SALT LAKE CITY — The free agent feeding frenzy begins tonight at 10 (MT), and it should be quite the smorgasbord of expensive dishes. Step up to the table and make your choice. There's wagyu beef (Dwyane Wade) and matsutake mushrooms (Chris Bosh). Or you might consider the rare blue lobster (Dirk Nowitzki).
Don't forget the most expensive item of all, Almas caviar (LeBron James).
Are you drooling yet?
Among the free agent side dishes: Amare Stoudemire, Joe Johnson, Tracy McGrady and Paul Pierce.
Not that this has much to do with the Jazz. They're over the salary cap and on a peanut butter budget. Their hope is to retain Carlos Boozer, but even then it would have to be at a discounted rate. As if. Boozer is the guy who guaranteed he'd get a raise when he became a free agent.
But even if the Jazz did have cap room, they wouldn't get a superstar. On a national scale, they just don't sizzle. If you're a top free agent, you want to play where it's hot, literally or figuratively: New York, Chicago, Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Boston. The biggest free agent the Jazz ever signed — besides their own — was Boozer, who produced nice numbers but has missed 138 games.
The list of free agents who rejected Utah is significant: Derek Harper, LaPhonso Ellis, Mario Elie and Sam Perkins among them. Top free agents like Shaquille O'Neal and Kevin Garnett never did consider Utah. A Sports Illustrated poll among players in 2006 listed Utah as the least desirable destination in the league, by a wide margin. Twenty-seven percent apparently considered it a cross between Siberia and water torture. That won't change, no matter how much money the Jazz have. They'll have far more cap space after Andrei Kirilenko is off the books in 2011, but that doesn't mean any dominant player will come here.
The prevailing thought — but only occasionally admitted — is that even if it means earning an extra few million bucks, playing in Utah also means living in Utah.
Basically UTAH SUCKS!
Don't forget the most expensive item of all, Almas caviar (LeBron James).
Are you drooling yet?
Among the free agent side dishes: Amare Stoudemire, Joe Johnson, Tracy McGrady and Paul Pierce.
Not that this has much to do with the Jazz. They're over the salary cap and on a peanut butter budget. Their hope is to retain Carlos Boozer, but even then it would have to be at a discounted rate. As if. Boozer is the guy who guaranteed he'd get a raise when he became a free agent.
But even if the Jazz did have cap room, they wouldn't get a superstar. On a national scale, they just don't sizzle. If you're a top free agent, you want to play where it's hot, literally or figuratively: New York, Chicago, Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Boston. The biggest free agent the Jazz ever signed — besides their own — was Boozer, who produced nice numbers but has missed 138 games.
The list of free agents who rejected Utah is significant: Derek Harper, LaPhonso Ellis, Mario Elie and Sam Perkins among them. Top free agents like Shaquille O'Neal and Kevin Garnett never did consider Utah. A Sports Illustrated poll among players in 2006 listed Utah as the least desirable destination in the league, by a wide margin. Twenty-seven percent apparently considered it a cross between Siberia and water torture. That won't change, no matter how much money the Jazz have. They'll have far more cap space after Andrei Kirilenko is off the books in 2011, but that doesn't mean any dominant player will come here.
The prevailing thought — but only occasionally admitted — is that even if it means earning an extra few million bucks, playing in Utah also means living in Utah.
Basically UTAH SUCKS!
