Beginning of a new era? Not the one you are thinking of

[Stifle Tower]

LHM once said with the laugh when Clippers drafted someone talented in top 5 (not sure who it was), here is a guy who whill be available in 4 years. Well, here you are Larry, now the same can be said about the Jazz. We drafted a star who led us to play-offs 4 straight years, including 2 WCSF apeparances and 1 WCF. 5 years later, he was available. Don't forget that before Deron got to Utah, we had a pathetic season. The season before was 500 season and no play-offs. Only after DWill's rookie year (where he was benched), did we become play-off team again. Now, it's going to be rebuilding all over again, and who knows wheh (if ever) will we get a superstar like Deron to lead us to even play-offs wins, not to mention WCF finals. I just don't see us being better positioned at this point than any team in the West. Even teams on the bottom of the West now have building blocks that are better than ours. I mean we don't have players today that are of caliber of the players in most pathetic teams in the League, such as Blake Griffin, Gordon, Kevin Love, Evans, Ellis. And these are just the worst teams in teh West now. We are in even worse shape than most of them. With DWill, we had a building block who was superior to any one of the pieces above. Now we have inferior blocks than the worst West has to offer. But we have a certainty (of the medocrity) that we got in trading an outstanding building block, as Greg Miller likes to spin it. What a disaster for this franchise.

Name one other team that loses 2 HOF'ers or all-stars and is immediately competive. LA after Magic and Co. left? Nope. Boston after Bird? Nope. Chicago sans Jordan and Pippen? Nope. SA? Well, they tanked the season when Robinson went down. Let's see what happens after Duncan leaves.

Utah won 41 games with a bunch of non-namers. The next season, the team was decimated with injuries. Kind of like that SA situation.

Hindsight is 20-20. I think Jefferson for Boozer is a wash. The real contract that hurts the team is AK's. And that is Larry's fault, not Greg's or KOC's. Trades were on the table and Larry vetoed them.

Matthews, yes, that hurts. But there were few who wanted Utah to match that contract. Wes had 1/2 season starting and was not very good in the playoffs. In hindsight, yes, the Jazz should have kept him. But in doing so, they would have not been able to bring in Jefferson. Tell me how much better the Jazz would have been with Fesenko and Elson in the middle?

You have to consider budgets. The Millers aren't Paul Allen. They can't spend $20M in luxury taxes.

If you read the articles that have been posted, Greg and KOC have met repeatedly with Deron and his representatives. They WANTED to keep Deron as the cornerstone of teh franchise - just like Cleveland bent over backwards trying to retain James. But in the end, there was a real, tangible fear, based on the language of Deron and his posse, that Williams would leave anyway. So kudos to Greg and KOC for not getting "LeBron'd."

Yep, Utah will be rebuilding. But Favors was the #3 pick for a reason. And Devin is very good PG. I suspect he'll average 16/8 with the Jazz. Jazz also get out from under AK's and Deron's MAX deals. Then Utah gets perhaps two lottery picks this season and one future (provided GS's doesn't turn into a couple of 2nd's at some point).

Personally, I think the Jazz will be much better than most suspect next year. They certainly have improved their depth. I'll take Favors over Elson any day of the week. And who knows who we get with NJ's pick...hopefully a "making" guard. We have shooters in Bell and CJ, but those guys usually can't hit the basket. Hey, maybe that's where Favors can really help. Just stand on the opposite side of the bucket, waiting for the airball "pass."

 

[JAZZFAN_2814]

Most likely, but he's a troll with a schtick to beat (ex: they let Boozer walk). You're not getting meaningful conversation from 2814. Better to ignore and pay attention to sincere posters.

Yes, anyone that believes Boozer was important to Sloan's system and Utah's team cohesion must either be a troll or someone that has basic understandings of floor spacing, team sets, player skillsets and other basketball minutia. Take your pick; but I suppose to you, they're the same thing.

i.e. someone to deride and or ignore at all costs on Jazzfanz.

Oddly enough, this team certainly seemed to lose its identity offensively, on the boards and in the locker room with Boozer's departure. I'm sure these things are totally unrelated, though.

 

[JAZZFAN_2814]

For all you know, they might have a concept of franchise tag in NBA next year, like they do in NFL. And Deron is under contract for year and a half. There really was no urgency here at all. There was still time to actually try to get Deron help rather than destroying the team.

Um, yeah. That was my point.

 

[Borat]

+1.

You're sounding broken.

I know. It's just it's quite hard to get over a franchise changing mistakes like that. Becoming a laughingstock and the pathetic bottom dwellers of the NBA from realistic expectations just af ew months back to compete for a title in a couple of years is not that easy to just get over.

 

[NUMBERICA]

Way to over react this isn't 2004 with a scrub pg and Ak as are best offensive player. Harris is a good player Favors could turn out to be a stud, don't forget Big Al, Paul Millsap,Cj Miles, Gordon Heyward, and 2 or 3 lottery picks over this year and next. It's not like there is no talent on this team like in 04. We have lots of players to build around, in two years we will be contenders again.

In 2004, this team had Larry, Jerry, and a real culture and identity. This team has nothing but "pieces" now, just like the Clippers of the previous 20 years. If you don't have someone to put pieces together, you might as well not have them.

 

[Borat]

“Utah won 41 games with a bunch of non-namers. The next season, the team was decimated with injuries. Kind of like that SA situation.”
I am not saying that Utah did not do well these years, considering their roster sucked. What I am saying is that we needed a guy like Deron, playing like a superstar, to make play-offs and win play-off series. Now we just gave away him away, and now need to looks again for a guy of this caliber. And guess what, while we did get fortunate and got him fairly quickly, 4 years before making play-offs again, while having a rather decent 500 caliber roster (we lost many games due to injury as you said to get good pick and needed idiocy of Portland to get Deron in addition to it), this time it is simply naïve to think we will get this lucky again. Normally it takes a long time to rebuild, a lot more than 4 years. And it is not fun. Especially when we just rebuilt and needed to take it to next level, not jump back down. And the whole point of rebuilding is finding a guy like Deron to be cornerstone and building around him. Something we already had last summer.
“Hindsight is 20/20”
Yes, but to go from Booz, Millsap, Wes, AK, and Deron starting to AJ, Millsap, AK, Raja, Harris is a huge downgrade and a disgrace for any GM. Even if you have a couple of picks (which may not even be on top 10 plus 6 ppg rookie) to show for it. If KOC just traded Booz for AJ and kept Deron and Wes (instead of giving nearly the same luxury tax payments for Raja+Elson), we are actually one of the most promising teams in the West in a few years. Now, you can say hindsight is 20/20 all you want, but KOC had more time than anyone to evaluate Wes. And he clearly failed there in spite of having his rights. And he also failed with Deron in spite of having his rights for next 1.5 years and therefore not being pushed into anything. KOC built a good team, which could get better after 2 HOFers left, and he now destroyed it. You can make all excuses you want. If we just kept our starting back court from last summer and just swapped Booz for AJ, we would be in good shape now. Instead we got a load of crap in our back-court. It was just a monumental failure, no matter how you slice it.

 

[franklin]

Take your pick; but I suppose to you, they're the same thing.

i.e. someone to deride and or ignore at all costs on Jazzfanz.

Negative rep for how pathetic this was. I was expecting a good reaming a la Adam Sandler's At a Medium Pace, but that was pathetic and lackluster. Now give me a real whipping, big girl.

 

[friendsinmyhead]

In 2004, this team had Larry, Jerry, and a real culture and identity. This team has nothing but "pieces" now, just like the Clippers of the previous 20 years. If you don't have someone to put pieces together, you might as well not have them.

How do you know this? Why not give it a chance to work? just bcuz jerry & Larry are gone does not mean we automatically turn into the clippers. we got some good highly sought after pieces that could turn into something great. why not sit back and wait and see what the results are? Did u think we were gonna win a championship this year had we kept dwill?

 

[NUMBERICA]

How do you know this? Why not give it a chance to work? just bcuz jerry & Larry are gone does not mean we automatically turn into the clippers. we got some good highly sought after pieces that could turn into something great. why not sit back and wait and see what the results are? Did u think we were gonna win a championship this year had we kept dwill?

I base my assumptions off of data and trends. Since Larry died, everything that identified Jazz basketball died with him in less than 2 years. That's good and fine to have hope, but why are we to assume that things will just now turn around besides hope? Experience and continuity is a premium in this league, and management just lost 3 figureheads in two weeks and are now coached by a guy with no head-coaching experience and are still short an assistant.

I'll be stoked as hell if I'm wrong. But facing facts, there is NO indication that things will improve or be the same.

 

[unluckyseventeen]

And they have been for 10 years, should be nothing new to us. Lots of shake up, lots of new players, same old story. I was hoping for a change, but I didn't want them to blow the team up and go back to 2004 all over again. I am along for the ride wherever it may go, but I still wish it hadn't gone this route. Sigh.

What other choice did they have? Did you really believe Deron would be here past 2012? And with as much as the lockout is possibly going to affect next season, I'd say the Jazz got off with a pretty good deal.