"You Gotta Love It Baby" Official Jazz thread

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

So you're telling me the only reason players sign with the Jazz is because they know their team is going to match?! I bet players love staying on losing teams like the Clippers and Hawks just to be in a 'big' market.

You must be too young to recall that everyone was surprised that the cheapskate Sterling was willing to match the Brand/Maggette offers.



I'll take your money. I'm telling you that there is no doubt that Phil will take over when Jerry decides he's lost enough playoff games. Phil has turned down offers to move knowing the Utah job is his. LHM said as much.

You must be too young to remember when Derek Harper chose to stay on a Mavericks team that sucked rather than be Stockton's backup and play in the NBA Finals. Yes, there is a bad stigma about Utah. NBA players aren't excited about being there.

Phil is a few years older than Jerry. I wonder if he is just going to retire at the same time.

[scottie]

Boozer had a total of 7 FT attempts in the four games. Ouch.

[Surfah]

Boozer had a total of 7 FT attempts in the four games. Ouch.

Fadeaways and face up jumpers. What do you do with Boozer this offseason? How do you replace him (his numbers) without getting smaller? Aldrich? Monroe?

[whoneedscorners?]

You really have no clue. If LA's focus was to stop Deron by allowing the 40 year old Fisher to guard him because they knew Deron wouldn't attack the rim, you're right.

My hat's off to Sloan. Another year of being Phil's bitch.

That's the point genius. Why would they need to put anybody else on him when they already have so much attention devoted to him in the first place? They have devoted 3 help defenders to stop Deron's penetration the entire series...

[Donuthole]

That's the point genius. Why would they need to put anybody else on him when they already have so much attention devoted to him in the first place? They have devoted 3 help defenders to stop Deron's penetration the entire series...

Look how wide open Boozer is. I can't really blame Deron for not passing him the ball, though. It probably would have gone right through his hands.

[scottie]

Fadeaways and face up jumpers. What do you do with Boozer this offseason? How do you replace him (his numbers) without getting smaller? Aldrich? Monroe?

I posted before the series that Utah's success again LA hinged on Boozer. A lot of Jazz fans worried he would lay an egg and that's exactly what he did due to a combination of him being intimidated (causing him to commit turnovers and settle for fadeaways), an undersized 4, and LA's size (only one of those three were his fault). He has been really good for Utah, but the ROI on the investment Utah would have to make in him to match what I think some EC team offers just isn't there IMO (my guess is he gets offered ~$13 M per by some team). Boozer as the starting 4 with Millsap backing him up I'll say gives us 3-4 more wins a year than Millsap/some-other-guy combo would -- is that worth the Boozer salary pain? (Don't forget the luxury tax hit that would come with it too). The Lakers' frontline is going to be around for a few more years, I think they're ruling the WC for awhile.

[Surfah]

I posted before the series that Utah's success again LA hinged on Boozer. A lot of Jazz fans worried he would lay an egg and that's exactly what he did due to a combination of him being intimidated (causing him to commit turnovers and settle for fadeaways), an undersized 4, and LA's size (only one of those three were his fault). He has been really good for Utah, but the ROI on the investment Utah would have to make in him to match what I think some EC team offers just isn't there IMO (my guess is he gets offered ~$13 M per by some team). Boozer as the starting 4 with Millsap backing him up I'll say gives us 3-4 more wins a year than Millsap/some-other-guy combo would -- is that worth the Boozer salary pain? (Don't forget the luxury tax hit that would come with it too). The Lakers' frontline is going to be around for a few more years, I think they're ruling the WC for awhile.

You only think Boozer is worth 3-4 more wins?

[Surfah]

BTW, Jazz fans you guys are getting grilled all over the media today in regards to the treatment of Fisher.

Thought this might be worth sharing (from his press conference announcing his signing. Worth noting that Kobe was unsigned and the Clippers were pressing at the time of Fish's decision to join LA):

http://www.nba.com/lakers/news/07osc_signdfish.html

How surprised are you that the Jazz and the NBA did this for you?

I’m not surprised because I think most people will find that when you get an opportunity to spend time with a lot of guys in our league and guys in other sports you’ll find that they are really kind hearted, thoughtful, considerate young men that are out there competing and playing in a lot of these sports. Because of negative stories that often hit the front page or the top stories a lot of that kind of gets lost in the shuffle. I’m not surprised, definitely not by the Jazz and their response that would allow someone to think of their family first because that’s what they always prided themselves in as an organization. I think the NBA often times as a league takes a lot of image hits because of individual decisions that are made by players or management or anyone involved with our league at times. But I think what you’ll find more times than not that if you’ve really got a chance to be around in more personal settings with athletes and people that compete in the NBA is that they’re really hundreds of great young men that are great husbands and great fathers. They do the best that they can on a day in and day out basis. So it doesn’t surprise me, it may surprise some people but it doesn’t surprise me, that when things come right down to it and there’s something that an individual really needs from a team or from our league and it’s a situation like this more times than not you’ll find they step up and do the right thing.


You mentioned other cities that you might have gone to, how much did the “home” aspect play into your decision to come to Los Angeles?

The aspect of us having a history here in Los Angeles really factored in after we identified Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles as the place we could get the best care. Once that happened then of course between the Lakers and Clippers, because of the history and the relationship between Mitch and I and the 20s, 30s of people that still work here and are apart of this family the comfort level was there. In terms of making our initial decision to identify this city, Los Angeles came from our doctor, we got the list from him and from there we were able to work through the different things we needed to identify. Really it’s a three pronged approach to finding the best place for us four because we have a treating physician in New York. You also need a pediatrician that has some experience with this, a pediatric ophthalmologist who will watch the eyes for us, and then a pediatric oncologist who specializes in cancers for kids. Once we identified that group that we could find that here, having history here in Los Angeles period, we zeroed in. From there it just became a matter of having discussions with the individual teams.

[falafel]

How thoughtful of you, Surfah.

[scottie]

You only think Boozer is worth 3-4 more wins?

Hard to really discuss that because with a young body he missed an ave. of 23 gms/yr in his 6 years with us. How many is he going to miss as a 29+ year old?

[Donuthole]

BTW, Jazz fans you guys are getting grilled all over the media today in regards to the treatment of Fisher.

Thought this might be worth sharing (from his press conference announcing his signing. Worth noting that Kobe was unsigned and the Clippers were pressing at the time of Fish's decision to join LA):

http://www.nba.com/lakers/news/07osc_signdfish.html

There is nothing worse as a fan base than being collectively "grilled all over the media". I may not sleep tonight.

[Surfah]

How thoughtful of you, Surfah.

You're welcome.

[smokymountainrain]

Look how wide open Boozer is. I can't really blame Deron for not passing him the ball, though. It probably would have gone right through his hands.

He'd back it out and shoot a jump shot. When you're close to the basket like that, sometimes you get fouled and stuff. We don't want that.

[falafel]

You're welcome.

I didn't say thank you.

[Surfah]

Hard to really discuss that because with a young body he missed an ave. of 23 gms/yr in his 6 years with us. How many is he going to miss as a 29+ year old?

Fair point. What happens if you guys get a lucky ping pong ball? If you don't and Monroe and Aldrich are gone at 9, then what?