Danny Ainge drew a final assessment of the last exercise of the Jazz, version Mitchell / Gobert, during a press conference held yesterday. For six great seasons in the Top 6 in the Western Conference, including a first place in 2020/21, Quin Snyder’s team has never managed to transcend itself in the playoffs.
The finding at the end of April was the same as in previous springs when Utah was knocked out by the Mavercks in the first round (4-2). And for general manager Danny Ainge, it is these repeated setbacks in the playoffs that have most illustrated the collective shortcomings of this team.
“What I saw during the season was a group of players who didn’t really believe in each other”he blurted out. “The whole group, they liked each other maybe even more than what was said, but I’m not sure there was real mutual trust. When we arrived in the playoffs, I said to myself that this team had had a disappointing playoff and that it was perhaps waiting for this moment. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, but the team did not perform well, once again”.
The revealer of the playoffs
For Danny Ainge, he especially missed this extra soul which makes the difference in terms of cohesion.
“I think all those guys went into every game thinking they were going to win, don’t get me wrong. I’m just saying that when adversity hits, you feel the determination that there can be in a team that has this real thing, to support each other.”, he added. “Individually they were determined, but I don’t think they were collectively. We saw a lot of players trying to fend for themselves, because the trust in each other was not as great as in the teams I have known.
A speech that validates the great change made since by the “front office” led by Justin Zanik.
The latter entrusted Will Hardy with the mission of guiding a workforce upset by the departures of Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, and therefore the arrivals of Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Lauri Markkanen, Collin Sexton, Talen Horton-Tucker or even Stanley Johnson, alongside the “survivors” Mike Conley Jr, Bojan Bogdanovic and Jordan Clarkson. And above all, a lot of Draft choices in order, in the long term, to win a title.
“In the life cycle of the NBA, there is a point where a kind of tipping point appears, and you can take a new turn. To do this, we wanted to give the franchise every opportunity, the greatest base of flexibility, young players and assets to make the best decisions in order to achieve our goal of winning a title here.said Justin Zanik.
