This one ended in controversy. Here are the highlights:
The win gives Utah sole possession of the #1 seed heading into the season’s final week.
Tag: Utah Jazz (Page 5 of 12)
For most of the collegiate season, it looked like John Wall was the only player deserving of the #1 pick — like a franchise would be crazy not to take him if it won the lottery. But as Evan Turner has come on — 20-9-6 with 52% shooting — and is pushing Wall for the Naismith award, it has become a reasonable possibility that a team that already has a good point guard might pass on Wall and take Turner (who projects to play off guard or small forward in the NBA) instead.
David Thorpe lists the Timberwolves (Jonny Flynn, Ricky Rubio), Warriors (Monta Elllis, Stephen Curry), Kings (Tyreke Evans), Sixers (Jrue Holiday), Jazz (Deron Williams) and the Bulls (Derrick Rose) as teams with lottery picks that could potentially go with Turner over Wall.
Wall is two years younger and doesn’t have Turner’s injury history. (Turner broke his back earlier in the season. Yeah. Broke his back.) The two shoot about the same from three-point range and are both good playmakers. To me, they both resemble Dwyane Wade, though Turner is longer and Wall is more athletic (of the two).
This is no indictment of Wall. Turner has played himself into this position with a brilliant season. Wall is two years younger so he has more upside, but they both project to be great NBA players, so if a franchise is already sitting on a very good point guard, it makes some sense to go with Turner.
Bonus dunk after the jump…
People forget just how good Grant Hill was before injuries derailed his career. In his first six seasons in Detroit, he averaged 22-8-6, won the Rookie of the Year, made five All-Star teams and five All-NBA teams.
From his Wiki page:
After the first six seasons of his career, before his ankle injury, Hill had a total of 9,393 points, 3,417 rebounds and 2,720 assists. Oscar Robertson and Larry Bird are the only two players in league history to eclipse these numbers after their first six seasons.
It’s true. LeBron James only had 3307 rebounds through his first six seasons.
Hill missed 357 games over the next six seasons with major ankle problems and almost died due to a staph infection contracted during that time. Even with all of these problems, he still posted a 20-5-3 season and was named to his seventh All-Star Game during the 2004-05 season.
It’s a shame — if not for those ankle problems, Hill might have been one of the all-time greats.
Ronnie Brewer has been dealt by Utah to the Grizzlies in exchange for a protected future first-round pick, according to Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribune, Woj and a bunch of others with Twitter accounts.
The deal makes sense: By trading Brewer, the Jazz ease their logjam — sorry, Kevin — of wing players, freeing minutes for Wesley Matthews, C.J. Miles and Kyle Korver. More significantly, the Jazz will ease their luxury-tax burden, with the Grizzlies having the cap space to absorb Brewer’s $2.7 million salary.
“We had three or four players that were competing for minutes and we were able to turn that into a future asset,” Jazz general manager Kevin O’Connor told Siler.
Memphis needed a guard, and Brewer is a decent player, though his PER is down to 13.12 this season after a great sophomore (18.30) season and a solid third (16.19) year. (Remember, 15.00 is the league average.) The bottom line is that he’s playing the same minutes (31+) but his shot attempts dropped from 10.2 per game last season to 7.8 this season. That’s going to result in a drop in PER.
On his Twitter page, Adrian Wojnarowski speculated about what this means for Rudy Gay:
This means Memphis is unlikely to pay Rudy Gay this summer.
I wouldn’t go that far, but it does give Memphis a solid starter if Gay does bolt this summer.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
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