02-18-2021, 08:46 AM
(02-17-2021, 05:01 PM)Kammrath Wrote: https://twitter.com/nbastats/status/1362159891746598913
Utah's O was ranked 22nd last season just before they traded Exum and 2 seconds for Clarkson (who felt like a rental at the time). The Conley deal was off to a rough start at the time, but looks pretty smart so far this season. Utah gave up a protected first and Crowder, Bazley, Grayson Allen and Korver to get the aging former star. The big off-season move was to pay Favors the MLE for 3 years to be the backup C (something many on this board would refuse to do because we have "too much invested in our bigs already"). Favors fits in the front-court with maxed out Gobert and $18mm/year Bogdanovich who was signed with cap room two off-seasons ago.
The point of all this is Utah didn't look that different than the current Mav's team two summers ago. Gobert and not-really-a-superstar Mitchell compared to Luka and KP. They had Ingles and Favors (who they gave up on for a year and brought back) and O'Neale who they signed for the minimum two years before. But none of Bogdanovich, Conley and Clarkson are stars. Utah basically gave up depth and some guys thought to have some upside and consolidated down to an 8 man rotation playing heavy minutes. Seven of their top eight have VORP's higher than our second highest player in that statistic. Utah has no chance of attracting a 3rd star to their city, but did a nice job of appreciating player potential and how they might fit with what they have in place already. The other thing Utah does is commit to guys once they are in place (as opposed to our constant pursuit of flexibility).