What in the world has happened to Utah?

[Chris]

They have an incredibly flawed roster.  This is what I expected to start the season, but they surprised me be playing well out of the gates.  However, now the fact that their starting lineup is made up of 3 PF's, a 10th man, and Deron Williams has caught up with them.

It really kills them that they have no NBA starting quality wings on their roster.  Kirilenko is a PF, and Bell has lost more than a step, and was ideally a bench player even in his prime...and beyond them, they have a ton of mediocrity and rookies. 

Up front there also is some redundancy with Jefferson and Millsap, but I think that would be OK if they had anyone to take pressure off Williams on the perimeter. 

They really need to trade (at least) one of their big men for a quality wing or two.  Maybe they could even trade Kirilenko and change for Prince and Rip. 

[pearljammer10]

they would be better served by making some trades using AK47's expiring contract. 

personally I think AK is fairly underrated and fits in nicely with Sloans system. He can play SF and is good on both ends of the floor. However, the Jazz need to sit down and think about whats more valuable...AK himself, or what they could get in return for his expiring.

[Edgar]

they would be better served by making some trades using AK47's expiring contract. 

personally I think AK is fairly underrated and fits in nicely with Sloans system. He can play SF and is good on both ends of the floor. However, the Jazz need to sit down and think about whats more valuable...AK himself, or what they could get in return for his expiring.

they need a center in the mold of Okafor or Ben Wallace if hes back and healthy
Rip could help too

[wiley]

Here's a trade that I probably wouldn't do if I were Utah due concerns over Caron Butler's future health.....just throwing it out for discussion and wondering if theoretically it would be wise for either team.........based on Dallas needing to go for it this year (gives them an extra body) and having no chance as is....and on Utah having much less chance as is...not losing much by adding a player who's out for the year.....the stinks bad for anyone who feels that Kirilenko is on par with Butler.....and my suck financially for one team or the other....don't know..

Wouldn't Kirilenko be a big upgrade for Dallas over Peja?  How would Big Al do next to Dirk?

http://basketball.realgm.com/src_tradechecker/3/

[wiley]

Here's a trade that I probably wouldn't do if I were Utah due concerns over Caron Butler's future health.....just throwing it out for discussion and wondering if theoretically it would be wise for either team.........based on Dallas needing to go for it this year (gives them an extra body) and having no chance as is....and on Utah having much less chance as is...not losing much by adding a player who's out for the year.....the stinks bad for anyone who feels that Kirilenko is on par with Butler.....and my suck financially for one team or the other....don't know..

Wouldn't Kirilenko be a big upgrade for Dallas over Peja?  How would Big Al do next to Dirk?

http://basketball.realgm.com/src_tradechecker/3/

Since trade is not viewable:  it's Big Al, Kirilenko and Earl Watson for Chandler, Butler and Stevenson.

[housecall]

As much as i like D.Williams this is the first time ive seen him show signs of bad leadership.He's not doing a good job of running their offense from what i can tell.He hasn't exactly lit it up lately himself.I see him missing Boozer in their pick n roll what was Utah's signature plays.Big Al hasn't embraced that role.The bench stinks and Raja Bell can't hit the side of a barn.Defensively not one player is stepping up or making a big effort of stopping the opposing player.Its a combination of a lot of things but it starts with Deron Williams.Maybe Jerry Sloan need to check his coaching out as well.

 After saying all that watch they go on a 10 game winning streak.

[Moranis]

Biedrins and Radmanovic for AK47 works.  Jazz may need to throw in something else since I know G.S. like Biedrins, but Biedrins would be a nice compliment to Jefferson and Milsaps.

[Who]

Last season, Utah out-rebounded their opponent by 247 rebounds. About 3 boards a night. In contrast, this season Utah has been out-rebounded by 100 in 45 games. Roughly 2.2 boards a night. A swing of 5 possessions.

The biggest reason for that decline has been the drop off from Boozer (11.2rpg / 34.3mpg) to Al Jefferson (8.8rpg / 34.9mpg).

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Their defensive efficiency has decreased from 105 per 100 possessions to 108.8 ... if you look closer, you can see their defensive eFG% has dropped slightly from 13th to 15th + their opponent turnovers still rank highly at 7th best + they still rank as the worst team in the league for putting the opponent at the line.

The major difference in their defensive efficiency mark has been due to the change on defensive backboards where they've gone from 5th best to 3rd worst in the league.

If you look at opponent PER by position, you can see a lot of damage is coming from the center position (-1.9 per 48 mins) and if you check Big Al's own opponent PER (-2.4 per 48 mins) a lot of is happening when he is on the court. The on/off court rebounding numbers for Big Al are also troubling (Utah gets 50% of the rebounds while Big Al is off the court and only 48.6% while on court).

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The rest of the team deserves criticism for this decline on the backboards too ... but the biggest offender is clearly Big Al.