I will disagree just to this degree: we've been getting 23 minutes of near nothing from Jimmer a night. That's a ton of empty minutes and its really hurt us, espically when compared to what we were getting from Beno, the man he effectively replaced. There are certainly myriad other problems, but Jimmer's inability to make the jump to the NBA yet is definitely one of them.
An interesting question is what the organization's priorities are for the remainder of this season. For the last couple of years its been player development. And when you go out in the offseason and get even younger so that you are now the youngest team in the league, that would certainly suggest more player development as a possibility. But I get a feeling they want to win, have pressure to win, the fans want to win, and in general they need to see results. And where we are on that line has significance for Jimmer, because up until this point we have largely played him as if we are still in player development mode. Lots of minutes, even if they are empty, just to try to get him experience. But if we are in win mode then Jimmer has not earned his minutes, and as I showed in some stats above is actually producing at pretty much the same rate Quincy Douby did as a rookie. Until he figures it out, on a team trying to win those Douby type minutes are the sorts of minutes he would normally be getting -- the blowout minutes, maybe spotted in for a quarter ending play here or there where we neeeded shooting etc. He would be closer to a 10min a game spot player than the major rotation player he's been playing until this point, and try to get him experience and confidence in garbage minutes after games have been deciuded rather than right in the middle of games we are still trying to win. Be interesting to see what our priorities are here.
I agree Jimmer not playing well is part of the problem, I just take umbrage to those who think he is the problem, or the solution, while ignoring the rest of the trainwreck, which must be quite tough to do.
As for are we in win now mode or development, it's hard to say. Why I say that, is that I believe we were in win now mode heading into the season, but the moves we've made have blown up in our face. So does the current situation, cause us for the time being to move back into a development mode?
While this organization may have intended on putting a premium on winning this year, the moves they've made negate that. Can't tell me we're in win now mode with Salmons in the starting lineup, and absolutely zero depth or height on our frontline, and if it wasn't for the 60th pick in the draft playing above expectations, we'd be s*** out of luck in terms of a backup point. You don't bring in Salmons and Outlaw if you;re serious about winning, nor do you retain the mess which was Westy. At the same time, you don't bring in Salmons and Outlaw for a team intent on development.
I'd say we're heading quickly towards development mode, where Jimmer and IT will still get decent minutes, but it was by accident. Our pee poor FO/Maloofs made such poor moves this past summer, and made a poor decision it retaining Westy, that we're heading towards "just get the rooks experience" time by default.
Of course we could make a move or two before the deadline, but that'll be too little too late.
