I wake up on this draft day very frustrated with where the team seems to be heading, and feeling a bit like I was sold a bill of goods.
Let’s start off with this — I am fine with either (1) a pure “run-it-back” where we don’t move any of our rotation pieces and go deep into the tax; and (2) a re-tooling of the roster to get under the tax and get a bit younger and build around Don for a another run at it in 3 years. In other words, either keep us fully committed in “win now” mode or make some moves that consciously set us back a few years with the idea of being better in the future.
I feel like I was sold option (1) by the FO’s messengers early this summer, i.e., “the Jazz are all in on bringing back the entire core and don’t care about the tax.” Which I am fine with. But now that the day of reckoning has come and the bill has come due, it just feels like we’re chickening out and wanting to trade a rotation player just to dodge the tax and are even offloading an asset to do so.
A move like this is not a “win now” move, though it will be sold as such. It’s just a tax saving move. The team does not get better by shipping Fav for nothing and attaching a pick, and we are not made potentially any better in the future by this move because we are losing the pick.
Just a pretty gutless move by Ryan, to be perfectly honest, if that is what happens. If we’re going to be sold on a run back, pull out the checkbook, RyGuy. Instead, it seems like we’re going to just run back an older team with less depth that we neither improved in the here and now nor better positioned for the future. Free agency will not be a panacea or legitimate avenue to improve the team. We are Utah, and also have no money. We aren’t getting anyone good enough to improve anything or meaningfully address needs with minimums (barring us getting really lucky by finding the next JaeSean Tate in another league or something) and why would we add a 6 millon dollar mini-MLE contract guy to our tax situation when we are willing to attach a first round pick to get off a $9 million dollar contract for tax reasons?
I hope I am eating these words tonight, but I am confident I won’t be. Smith seems to be cheaping out at the last minute.