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

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vj_74

Well-Known Member
10 days back it was the No-Sloan Deron Williams era. But turns out it is totally another era where we are entering.The era where we dont have any identity of our own like we had earlier, when the Jazz franchise was kind of the last bastion in the NBA that stood for franchise stability,continuity,loyalty and player discipline.

By losing both the HOF coach and the franchise player and by having an owner whom I suspect couldnt care less about basketball, the Jazz are just another one of those teams out there.I am amused at some posts that suggest Favors or any of these guys are going to be Jazz lifers. Seriously? No Stocktons and Malones out there anymore. No Sloans either. Players already know that Utah means cold weather, less nightlife, less money and less exposure. But atleast Utah meant a winning system and a franchise that values loyalty/stability some time back. That doesnt exist anymore.

Heck, the Clippers look much more attractive for apotential FA than the Jazz. Even those who sign with the Jazz might do short team deals or might always be looking for a way out as Plan B.It is that kind of an era which we are entering. Someone mentioned that the Jazz have been refreshingly out of character this season. First they let their HOF permanent fixture of a coach go. And then did a bigitime mid-season trade finally.Yes, they were out of character. But refreshingly so? Dont know about that.

That was definitely the end of an era, in many more ways than one. Brought about by a combination of franchise mismanagement and prevailing star-player attitudes.
And I am not sure if there are even any eras left for this franchise.
 
So your suggestion would be? Be like the cavs in 2012?

The jazz don't like to gamble so they took the safe route.
 
Legatus said:
So your suggestion would be? Be like the cavs in 2012?

The jazz don't like to gamble so they took the safe route.
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My post was not specifically about just this move. I was ruminating in general over how things have turned out so far under Greg Miller. Jazz no longer look like the Jazz and the future looks uncertain. Obviously this move was done as a result of previous screwups. I understand that.But ever since Greggy boy took over it has been whacky times for the Jazz
 
Relax.

We were needing to rebuild. We lost valuable young players (like Wes Matthews, KK, and Brewer) and our frontcourt (Memo and Boozer) the past year. This rebuilding was inevitable. It may take a year or two, but the Jazz have enough assets to be in the playoffs (and hopefully a contender) very soon. People forget, Devin Harris is a former allstar. Favors was considered a better prospect than John Wall coming out of HS. He was the #3 draft pick in last years draft, considered the best bigman.
And then we have 2 more draft picks to work with.

Relax, the Jazz are a work in progress.
 
The Thriller said:
Relax.

We were needing to rebuild. We lost valuable young players (like Wes Matthews, KK, and Brewer) and our frontcourt (Memo and Boozer) the past year. This rebuilding was inevitable. It may take a year or two, but the Jazz have enough assets to be in the playoffs (and hopefully a contender) very soon. People forget, Devin Harris is a former allstar. Favors was considered a better prospect than John Wall coming out of HS. He was the #3 draft pick in last years draft, considered the best bigman.
And then we have 2 more draft picks to work with.

Relax, the Jazz are a work in progress.
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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.
 
It really doesnt matter what happens here, some fans are always the negative nancy.
Of course most of us 'homers' dont realise Sloan is gone and so is DWill, so I do thank you for pointing it out. There is obviously no hope at all. Favors will suck, Harris sucks, both #1 picks will be busts and Hayward will never be anything. Plus its cold here in Utah, which I had forgotten also. Of course this is LHM's and Sloans fault. But wait, now it is Greg and KOC's fault..Next month it will be that horrible guy Corbin's fault, and it will still be cold and one month closer to picking our future busts.
I honestly look forward to see how it goes. It is a change from 50 wins, 1st round exit. IT is exactly what soooo so many haters were saying the Jazz should do. Revamp and take chances. Now, of course, the reality of the 50 win safety net is gone. Looking forward to see how it goes. If we tank and burn, try again. Wow, on noes!
 
Thriller is right. There's been a lot of changes in a short amount of time but some of them were inevitable. Sloan was leaving sooner than later, was it how we wanted it to go down? nope but it was going to happen anyway. It was his time. I beleive that Dwill was going to leave, we made a proactive move. We wont know if it was a smart move for a year or two but I like Favors, Harris is a good point, we got some good picks and hopefully we make another move today before the deadline.

It does feel different but things change and the Jazz are still here.
 
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"Just to be clear, this is not my father's Jazz."
 
LogGrad98 said:
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.
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It was inevitable.

We lost a ton in KK, Wes, Brewer, Memo (a career that very easily might be done), and Boozer. With Deron acting out and running Sloan out of town, the writing was on the wall.

Jazz did what they had to do. They didn't wait like Cleveland, Toronto, or Denver. So we got a head start in that respect. We got some nice pieces.

I too wish we were going 82-0 and had allstars at every position. But this rebuilding was inevitable. Now hopefully we can bounce back soon. Unlike 2004, where we literally had NOTHING, we have some nice players to build around. A team of AK, harp, and Arroyo is a lot less talented than Al, Millsap, Favors, and Devin Harris. We have younger more promising players, like Evans, Hayward, and CJ than Borch, Raul Lopez, and uhhh Ben Handgloben. And more draft picks.
 
Sloan leaving meant a changing of the guard. D-Will could have signed for 5 years, but he didn't. Jazz need to assure Corbin has complete control of the team, and that meant getting rid of the one guy who could sway the locker room significantly. This guy was holding the Jazz hostage whether he meant to or not.

I don't know if Corbin will be around as long as Sloan or turn out a one season bust. What I do know is the Jazz maintaining complete control of the clubhouse is a move toward more stability and an attempt to maintain the old way.
 
In regards to the original post...I tend to agree. I was texting with utjazz last night and I feel disconnected to this team. There is not one player on the team that I feel an allegiance to in any way...Devin Harris, while talented, feels like a player from another team playing for the Jazz...if that makes any sense.
 
write4u said:
I tend to agree. If LHM were still alive, Jerry and Deron would still be here.
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Is that what we'd want though? Another handful of years from Jerry and Deron on the way out? Or do you think LHM could've improved our chances of keeping DW?
 
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.
 
The most frustrating thing is that we really were not that far from contending just last summer. Granted we got our behinds handed over to us by LA again, but LA and SA are the teams that will fade in a couple of years due to age, while our best players were going to reach their peak, be in their prime, and by that time would have had time to gel. Plus we were hoping to get something decent out of NY pick, AK’s contract was finally about to expire in a year. Things were looking up. And KOC screwed it up.
Letting Wes go, when KOC had a chance to match him turned out to be a huge mistake. Granted I agree, Wes was not going to take us to the title this year. But having 17 ppg SG in just his second year, who plays best defense on the team certainly would have been a HUGE upgrade over what we have now AND for the future. This is just his second year. He is likely to improve these numbers even more. Not be a star perhaps, but another solid young block to compliment Deron, AJ, and Millsap. 2 years from now a line up of Deron, Wes, Hayward, Millsap, and AJ could potentially be good enough to contend with LA and SA inevitable decline. Or perhaps we could have packaged Millsap and Hayward for a bigger/better PF next year. We could have used Okur’s expiring contract next year as well.
Instead KOC did not match Wes, traded away Deron, and we are not better than any other crappy team in the West. It’s just unfortunate and extremely painful to watch us descend from being a few pieces away from contending for years to come to perennial lottery. Really tough to swallow. From last summer’s realistic expectations of contention in a couple of years, we are going to spend the rest of decade evaluating young talent that we will be hoping to get in lottery. What a pathetic disgrace.
 
The point of the opening post seems to be missed by many.

It's not just an issue of the move made yesterday, but rather how the Jazz got to that point at all. And that's by mishandling or interpreting every major issue surrounding the team, the franchise and its future, going back to July.

Letting Boozer go was a big mistake. Likewise, Korver and Wes. The fact that they showed no interest in re-signing any of them is a pointer towards mismanagement that is near-negligent.

From there, they then expected too much from too little; the idea that the Jazz were supposed to contend with all these new players, a lack of post-facilitation or outside shooting, is laughable.

And it's not just the fact that these issues became manifest, but that nothing was done to fix any of them.

I also think that there's a sense of Miller being a hypocritical egomaniac that expects 'good soldier'-like mottos and loyalty while never showing anything of the sort toward his major employees. Going back to Boozer, you can see evidence of emotion clouding judgment; management was angry at Boozer, and never moved beyond that anger. Not only trying to convince the fans, but also themselves, that he was overpaid and irrelevant; that Paul Millsap could fill his role.

At the time, I found it hard to believe that they believed it. But perhaps I gave them too much credit.

Even worse, was whatever the hell went down with Sloan. Yeah, it was likely a big issue with Deron but, more than that, it was management again becoming involved in the worst way. They didn't support Sloan, which led to his leaving, only to then turn on the team's franchise player in less than two weeks?

Really.

Miller can talk about Deron not committing all he wants, but what commitment has he shown to winning, now or in the future?

Just look at the last 3-4 trades this team has made. None of them have been moves to make the team better. And with the team floundering, particularly on shooting, was there any type of move to make a mid-season pickup? You know, similar to what the Mavs or any other *serious* management group does to help propel their team forward?

No. There's a lot of empty PR to, first, stay the course, only to schizophrenically blow the entire team up within weeks when staying the course doesn't lead to an immediate turnaround or at least bankable mediocrity.

For all that complain about Deron -- and I'm one that had *major* problems with him after what went on with Sloan -- this team is still being controlled by an owner. The problem is, that owner cares less far less about winning than the two cornerstones that have been shipped out in the last couple of weeks.

It's amazing, really, how quick and aggressive the Jazz were to ship Williams out. As contrasted to improving the team -- making a major move with, say, Kirilenko's contract years ago -- when they were a piece or two away from real contention. When they had cornerstones that could lead to deep playoff runs.

No, see, then they just sat. And waited, year after year, to see what the Jazz 'had' when 'healthy' or whatever agitprop.

So, evidently, it was easier for Greg Miller to ship Williams out, let Sloan walk, and give the entire fanbase the finger than to make a move on a player like Stojakovic; after all, another signing would just add to payroll.

Better to blow it up than pay even a million more. This is the type of thinking that will kill the franchise.

And it's basically Greg Miller's argument when he says that the organization and Williams were after different things.
 
And, as addendum: just remember, they made this move with Williams right in front of a major shakeup in the CBA, with Williams still having a year on his contract.

****ing brilliant.
 
Borat said:
The most frustrating thing is that we really were not that far from contending just last summer. Granted we got our behinds handed over to us by LA again, but LA and SA are the teams that will fade in a couple of years due to age, while our best players were going to reach their peak, be in their prime, and by that time would have had time to gel. Plus we were hoping to get something decent out of NY pick, AK’s contract was finally about to expire in a year. Things were looking up. And KOC screwed it up.
Letting Wes go, when KOC had a chance to match him turned out to be a huge mistake. Granted I agree, Wes was not going to take us to the title this year. But having 17 ppg SG in just his second year, who plays best defense on the team certainly would have been a HUGE upgrade over what we have now AND for the future. This is just his second year. He is likely to improve these numbers even more. Not be a star perhaps, but another solid young block to compliment Deron, AJ, and Millsap. 2 years from now a line up of Deron, Wes, Hayward, Millsap, and AJ could potentially be good enough to contend with LA and SA inevitable decline. Or perhaps we could have packaged Millsap and Hayward for a bigger/better PF next year. We could have used Okur’s expiring contract next year as well.
Instead KOC did not match Wes, traded away Deron, and we are not better than any other crappy team in the West. It’s just unfortunate and extremely painful to watch us descend from being a few pieces away from contending for years to come to perennial lottery. Really tough to swallow. From last summer’s realistic expectations of contention in a couple of years, we are going to spend the rest of decade evaluating young talent that we will be hoping to get in lottery. What a pathetic disgrace.
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Couldn't agree more. :mad:
 
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