Trey Burke And Utah Jazz Media Day 2014-15 Recap

It’s that event that signals the start of the 2014-15 NBA season for the Utah Jazz: Media Day.

Before that could really get underway, there was of course the elephant in the room — just pardon any puns that slip through. The leaked photos on social media of Trey Burke‘s gentleman sausage late last night. Just unfortunate all around. Burke was wisely not made available to media for interviews other than a short, prepared session beforehand.

"“We were made aware of the situation this morning,” general manager Dennis Lindsey said. “We’ve collected a lot of the facts. We still have a few things to collect and a couple of people to visit with. It’s safe to say … that we are disappointed in what we’ve learned so far but we are going to move forward. At this point in time, we’re collecting facts and we’re going to reserve final judgment for a later date.” Burke spoke to Jazz officials and his teammates this morning and is expected to addressed the issue after Lindsey. “Publicly, I want to first and foremost apologize to my family [and] apologize to the Miller family, as well as my teammates,” he said. “We already talked about it in the locker room. From this day forward, it won’t happen again. They were old pictures. They were meant to be kept private but they weren’t. So from this day forward my actions and my judgments will be much better.” – Aaron Falk and Steve Luhm, Salt Lake Tribune"

Brad Rock adds:

Trey Burke will be incredibly embarrassed and feel foolish already, so let’s just put this behind us — call it, as Jake Scott and Tony Parks would say, a lesson learned — and move on to basketball. His teammates will give him more guff in the locker room than we ever could. Hope you come back to Twitter soon, Trey.

As expected, the new Quin Snyder Jazz offense looks to be dynamic, even as Jazz brass, staff and players all cautioned repeatedly that patience is a necessity for fans in the interim.

Utah Jazz players talked often about the new Snyder System fondly and with excitement. If you missed it, we covered quite a bit of what the Jazz will run this season here as individuals and here as a team.

The team’s public relations and communications gurus, Matt Sanchez and Bill Lea, put together a live stream of player interviews with Radio Voice of the Utah Jazz David Locke at the last minute. You can watch the video replay at UtahJazz.com. Coverage begins about 14:30 into the stream replay.

Gordon Hayward is extremely beefy coming into the season, while working hard to not lose any speed at the same time. Early returns would seem to appear that he accomplished it. There were too many gems to count.

CEO of the Utah Jazz, Greg Miller, joined 97.5/1280 The Zone to speak of a level of accountability higher than ever before, pioneered by Snyder’s predecessor Tyrone Corbin. Leadership, as always, was also a hot button topic.

Miller was preceded by Utah Jazz President Randy Rigby and joined Quin Snyder and Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey, then most of the Jazz players currently on the training camp roster. Click here to browse the audio interviews at The Zone from Media Day.

Derrick Favors said he may have a game where he gets 10 assists with Enes Kanter being freed up to shoot from range this year. Players want to get the season started tomorrow, which will leave Jazz fans giddy. They’ll be playing to win and have an intense desire to surprise pundits by outperforming expectations.

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Joe Coles is young Utah Jazz and local sports writer many of you are already familiar with. He was kind enough to send over a short essay on Utah Jazz Media Day as well. Be sure to give Joe a follow on Twitter @23ounces:

Rejoice, Jazz basketball is back! The Utah Jazz season got underway today with media day at the Zions Bank Basketball Center. Just eight days away from the preseason opener against the Portland Trailblazers at EnergySolutions Arena, new head coach Quin Snyder, hyped rookies Dante Exum and Rodney Hood, newly extended swingman Gordon Hayward, and the rest of the Jazz team and staff were on hand today to answer questions from the media. 

The Jazz haven’t won the Northwest Division since since 2008, and haven’t advanced past the first round of the playoffs since 2010. After head coach Jerry Sloan retired in 2011, the Jazz hired his assistant Tyrone Corbin as head coach mid-season. After going 112-146 in his three season span Corbin was not extended, and Quin Snyder, Atlanta Hawks assistant coach was hired for the vacancy.

The Jazz have missed the playoffs the past two years, and it doesn’t look like they will get there this year. Additions of Rodney Hood and Dante Exum, a smattering of veterans, improved players like Trey Burke and Rudy Gobert, and the coaching of Quin Snyder should improve upon last years dismal 25-57 record, but probably not enough to make the playoffs in the tough Western Conference. The young core of the Jazz,  Derrick Favors, Trey Burke, Gordon Hayward, Alec Burks, Enes Kanter, Rodney Hood, and Dante Exum still have a lot of growing to do.

A lot of questions will need to be answered this season. How will Quin Snyder affect the Jazz? Will Gordon Hayward live up to his new luxurious contract? Will the Jazz use a dual point guard system with young point guards Trey Burke and Dante Exum? What will Quin Snyder’s offense and defense look like?

All these questions and more should be answered this year. It should be an interesting year of Jazz basketball. Buckle up!