First off, I hope this thread sparks discussion that focuses around the likely preferences our FO has, instead of people pushing their own narratives about what they hope or what they think the team should do.
So I read the tea leaves like this:
1) Get that superstar to pair with Lauri and build the team up
2a) Tinker with value and contracts to take care of the cap and keep the team in position to execute option #1
2b) Agree for a temp tank with Lauri, and tank with him
Wild Card: Trade Lauri and enter deep tank realms.
Before I get to the 1-2a/b parts, I wanna justify why trading Lauri is not an actual plan but a wild card. That is because I think there is plenty of first hand evidence that Lauri is happy in Utah and cool with the rebuild strategy, and on the other hand there is just mostly silence on the "shopping Lauri" front. There were next to zero "Jazz are having discussions" or "Team X has interest" reports related to Lauri during last deadline, despite the early reports that we may have been open to the idea. To me that tells that either they didnt get calls or the discussions died fast. Now I'm betting its the latter, and the only way trade discussions die fast is that either our FO didnt want to discuss those things to begin with, or the asking price vs offers were so far apart that there was no point in continuing to discuss.
For those actual plans, I think #1 has to be as stated because the FO has been very adamant with the media about it. Smoke and mirrors theories dont really make sense since I dont think other GMs give a flying bleep about what we are looking to do at this current stage. You dont lie to the media just to lie to the media. I mean sure, keeping fanbase engaged an all that is important.... but if you would all of a sudden enter a deep tank then that lying SURELY backfires as you had just set expectations the other way around.
However I'm not sure about 2a or 2b. 2a is more on the line of what they have done thus far, but I sensed a change of direction in this trade DL as we moved away from some guys who had a chance to be future contributors and long term pieces for us and didnt seem to get that much value back. It felt like "naah, we arent gonna pay these guys in the offseason so might as well let them go". That notion doesnt make sense for 2a as I felt like Tech especially was likely gonna build up his trade value for the future if we kept him and signed him at around MLE level deal (or whatever he is going to get). Capspace-wise, it did make sense to trade him though.
So I read the tea leaves like this:
1) Get that superstar to pair with Lauri and build the team up
2a) Tinker with value and contracts to take care of the cap and keep the team in position to execute option #1
2b) Agree for a temp tank with Lauri, and tank with him
Wild Card: Trade Lauri and enter deep tank realms.
Before I get to the 1-2a/b parts, I wanna justify why trading Lauri is not an actual plan but a wild card. That is because I think there is plenty of first hand evidence that Lauri is happy in Utah and cool with the rebuild strategy, and on the other hand there is just mostly silence on the "shopping Lauri" front. There were next to zero "Jazz are having discussions" or "Team X has interest" reports related to Lauri during last deadline, despite the early reports that we may have been open to the idea. To me that tells that either they didnt get calls or the discussions died fast. Now I'm betting its the latter, and the only way trade discussions die fast is that either our FO didnt want to discuss those things to begin with, or the asking price vs offers were so far apart that there was no point in continuing to discuss.
For those actual plans, I think #1 has to be as stated because the FO has been very adamant with the media about it. Smoke and mirrors theories dont really make sense since I dont think other GMs give a flying bleep about what we are looking to do at this current stage. You dont lie to the media just to lie to the media. I mean sure, keeping fanbase engaged an all that is important.... but if you would all of a sudden enter a deep tank then that lying SURELY backfires as you had just set expectations the other way around.
However I'm not sure about 2a or 2b. 2a is more on the line of what they have done thus far, but I sensed a change of direction in this trade DL as we moved away from some guys who had a chance to be future contributors and long term pieces for us and didnt seem to get that much value back. It felt like "naah, we arent gonna pay these guys in the offseason so might as well let them go". That notion doesnt make sense for 2a as I felt like Tech especially was likely gonna build up his trade value for the future if we kept him and signed him at around MLE level deal (or whatever he is going to get). Capspace-wise, it did make sense to trade him though.
