Locker Room Cleanout: Quick and Dirty Quin and Dennis

Dennis Lindsey, asked if the way the season ended will mean more urgency to be less process-oriented and more results-oriented: If it’s fundamental, I think we’re certainly going to explore every option relative to the draft. We have a number of picks, and we may not select them all, right? We may use them to get another veteran if w–the analysis says that we need to do that, in our opinion, and that opportunity arises, but that has to be fundamental.

Very comfortable, with that said, with the number of returning players, the core that we have, the internal improvement that’s taken place, that, in addition to some, I think, reasonable projections. So, but, look, we, we’re not going to arbitrarily try to speed up the timeline or slow it down to be process-oriented. …

One of the worst things that we can do i–frankly, is to overreact…Greg [Miller] pulled me aside, you know, not long after he hired me, and said, “Hey, look, we’re operators. We’re not traders.”…

But with that said, there won’t be anything that won’t be examined, and if it’s quicker and more experience, then that may be the right thing to do, or as we continue to slow-growth it as well, and hope and work towards better help, health and continuity, that might provide us the solution as well.

Lindsey on whether the Jazz are still in “rebuild” mode, and if there is a point of diminishing returns: There could be, sure. There’s always risk and threats relative to something that becomes too prolonged. I think we’re, fundamentally, and if you look at the metrics, we’re towards the tail end of that. We’re a competitive team. …

If there’s one criticism I think you could make that’s fair, is we erred towards chemistry, continuity, continued development because we felt like the players, and in particular the coaching staff, showed great progress.

But the opportunity cost of that is, is was there a veteran that could’ve helped us stabilize? I think we did fairly well with Shelvin [Mack] at the trade deadline. But there were two particular deals that were actually proposed to us, and we said yes to, and for whatever reason, we weren’t able to consummate, that we were more short term-oriented.

I was willing to give up a first round pick, multiple picks, very significant salary slot, ’cause we had built that into the equation, and for whatever reason, we weren’t able to consummate.

Lindsey on Dante Exum, UDQM: You can’t really know how big and long he is…at the, you know, at the point of entry’s — you know, it’s the first point of contact.

Quin Snyder on the Jazz’s lack of an alpha dog: Some of [our turnovers], in my mind, comes from even leadership on the court…It’s not a criticism of our current group, as much as it is recognition that there’s a possibility for growth in that regard. You know, w–y–there’s some teams that just have this kind of alpha, you know, leader, like a Chris Paul maybe being the best example.

And there’s other teams where that either evolves, or it’s shared, and you can kind of point to Golden State as an interesting example, where Steph Curry’s clearly their best player, but there’s an argument to be made on some level that Draymond Green, in many instances, is, provides a type of leadership that’s unique.

And I think for our group, we have to continue to try to cultivate that, recognize it, and demand it. And when I say demand it, on the court, that’s an important place, and I think that runs through a lot of the — you know, that thin red line goes through the turnovers. It goes through some late-game situations. It goes through defensive focus that I spoke about before.

And I would circle all the way back to the growth process, and that some of that can only come through experience. And some of it, we just have to continue to be honest with ourselves and be aware of and try to work on it as best we can.

Snyder on how much of an emphasis there will be on making the playoffs next year: I just don’t completely, on a personal level, buy into just a results-only focus. I just think, I don’t think in the long term, it gets you, necessarily the results that you want. I think it’s counter-intuitive.

It, I do believe that we want to maximize what we have, and as we continue to look at where our team is through the summer — certainly we thought we had a different team last year at this time than it turned out we did with Dante’s injury. So, there’s all kinds of variables involved.

Suffice to say, if that can be something we do, that’s what we want, but I don’t wanna set it up as a be-all, end-all, you know, that suddenly if we don’t do that, we’re, you know, we’re no good and we’re failing.

Snyder on how Year Two Quin Snyder differed from Year One Quin Snyder: I think at a certain point, I trusted our players more. I didn’t earlier in the year, because I don’t think they earned it. I wanted to. I wanted to kind of shift our preparation a little bit, and maybe go a little deeper and less habitual, and we needed to grind.* And we did that, and then we got to a point where, you know, I was able to really, not ease up, but let go of certain things.

And you know, they began to take more ownership. You know, I think we got more efficient too. You know, our, so, be a little, micro-manage our staff a little less. Try to teach a little less, and let our players figure stuff out, although we still did a lot of teaching.

Which, I don’t mind, you know, at, I don’t mind teaching at all, but at some point, you don’t wanna, that means you still got more and more to learn. Like, you’d rather, you know, have a foundation and then begin to, you know, polish and sculpt and things like that, as opposed to kind of introducing something that’s new again.

So, we got further down that continuum. You know, I think at times I was equally emotional or unemotional, or you know, poised or fiery. That really just depended on the game more than the season.

* UDQM