these games though as moral victories for this very young Jazz team! Margins are razor thin in this league and we simply didn’t execute down the stretch. I think some of the defensive schemes (with Kessler out) started kicking in this game! And our bench group didn’t completely ruin our chances in the 3rd-4th stretch like last game.

Lauri Markkanen is so unbelievably good guys, I cannot believe we got him from that Donovan Mitchell trade. His defense was phenomenal tonight too. I will keep harping on it but we absolutely have to get him the ball more. And I hope the Jazz can find a star to trade for this season or at least a better bench point guard to hopefully take some of the pressure off him and give him some longer rests.

JC has got to stop playing hero ball in the late game that much and not pass. He got bailed out by Keyonte and Lauri a couple of times, but took some really bad shots late.

Keyonte had some really important minutes tonight! He made a couple of mistakes late and a couple of great plays too! His defense has honestly been solid so far. And his court vision and passing is incredible. It’s awesome he is willing to attack late like that. He absolutely got hacked all game and should’ve gotten some calls that rookies don’t get. I hope Hardy ramps up his minutes to 30+ a game soon.

THT & Sexton had some high highs and some low lows. Loved Sexton’s effort in the 2nd half mostly. And THT made some great drives to the rim, but his 3 point shooting & shot selection is exhausting to watch. And I can’t believe I watched Sexton size up KD on iso lmao.

Agbaji has played his ass off defensively these last 2 games. Hell of an effort on Booker & Durant. Just s perfect 3 & d player.

I definitely want to see the Jazz’s defense start showing improvement these next couple of weeks. We’ve had a brutal schedule and I honestly think this team could get back .500 25 games into the year. Really want Kessler to come back and see him with Keyonte.

And they play the Lakers on my birthday of course. Hope they can take some positive monumentum into this next week and start getting some dubs!

Yes, it has been slightly annoying. Damn iphone.

Aw look another OKC fan that has absolutely no clue how important Lauri is to the Jazz’s rebuild or how good he actually is.

Common sense is why we would not do this trade.

You’d have to offer up SGA or Chet for the Jazz to even have a conversation with you.