jimmy eat jazz
Well-Known Member
I'm a little late to all of this but after having read everything I can about this trade here and elsewhere, here's my very tentative conclusion.
Miller and KOC panicked. There was no need to pull the trigger this early. For all the abuse he has suffered, I find myself in agreement with Borat. I would strongly have preferred the Jazz to have waited until the CBA was ironed out before taking such a drastic step. Although everything now thinks the odds of Deron staying were small, things can and do change. What happened with Crymellow and LeBron was not pre-destined to happen here. There's no telling what might have happened between now and 2012, and with the CBA in the mix, it remained a highly fluid situation, that might have resolved itself yet in the Jazz's favor. It also strikes me as far fetched that the Jazz could not still have gotten good value for Deron in 2012 if things did not work out. I find it hard to believe that there would not have been good offers on the table for one of the elite point guards in the league. The Jazz did not need to make this move at this time--there was time and there may well have been opportunity to make this work, and in the worst case most likely they could STILL have gotten good value in a trade.
With all that, I'm not so high on Favors. He strikes me as an unproven project. I'll take a bona fide superstar any day of the week over a project. Favors may turn out to be great, but I see the odds as likely that he doesn't. To me, the risk that Favors turns out to be the beast everyone hopes he is around as high that we lose D-Will. The draft choices don't excite me as much--once you get past the first few in the draft, you're largely into role players or quality starters, not superstars, and you DO NOT win in this league without superstars. It's worth, in my opinion, taking a risk to hold onto the superstar you do have than to dump him in a gamble on unknowns and potential superstars.
What galls me also is that I re-upped my season tickets the day before all this went down. It's worth money to me to pay to watch a team with a chance, albeit it an outside one, to advance deep in the playoffs, though admittedly this wasn't going to happen this year. But if you have a superstar to build around, then your odds are greater. Now, we are a collection of role players, projects, and scrubs. Houston Rockets, Milwaukee Bucks, Charlotte Bobcats, Indiana Pacers are now our max potential, while Sacramento, New Jersey, Toronto are an as likely outcome.
The odds of us getting another superstar of D-Will's caliber appear slim--we don't have a high enough draft pick and this is not a top free agent destination. I'm not optimistic, but hoping to be proven wrong. But in the end, Miller and KOC acted out of fear, dumped the one superstar we had or could have had, and in the process, I think, have doomed this club to bubble mediocrity with not even outside hope of deep playoff penetration.
Miller and KOC panicked. There was no need to pull the trigger this early. For all the abuse he has suffered, I find myself in agreement with Borat. I would strongly have preferred the Jazz to have waited until the CBA was ironed out before taking such a drastic step. Although everything now thinks the odds of Deron staying were small, things can and do change. What happened with Crymellow and LeBron was not pre-destined to happen here. There's no telling what might have happened between now and 2012, and with the CBA in the mix, it remained a highly fluid situation, that might have resolved itself yet in the Jazz's favor. It also strikes me as far fetched that the Jazz could not still have gotten good value for Deron in 2012 if things did not work out. I find it hard to believe that there would not have been good offers on the table for one of the elite point guards in the league. The Jazz did not need to make this move at this time--there was time and there may well have been opportunity to make this work, and in the worst case most likely they could STILL have gotten good value in a trade.
With all that, I'm not so high on Favors. He strikes me as an unproven project. I'll take a bona fide superstar any day of the week over a project. Favors may turn out to be great, but I see the odds as likely that he doesn't. To me, the risk that Favors turns out to be the beast everyone hopes he is around as high that we lose D-Will. The draft choices don't excite me as much--once you get past the first few in the draft, you're largely into role players or quality starters, not superstars, and you DO NOT win in this league without superstars. It's worth, in my opinion, taking a risk to hold onto the superstar you do have than to dump him in a gamble on unknowns and potential superstars.
What galls me also is that I re-upped my season tickets the day before all this went down. It's worth money to me to pay to watch a team with a chance, albeit it an outside one, to advance deep in the playoffs, though admittedly this wasn't going to happen this year. But if you have a superstar to build around, then your odds are greater. Now, we are a collection of role players, projects, and scrubs. Houston Rockets, Milwaukee Bucks, Charlotte Bobcats, Indiana Pacers are now our max potential, while Sacramento, New Jersey, Toronto are an as likely outcome.
The odds of us getting another superstar of D-Will's caliber appear slim--we don't have a high enough draft pick and this is not a top free agent destination. I'm not optimistic, but hoping to be proven wrong. But in the end, Miller and KOC acted out of fear, dumped the one superstar we had or could have had, and in the process, I think, have doomed this club to bubble mediocrity with not even outside hope of deep playoff penetration.
