The Utah Jazz were one Mike Conley jumper away from beating the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs last season. Now going into this season, the Jazz have been a team that many people are overlooking, including ESPN.
On the daily Locked On Jazz Podcast, host David Locke reacts to ESPN's Top 100 Player Rankings and is flabbergasted at how low some of the Jazz players are on the list, especially Joe Ingles and Bojan Bogdanovic.
David Locke: ESPN just thrashed us. Are you crazy? Did you see what the ESPN Top 100 did to our players? These are their projections and it's worth noting that they have this cute little line that says that their projections are all about what they expect out of player this year. So, let's look at what they did to our guys. First of all, we have five players in the top 100, not including Derrick Favors or Jordan Clarkson, which is worth noting.
Joe Ingles was ranked 62nd last year and he slipped to 89th this year. What did Joe do to earn that? He shot the exact same percentage from the field, he shot virtually the exact same 3-point percentages, effective field-goal percentage was up, his rebounds were the same, his assists were the same, his steals were the same, and his blocked for the same. He scored three fewer points because we added Bojan Bogdanovic so he didn't have to shoot as much and they docked him from 67th to 89th on the NBA rankings…
Bojan Bogdanovic last year scores 20 points a game, shoots 41 percent from three, increases his 3-point shooting from 4.8 to 7.3 attempts per game… He increases his free throw attempts, he increases his shot attempts, increases his three attempts, he increases his scoring, his rebounds are the same, his assists are the same, his steals are the same, he turned it over more, but he drops from 48th to 73rd… Listen to the players they have ranked higher than him… Blake Griffin. Kevin Love, T.J. Warren. My God, is the bubble the only thing that matters?!
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