The Utah Jazz? Gone till November (Ball Don’t Lie)

The Utah Jazz couldn't even take a game in the team's opening round series with the San Antonio Spurs. It took a furious rally in the fourth quarter of Game 4 for the Jazz to even lose a game by single-digit points , as the group lost by an average of 16 points per game. The shooters weren't shooting well, nobody could stay in front of Tony Parker, and one-time All-Star guard Devin Harris managed a shockingly-low single digit PER over the first three games of a four-game postseason. And it doesn't matter. Would we have liked to see the Jazz give the NBA's hottest team a few more close games, or even a win? Sure. But this wasn't ever supposed to be the year for Utah to attempt this. The Jazz went into 2011-12 fully ready to use each of the season's 66 games to develop rotations, give Tyrone Corbin his first full year (if you can call it that, with a shortened season and training camp, and so few practices) as head coach, and see how well the team's bigs played off each other. The answers, some five and a half months later? There still aren't any. This group is still developing, and the playoff trip was a fantastic bit of gravy not so much for the extra gate revenue or needed work...