As the season winds down and free agency looms, Utah Jazz fans should gear up to convince Derrick Favors to re-sign with Utah.
At the end of the 2012-13 NBA season, Utah Jazz brass allowed power forward Paul Milsap to walk in free agency. Starting the very next year, he went on to make four consecutive All-Star appearances with the Atlanta Hawks.
Now picture this: “At the end of the 2017-18 NBA season, Jazz brass allowed power forward Derrick Favors to walk in free agency and he went on to make ______ consecutive All-Star appearances starting the very next year with the _________ _________.”
No matter how you fill in those blanks, this is not a situation Jazz fans would like to see.
Many Jazz fans either wanted Favors to be traded at the deadline or at least expected him to be traded. I never understood the reason behind this. The main argument brought up time and again is that Favors is not a good fit next to Rudy Gobert and yet this misconception that a majority of Jazz fans hold is simply not true. When those two share the floor together the team has a Net Rating of 2.2.
Quin Snyder has also developed a system that attempts to maximize each of their strengths by staggering their minutes after the start of the game. The Jazz have gone 16-4 since Gobert returned on January 19, which makes it VERY hard to argue that this isn’t working.
I believe that developing a reliable 3-point shot is Favors’ key to becoming an All-Star similar to Milsap. Currently he’s only shooting 21.1 percent from behind the arc, but he continues to take threes and seems committed to improving in that department. If Favors is able to both stretch the floor and the team we have now is able to stay relatively healthy, who knows what could be accomplished next season.
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The Jazz are finally clicking. Favors is a big part of that. I want to see this continue for an entire season and truly hope that the Jazz are able to re-sign Favors in the offseason.
Should we hang #Stayvors billboards? Probably not, but we as fans should at least show the longest tenured Jazzman the love he deserves.