After reaching the top of the regular season record in the West last season, the Jazz seem to have begun to decline, and this season only achieved a record of fifth place in the West. Don't know why? The team actually traded the organization forward Ingles, and completely handed over the ball to Mitchell, Clarkson and others who were not good at organizing, and this former team-oriented team became a singles team. In the first round of the series against the Lone Ranger, you will see Mr. Gobert many times have a chance to finish under the basket, but there is no teammate to pass the ball to his hands. He was supposed to be an inside star, but he was used as a blue collar worker, perhaps this is the tragedy of being buried.
Then Gobert was accused of breaking the rules and blaming his teammates, which was not without reason, and he didn't get assists and scores while doing a lot of dirty work, and no one could stand this kind of resignation. The Warriors were able to make a comeback because the team culture solved the problem so well that when role players were desperately defending and grabbing rebounds, Curry Green would give them assists so that they could get a chance to perform. The Jazz, on the other hand, allowed these contradictions to continue to develop, and then everyone became slack and lazy.
The reason why the Jazz traded Ingles out was probably because they believed that Conley and Mitchell, the two outside lines, could do a good job of organizing the team, and the result was that Mitchell was almost completely separated from his teammates. As for how well Conley performed? After returning from injury, he seems to have lost his immediate combat strength, and his personal offensive and defensive performance is even more sluggish than Thatcher's, which is completely inconsistent with the appearance of a playoff starting point guard. The offensive end has lost speed and explosiveness, the projection has lost its former confidence, and the defense has not been sharp as before.
You know, the former Conley is known as a "cold weapon", whether it is offensive or defensive, it has enough resilience. I vaguely remember that he and the black and white males led the Grizzlies, and again and again caused great trouble to the Western Strong Warriors and Spurs, forcing a five-and-five situation with the opponent. That year's playoffs and Leonard's "fairy fight", you and I played a lot of fun, and then got the hundreds of millions of contracts provided by the team early. But it wasn't long before Conley's influence vanished.
In the first round of the series with the Lone Rangers, Conley averaged 9.2 points, 3.2 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game, shooting 33.3 percent from the field and 20 percent from three-point range. In addition to rebounding, the average score, assists, shooting percentage, and three-point shooting per game have all slipped to career lows, and Conley seems to be reduced to role players, after all, such data is really difficult to match with the starting point guard. This is a 20 million superstar, a former point guard to be reckoned with in the West, and a defensive slamman.
In the life-and-death battle against the Lone Rangers in G6, after Mitchell gave the ball to Conley in the last moment, he broke into the box but did not shoot, but he hesitated and was strictly guarded by the opponent, but there was a low-level mistake in the panic, making the Jazz lose the opportunity to kill. Conley is very good at throwing, and if he makes a throw when he breaks into the box, the Jazz will have a glimmer of life, and the result of the series being dragged into the seventh is most likely not the end of the moment.
In this way, although the current Conley holds an annual salary of 20 million, he is a full-fledged pseudo-superstar. If he can't share the pressure of scoring and organization for Mitchell, maybe the Jazz may take the measure of laying off, after all, the team is on the verge of disbanding. After years of rebuilding without achieving much more, and the NBA has always been a purely commercial organization, Conley is not far from retiring. At the moment, his average score per game is already less than 10 points, where does he have the confidence and capital to fight for the role of starting point guard? No team wants to take over.