This reminds me of a certain other Big East alum, who the best player in history decided to draft with a lottery pick a couple years back...

This is the most interesting franchise in the league right now, with dozens of different possibilities in front of it and a few franchise-defining mysteries to solve. And that doesn't even factor in the ultra-exciting four-team race for the last three Western Conference playoff spots, a race that Utah, with its porous defense and by far the toughest schedule among the four combatants, is likely to lose.

That would land Utah in the lottery, a place the Jazz and the Miller family, the team's longtime owners, would prefer to avoid. Winning matters in Utah, more than it does in most places. Snagging the no. 7 seed means something in Utah, even if it would likely result in a five-game dismissal.

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The Jazz could have constructed a deal in which they dumped either Jefferson or Millsap for a token second-round pick. But remember: That is not the kind of in-season downgrade on which the Miller family has historically signed off, and Houston the day before the deadline snagged a very good second-round pick from Phoenix in exchange for a bench player in Marcus Morris. Utah simply would not give up a starter in exchange for the equivalent of Marcus Morris's trade return.

The Jazz probably weren't aggressive enough shopping Jefferson and (especially) Millsap ahead of last spring's draft, when multiple league sources insist they could have easily snagged a high first-round pick in that draft for Millsap. But it's unclear if that pick would have brought an unwanted contract along with it, and given the intriguing play of Andre Drummond and Terrence Ross, it's easy to forget that most league executives weren't very excited about picks outside the top six or seven guys.

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• Utah wants a point guard. If the Jazz are going to take a poisonous salary attached to something they really want, that prize is going to be a lead ball handler. Had they found one, perhaps they'd have done something. But they didn't. The Millsap–for–Eric Bledsoe talks never got serious, per three sources close to the (non-)talks, and the trade market wasn't teeming with quality point guards beyond Bledsoe — especially since Utah can wait to spend in the offseason.

Utah is a very bad defensive team, and it's tempting to blame all of that on Jefferson. He's slow and has an astoundingly high failure rate when it comes to containing point guards on pick-and-rolls, to the point that Utah goes to crazy lengths to avoid having him help at all. This is the main reason Utah would be better served picking Millsap as a long-term piece over Jefferson. Millsap isn't a great defender either, and he's at a length disadvantage against skilled power forwards. But he's a steals machine with quick, smart feet and a rounded offensive game, and he'll likely earn less than Jefferson going forward.


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We have almost a decade of evidence now that Jefferson's failings on defense outweigh his very real value on offense. His teams have generally been worse with him on the floor than with him on the bench, and that's been true on the defensive end in almost every season in which he's played meaningful minutes, per NBA.com and 82games.com.

The team is probably already playing Jefferson too much, which brings us back to Corbin. Here's a remarkable thing: Utah's five most-used lineups this season have been outscored. Ditto for 17 of its 18 most commonly used three-man groups, and usually by margins much larger than Utah's overall negative scoring margin.

Only two of the 80 teams that have qualified for the playoffs in the last five years have done so with their top five lineups being outscored: the 2008-09 Bulls, and … last year's Jazz. This is very strong evidence that Corbin is basically just playing the wrong guys and wrong combinations in the wrong minutes distribution. His better defenders and all-around guys — Favors, Kanter, DeMarre Carroll, Gordon Hayward, et al. — deserve a larger chunk of the time going to Jefferson, Mo Williams (now back from injury), and others. Lineup data can be pretty noisy over short sample sizes, but the noise is getting really loud at this point.

There's also the fact that Utah's defense plays with a weird lack of discipline and unclear, unproductive rules. That's partly on Corbin. Jefferson and Millsap are both slow, but Corbin's de facto strategy for defending the high pick-and-roll — the play that kills the Jazz5 — is to have the big man defending the screener jump out so that his body is positioned perpendicular to the baseline...

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And that's the thing: There are no clear, consistent rules to Utah's defense. Sometimes the big men drop back. Sometimes they stick to the screener, allowing the point guard to blow by them, a stance that indicates they expect help to come from behind them. But there are possessions on which that notion appears to make little sense.

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The Jazz's inability to contain pick-and-roll ball handlers opens up shots everywhere — in the lane, from the corners, and from elsewhere around the arc. Utah opponents get a lot of the highest-value shots in the game.

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Not all of this is on Corbin, obviously. The Jazz have below-average defensive personnel, and young players are notoriously slow to grasp the rules of complex NBA defense. And bad defensive teams are often better off mixing up their base defensive strategies to at least introduce some unpredictability. But the Jazz's general lack of coherence is alarming and raises questions about Corbin's future after next season, when his contract is up. Not every team can be as maniacally rule-bound as Chicago, but when teams are prone to confusing breakdowns over a long period, it's time to ask some serious questions.

Zach Lowe had the best take on the Jazz I've seen:

The Lakers have a nasty little road trip going on right now. Orlando tonight, Atlanta tomorrow, and then Indiana on Friday. This could be very easily be an 0-3 trip, and then Utah could once again be right where it was two weeks ago, in the 8th spot with the Lakers 2, 3 games out.

This is an impressive run for Bryant. Over his past 10 games, he is averaging 32 points, seven assists, and six rebounds while shooting over 53 percent from the field. The Lakers are 8-2 during this stretch, and Kobe was just named Western Conference Player of the Week.

From an offensive perspective, Kobe is a better player than he was last season. Last year Kobe shot 43 percent from the field; this year he’s shooting 48 percent. This is a significant improvement, and as I frequently point out, these kinds of changes in field goal percentage usually have less to do with changes in shooting ability and more to do with changes in shot selection. This is certainly the case with Kobe

And Utah's next five games: @OKC, vsMEM, vsNYK, @HOU, @SAS. I wouldn't favor the Jazz in any of those games.

Oooooh, I hadn't realized what Utah was up against. That schedule could really leave a mark.

I'd have expected better from the Spurs than this effort tonight.

he was good tonight, but wtf has been wrong with shved?

Did you see who's playing? No Parker, no Duncan, no Leonard.

Am I out of touch with college talent, or does this year's NBA Draft look pretty barren? It might be that I assume that all shooting guards suck, because most do.

Lakers lose....

Chi @ Sac - unwatchable.

Kings actually playing better recently, they're killing the Bulls today despite of not having Cousins

Cousins not playing is probably a positive...

Which is a huge problem, should the Kings just punt Cousins and build a team around Evans? with the pieces they have it's not hard to imagine them putting together a team that should at least have a good shot at sneaking in the playoffs. assuming they can get some decent pieces for Cousins.

But Cousins certainly give them a higher ceiling potential, but that ceiling is doing more dig a huge hole than not.

I think I'd rather play nearly anybody in round 1 than Denver with home court.

Kobe out indefinitely with severely sprained ankle. The plot thickens.

Suddenly...LAC is in danger of dropping to the 5th spot.

The Bulls aren't in any sort of position to hope for a specific seed. They're not beating anyone in a series with the way they're playing now (this was true even before last night).

Kobe out indefinitely with severely sprained ankle. The plot thickens.

And a cheer was heard from Phoenix as the possibility of a second lottery pick increases significantly.

Meh, the odds of hitting from the best team in the lottery are really small -- 1.8% chance of a top 3 pick. The difference between pick 14 and 16 can't be that relevant. :)

Thanks. Hollinger sounds right. Is he kinda like early 2000's Rob Neyer? Stats guy, but mainstream-approved (or at least main stream read)?

Hollinger sounds right. Is he kinda like early 2000's Rob Neyer? Stats guy, but mainstream-approved (or at least main stream read)?

epic implosion of Utah

I think it works like this: If LAL's pick is top-14, then the Cleveland swap is canceled and PHX gets the pick. If it's not a lottery pick, than CLE can swap it for their own pick, SAC's pick, or MIA's pick, which it appears to me they'd swap MIA's pick. Then PHX gets whichever one that CLE swapped to LAL. So the Lakers being in or out of the lottery could cost PHX 15+ spots in the 1st rd. I may be totally off.

It might actually be better for the Lakers if Kobe sits out and they run the team with Nash / Howard mostly

Can you guys believe Kobe might play tonight after his "severe" ankle sprain? He is just, like, so tough and brave.

Can you guys believe Kobe might play tonight after his "severe" ankle sprain? He is just, like, so tough and brave.