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Are Jazz stuck?

Moving AK's expiring will not garner a player of equal value or ability. Yes, he's oft injured and inconsistent, but I don't us getting a better or equally as skilled player for him. Sucks, but it's the truth. So why trade him for the sake of trading him? The only trade of value I can see happening is a package deal with the #9 to move up in the draft. Otherwise, we'll pay half his salary and get offered crap for the remaining 9 million.
 
We have to make some kind of franchise-changing move this summer, its envitable. But that move could easily be drafting Aldrich at 9 and letting Boozer walk for nothing.
 
Get Hassan Whiteside at #9.. kid is good and is just going to get better. He's a billion times better than Koufos/Fesenko. He'll finish out his first season as one of the best rookies in the NBA. Mark my words.
 
I dont get why the Jazz dont just trade their worst player for an allstar. That seems to be what everyone keeps thinking. It doesnt matter that it takes two teams to do the trade. The Jazz are at fault.
I HATE the AK deal now, but I remember at the time thinking he could develop into a top 10 player in the league. He was that amazing for a year or two. I do think the Jazz should have done the Marion for AK deal, if it was for real. But, other than that, I dont see how its KOC's and Greg's fault that no one wants to give up a good player for one of our crap players.
The only solution I see sometimes is for us to tank a season (Spurs)so we get a high pick or get a Stern gift (Gasol, which wont happen). We are always just good enough to get a crap pick. I understand the frustration, but I dont see it as such an easy fix as some think.
 
I would like to see the Jazz hang on to AK47 for one more year.

I think he knows that many of his problems over the years have been because he was overpaid, not because he was unproductive.

I think the Jazz re-sign him at about 50% of his current contract. At that rate he will be a real value, and his contract will not be the thing keeping them from improving.
 
Scorpjazz said:
I understand the frustration, but I dont see it as such an easy fix as some think.
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Well, Bish, ya know, us message board posters aint exactly the "man in the arena," when it comes to players, coaches, owners, or front office personnel, eh? Speakin for my own damn self, I just demand what I demand, and if I don't get it, SOMEBODY is wrong, very wrong, ya know?

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
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Theodore Roosevelt, "Man in the Arena" Speech given April 23, 1910
26th president of US (1858 - 1919)
 
Scorpjazz said:
I dont get why the Jazz dont just trade their worst player for an allstar. That seems to be what everyone keeps thinking. It doesnt matter that it takes two teams to do the trade. The Jazz are at fault.
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At what point does the fan base generating all revenue have a legitimate right to hold accountable the front office? Yes, there are some morons who get upset with the front office for not trading Andrei for Garnett, but does that mean that anybody with different views than the management are morons by association? Three years in a row we have brought back the exact same team with the exact same result. The reason? Pick any combination of the following:

-We're a young team and have a lot of up-and-coming players that we should expect a lot of internal improvement
-We really haven't seen this team healthy yet
-It takes two teams to trade and if it will make the team better we'll look into it
-We've been really aggressive in keeping our core together and have shown our willingness to do so by matching offers

I'm a pretty conservative person. Very, actually. I support keeping Sloan. I generally have supported not making trades in the past. Our philosophy has honestly become the same as someone going to a grand buffet, but while everyone is fighting in line for the filet mignon we go make sure we don't miss out on the macoroni and cheese. Yeah, I understand we're not obtaining treasure for trash. I don't even expect an all-star for Boozer or Kirilenko. I'm just sick of the defeatest attitude. "Well, nobody wants to deal with us, nobody wants to sign with us. We're just going to make sure we can get as much macoroni and cheese that we can." I'm tired of macoroni and cheese. It's not filling. Yeah, it tasted good at first, but it's time to try to get some damn steak because the mac and cheese is about to make me vomit. I'm willing to risk starvation for it.

It'd be nice for Kevin to come out and say something other than "yeah, well we'll look into anything." With some of the decent players being moved for trash the past few years (when we have better assets than what was offered), I really don't think it's all that much to ask that we make a couple of lateral moves to balance our team out. Oh, I know, an awesome season ended by an exit via the Lakers is always exciting (oh and yes, I know, "they're the champions" and we should just bend over and accept getting knocked out).

When training camp comes we'll be told that they did all they could, they were super aggressive, but the deals just weren't there, we have an exciting year where we've had another year to gel and be healthy, and we had been blessed to have a lottery pick, especially considering we were a playoff team and now we're adding a lottery pick. If this tickles you pink, then that's grand.
 
infection said:
It'd be nice for Kevin to come out and say something other than "yeah, well we'll look into anything."
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So he should be like Cuban and get fined 100K? Saying ANYTHING right now about free agents is tampering. And talking publicly about any possible trades is downright unequivocally stupid.
 
Rumors are that KOC and the gang are doin more than you might think. Just for starters, I have been informed by my sources at Best Buy that Fess has been taken prisoner and is being kept in the training room at the Salt Palace 24/7. All cigarettes have been withheld, and he has been forced into lifting weights, running, etc., 14 hours a day. Best of all, he is not allowed to sleep without listening to repetitive messages where Sloan calls him an effin c, to jar him out of his soft-*** mentality.
 
Darkwing Duck said:
So he should be like Cuban and get fined 100K? Saying ANYTHING right now about free agents is tampering. And talking publicly about any possible trades is downright unequivocally stupid.
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I think you misheard me. I'm saying I'm sick of seeing the same BS accompanied by that excuse.
 
The only way 'we' can hold the Organization accountable is to not buy tickets or merchandise. That is our only power. Yes, we can 'demand' change on message boards and say we are outraged, but it means little as we keep spending money. Since I know I am not going to do that, I guess I try to be an optimistic homer then.
I wish for better results and yeah we can all come up with back seat GM moves that would be a sure ring generator, but to endlessly be angry seems kind of counter productive to the whole reason I am a fan, to have fun.
 
mfree said:
I would like to see the Jazz hang on to AK47 for one more year.

I think he knows that many of his problems over the years have been because he was overpaid, not because he was unproductive.

I think the Jazz re-sign him at about 50% of his current contract. At that rate he will be a real value, and his contract will not be the thing keeping them from improving.
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I don't buy that his being overpaid had a lot to do with his problems, except that in his own mind he felt like he deserved more of a role in the offense. As for fans in the arena, they usually cheer if you do well and sometimes boo if you don't, no matter how much you're getting paid.

Oh, and then there's Jerry. AK has been a prima donna at times, but Sloan did little to change things until after the 2006-2007 season was over and was basically asked to bury the hatchet. Did Sloan ever talk to AK during the season about his role? Did he ever talk to Deron about how to get AK more involved? I doubt it.
 
Hopper said:
Why would you doubt it when it was repeatedly (publicly) reported that such conversations did take place?
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Do elaborate, if it was publicly reported, that there were conversations during the season, and what resulted from them.

While you're looking, I'll cite an article that suggests that little was accomplished during the 2007 regular season at the end of which the ***** hit the fan. Fittingly, Phil Johnson--not Sloan--is the one quoted during the following pre-season's trip to Boise that they are "going to do the best we can" to get AK involved.

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695215301,00.html


So in other words, Sloan not only hasn't had a good in-game strategy in handling players at times, he hasn't had a good in-season strategy. AK decided to wisen up and shut up, but it should have never escalated to that level, and it didn't bring back the past. Coaches are not just motivators; they are also negotiators.
 
InGameStrategy said:
While you're looking, I'll cite an article that suggests that little was accomplished during the 2007 regular season at the end of which the ***** hit the fan.


So in other words, Sloan not only hasn't had a good in-game strategy in handling players at times, he hasn't had a good in-season strategy.
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Well, to begin with what you think a particular article "suggests" seems rather idiosyncratic to me and I don't agree with your conclusion. If you are talking about a very strict time period, i.e., only the season where he ended up crying in an interview, then it's been so long that I can't remember what all was said or done exactly when.

That said, I do remember, for example, Sloan yelling out very demonstrably to Williams early in a game to run a certain play. The play was for AK and he missed a lay-up very close to the basket. That notwithstanding, Sloan immediately stood up and clapped in an enthusiastic (not sarcastic) fashion and called the same play the next time down the floor (I think AK made a bucket the second time). This was during the season where AK was whining 24/7.

It his own interviews that year (mainly in russian outlets) AK admitted, under pressure after seeming to deny it, that the Jazz playbook had a number of plays designed for his position. His attitude seemed to be that he didn't care to run those plays because they were too mundane, perhaps suitable for a hack like Harpring, but not worthy a player of his caliber who should be allowed to freelance and make "spectacular" plays, designed just for him (or designed just to let him improvise---which he did plenty of, anyway).

He also admitted that Sloan had made it clear that he (AK) had an open invitation to discuss any concerns he might have. AK said he preferred not to take advantage of that invitation because he didn't like talking to Sloan. None of this is meant to precisely relay his verbatim comments, but that was the gist.

I think one would be hard-pressed to blame Sloan for AK's refusal to talk or try harder to get involved in the structure of the Jazz offense.
 
That same year, AK's long-time advocate, guardian, and protector, Larry Miller, was interviewed on the radio and asked about AK. Miller said that AK had told him that his assignment in the Jazz offense was only to go stand in the corner and stay out of the way while the other four played.

That was too much for even Miller to swallow. He said: "Do I have "Sucker" written in big letters on my forehead, or something?"
 
Hopper said:
That same year, AK's long-time advocate, guardian, and protector, Larry Miller, was interviewed on the radio and asked about AK. Miller said that AK had told him that his assignment in the Jazz offense was only to go stand in the corner and stay out of the way while the other four played.

That was too much for even Miller to swallow. He said: "Do I have "Sucker" written in big letters on my forehead, or something?"
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Well, your previous post was a very nice anecdote (vs. a bona fide link), and then the post immediately above suggests that either (1) AK refused to accept any efforts by the coaching staff to get him involved in the offense [my link implies that this didn't happen at any magnitude until the season was over] or (2) there were not significant efforts to get AK involved in the offense until ***** hit the fan.

Your mention of the Russian interview appears to be a lot of your interpretation of what the interview implied. My interpretation of that year is that he might've slacked off on the offense because he didn't get enough touches in the first place, not that the plays were not spectacular enough. Neither explanation is a good excuse; nevertheless, they still beg the question of what the coaching staff (Sloan) did about it. Even though he was being a drama queen, I don't buy that Sloan put forth much effort in improving the situation, especially given the string of run-ins that he had with especially foreign or semi-foreign players (Amaechi, Arroyo, Giricek, etc.). By contrast, Gregg Popovich was able to marshall several foreigners (Parker, Gino, Oberto, Duncan (sort of a foreigner, although he went to a U.S. college)) to several championships. Is AK all that much more high-maintenance than these guys? I say only modestly.

Given Sloan's unwillingness to enforce defense for his big men, foreign (Memo) or not (Boozer), maybe Sloan has swung the other way to being too passive in some respects. In either case, it's ineffective, and I think that the Jazz organization underestimated the negative impact that Sloan had on the team's success in years past. Maybe the player chemistry is here, but the in-game strategy still isn't.
 
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