#SLOE: People's Basketball Sim League

digiskunk: Thank you, everybody, for coming to to the magical spectacle that is the Utah Jazz press conference—a magical experience that will surely leave you breathless. Now, let's get down to business.

As many of you know, these past few seasons have been utmost dreadful due to the fact that we're still in a rebuilding phase. It's been a slow, tedious process—simply due to the fact that many of our draft prospects haven't panned out as we wanted them to. However, last season we made strides toward improving our team.

First and foremost, we improved our record from the previous season (6‑76) to 23‑59, which is an undeniable improvement. We made moves to acquire Mike Piazza, a fantastic power forward who we hope to keep for a long time. Unfortunately, we lost Joe Futrell, our star power forward, in the process. We believe that Mike Piazza has a higher ceiling however; therefore we felt that the trade was justified given the circumstances.

Our most recent addition from last season, draft prospect Quintin Kidd, had a wonderful training camp. During the regular season, he showed us glimpses of what's to come: averaging 18.2 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists in 37.7 minutes of play, he practically left all the other rookies in the dust. Furthermore, he proved that he was an instant upgrade from Slim Jenkins, our previous starting small forward who was given a brench role during the regular season.

Speaking of our draft prospects: it goes without saying that certain rebuilds can take time to truly culminate and flourish. Unfortunately, we didn't see much improvement from neither Slim Jenkins nor Silky Johnson during the regular season. Nevertheless, we're still hoping that they'll grow into star players—especially Silky Johnson, who is still very young.

After the regular season, we landed the #2 overall pick in the draft despite having 8.80% odds of winning the lottery. We were incredibly grateful to land Len Bias, who was recently resurrected from the dead. He has incredible potential and will hopefully become a star in the near future.

Lastly, not only did we just have a great TC, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

I'm pretty sure we covered all the bases. I'll now be accepting questions from the press!

Will we see another rebuilding season or do you anticipate competing for a playoff spot?

false9 wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2019 3:37 pm Will we see another rebuilding season or do you anticipate competing for a playoff spot?

That's a good question! Right now, I feel as if our rebuild is entering phase 3: We're finally beginning to see our prospects blossom and develop into talented players, though it took long enough. This season, we're definitely going to be trying our hardest out there to compete. We want to really see what these prospects are capable of when we push them to the limit. Of course, our team still has many faults—both offensively and defensively. But, like I said, this is just another step forward toward playoff contention. And who knows—maybe we'll make a splash in the upcoming free agent market?

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: Silky Johnson looks like he's got all the skills necessary to develop into a top point guard in the league, and at an early age. With the draft selection of Len Bias, a pure point guard, how do you see these two fitting together in the future, once Bias is ready to play?

garbageman wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2019 8:24 pm Sham Smith, Bulls.com: Silky Johnson looks like he's got all the skills necessary to develop into a top point guard in the league, and at an early age. With the draft selection of Len Bias, a pure point guard, how do you see these two fitting together in the future, once Bias is ready to play?

This is something we've been trying to figure out. Silky was originally a shooting guard who we attempted to convert into a point guard, though that didn't really pan out as expected... So at the moment, our plan going forward is to return him to his original position and let Len Bias run the point. We just hope Silky can get his goddamn act together and quit drinking already.

digiskunk: Ahem. Any more questions?

Despite being a promising young big, you never really seem to talk about A.C. Williams. What's his role in your plans?

Xist2Inspire wrote: Mon Jul 08, 2019 3:30 pm Despite being a promising young big, you never really seem to talk about A.C. Williams. What's his role in your plans?

In all honesty, he's been our secret weapon in the post these past few seasons. Something about him really stands out as a player—especially for a big man. As of right now, he's our center heading forward because, quite frankly, he simply does everything right. It's also worth mentioning how intelligent and talented he is defensively, which is probably why they call him "Air Conditioner" Williams—because he always finds a way to cool opposing offenses down. His positioning is great, his post defense is borderline elite, and although he may not be the most mobile of centers, he easily makes up for it in strength, hops, durability, and rebounding.

Let's just take a look at some basic stats:
Last season, he averaged: 13.5 PPG, 7.1 rebounds, 1.6 assists, and 1.7 blocks—all the while playing a full 82 games. As a matter of fact, he hasn't missed a single game since he arrived here.

He's had an excellent preseason this year as well: He averaged 17 PPG, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1.7 blocks—all the while shooting 63% from the field. Not bad for a center, eh?

He's clearly made strides toward improving his game during the offseason and he seems more than ready to prove the doubters wrong this upcoming season. So be on the lookout for AIR CONDITIONER WILLIAMS.