"You Gotta Love It Baby" Official Jazz thread

[MarkGrace]

You can't stop Sundiata Gaines!

[MarkGrace]

Memo with 5 blocks. Looks like we found out shot blocking center.

[MarkGrace]

I really like Matthews.

[JohnnyLingo]

I really like Matthews.

Me, too. I'm sure the Jazz will find some way to trade him in order to save money.

What is with this Jazz team? They've alternately looked horrific and championship-caliber this season.

Annoying.

[MarkGrace]

Oh, I don't know that they've ever looked championship caliber. But they have at times looked like they could give any team in the West save the Lakers a run.

[MarkGrace]

Having lost 13 straight games, the perimeter-heavy Detroit Pistons would like to get their hands on Carlos Boozer. A Boozer-for-Rip Hamilton trade works, but Utah doesn't want to take back the three years, $38 million remaining on Hamilton's contract, even though he'd made a sweet backcourt mate for Deron Williams.

Boozer for Tayshaun Prince also works financially, but Prince has one more season after this one at $11 million, and the Jazz aren't looking to add salary for next season.

Utah coach Jerry Sloan wants to keep Boozer, who will be a free agent next summer, for the rest of the season, and perhaps beyond. To that end, the Jazz are shopping Andrei Kirilenko with all their might. But good luck with that one. Kirilenko won't have any takers until next season when he's in the last year of his deal.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/12221/caron-butler-on-rockets-wish-list

[JohnnyLingo]

Having lost 13 straight games, the perimeter-heavy Detroit Pistons would like to get their hands on Carlos Boozer. A Boozer-for-Rip Hamilton trade works, but Utah doesn't want to take back the three years, $38 million remaining on Hamilton's contract, even though he'd made a sweet backcourt mate for Deron Williams.

NO NO and NO. We do not need Rip Hamilton... I'm fine with our 2- and 3-guard production right now. An aging and expensive Rip will not do anything for the Jazz.

Boozer for Tayshaun Prince also works financially, but Prince has one more season after this one at $11 million, and the Jazz aren't looking to add salary for next season.

Also, Prince is essentially Andrei. So no.

Utah coach Jerry Sloan wants to keep Boozer, who will be a free agent next summer, for the rest of the season, and perhaps beyond.

WHY? Why on earth does Sloan want to keep Boozer? I realize Boozer is playing well lately (contract year alert!), but come on, Jerry.

[MarkGrace]

I would really like to see this starting lineup for a while: Deron, Matthews, AK, Booz, Fess.

Price, CJ/Korver (depending on who's healthy and playing well), Brew, Sap, Memo as the bench.

[Coastal Ute]

I would really like to see this starting lineup for a while: Deron, Matthews, AK, Booz, Fess.

Price, CJ/Korver (depending on who's healthy and playing well), Brew, Sap, Memo as the bench.

I haven't been able to catch as many games as I would have liked to so far this season. How's Fess on the interior? Euros are always a little iffy. All I've seen him do on defense is basically foul whoever enters the key.

[MarkGrace]

I haven't been able to catch as many games as I would have liked to so far this season. How's Fess on the interior? Euros are always a little iffy. All I've seen him do on defense is basically foul whoever enters the key.

Fess has a propensity to foul, but most young bigs do. However, he has a very clear defensive impact when he is on the floor. He's absolutely huge, long, and for his size is mobile. Dude takes up a lot of space and alters plenty of shots. Jerry just refuses to play him unless the other team is playing a true center type (7' or more).

82games just updated, and the Jazz are currently 10.4 points per 100 possessions with Fess on the floor and 7.5 points worse with Memo on the floor. On/off court stats aren't strict evidence of anything (especially for a player with minutes as scattered as Fess), but a gap that sizable is interesting.

[scottie]

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/12243/utah-tells-dallas-boozer-better-than-tax-relief

Utah tells Dallas: Boozer better than tax relief
By Marc Stein

Utah general manager Kevin O’Connor loudly insisted Monday that those of us who presume that the Jazz will do anything they can to get under the luxury-tax line between now and June 30 have it way wrong.

The Dallas Mavericks got the same message when they tested Utah’s resolve early last week.

The Mavs made a long-shot attempt to convince Utah to part with Carlos Boozer by proposing an all-about-money trade that would have provided the Jazz with another sizable chunk of payroll relief to follow up the significant savings from their recent swap with Oklahoma City, ESPN.com has learned.

Yet sources close to the situation say that the Jazz weren’t about to be tempted.

Using Drew Gooden’s partially guaranteed contract and two players it wound up trading to the New Jersey Nets days later – Kris Humphries and Shawne Williams – Dallas could assemble a package of contracts high enough to reach the salary range of Boozer’s $12.3 million expiring contract to make the trade math work ... but low enough to net an initial savings of $2.5 million for the Jazz.

Waiving Gooden before last Wednesday -- which was the last day he could be released and still clear waivers -- would have then sliced another $2.6 million from Utah’s payroll to essentially take the Jazz out of tax territory. It’s believed that the Mavericks also would have been prepared to throw in some cash to help offset the $3.2 million due to Humphries next season.

The Jazz, though, have been telling teams for months that they won’t give Boozer away. A recent slump that dragged its record to 19-17 before Saturday’s thumping win over the Mavs in Dallas apparently hasn’t changed that stance.

As noted in this cyberspace when Eric Maynor and retirement-bound Matt Harpring were dealt to the Thunder in December -- which sliced its luxury-tax bill this season from $12.6 million to a much more manageable $4.8 million -- Utah set itself up to be a lot more choosy when such attempts to steal Boozer inevitably rolled in.

Since the summer we've heard repeatedly that the Jazz want at least one keeper in return in addition to payroll relief if they’re going to consent to a Boozer deal. And that was when their luxury-tax bill was going to approach $13 million.

Now?

ESPN The Magazine’s Chris Broussard reported Monday night that Jazz coach Jerry Sloan is hoping any decision about Boozer’s future is put off until free agency starts July 1.

Sloan’s superiors might ultimately decide they want to move Boozer before the Feb. 18 trading deadline, but they certainly don’t have to if. Instead they might deem a tax payment in July in the $5 million range – even though that’s way more tax than the Jazz want to pay – to be a one-season hit they can absorb to let the current group finish the season.

O’Connor tried to get that across in Monday’s media session when he said: “I think you guys are so focused on the luxury tax. We’re not.” The Salt Lake Tribune’s ever-sharp Ross Siler also quoted O’Connor as saying that the Jazz are not determined to getting under the luxury-tax threshold “at all costs.”

Only that sort of mentality would have led Utah to seriously consider this offer from the Mavs, who are presumed to be out of any upcoming Boozer bidding now.

They’re no longer in a position to pitch the same sort of payroll-relief package because Humphries and Williams became Nets property as of Monday and since Gooden’s $4.5 million expiring contract became guaranteed Jan. 10.

Offering one of its core pieces for Boozer, meanwhile, would appear to make little sense for Dallas. Erick Dampier and Josh Howard both possess what amount to expiring contracts, since neither’s salary is guaranteed in 2010-11, but how could the Mavs part with either one for Boozer when – before we even get to the basketball concerns – they’d have no guarantee of re-signing the free agent-to-be this summer?

The idea that Gooden would be the best player Dallas surrenders in a Boozer swap is one thing. Given Utah’s need to immediately release Gooden to maximize its savings, there might even have been a chance to re-sign Gooden after a 30-day wait.

A hypothetical Howard-for-Boozer swap, by contrast, would obviously force Dallas to surrender one of its two best trade chips for a player who – even if everything clicked offensively – would make the Mavs defensively vulnerable if they tried to finish games with a frontcourt tandem of Boozer and Nowitzki.

[Donuthole]

Utah general manager Kevin O’Connor loudly insisted Monday that those of us who presume that the Jazz will do anything they can to get under the luxury-tax line between now and June 30 have it way wrong.

I guess maybe some of us were fooled into thinking that getting under the luxury-tax threshold was the goal when they traded a promising young PG away for nothing but cap relief. Why they wouldn't do the same for Boozer is puzzling, as he has absolutely no future with the Jazz beyond the end of this season. The same couldn't have been said for Maynor at the time of his trade.

IOW, if getting under the luxury tax wasn't the goal, then why didn't they make a Boozer-related cap move, and keep the young, promising PG on the roster?

Because they are going to make the finals this year with Boozer. That's why.

ESPN The Magazine’s Chris Broussard reported Monday night that Jazz coach Jerry Sloan is hoping any decision about Boozer’s future is put off until free agency starts July 1.

Told ya.

[Bastage]

I don't think they traded Boozer because Sloan really likes him. Plus, Paul hasn't been anything to write home about since his nice big contract was signed.

Maynor doesn't really have a future with the Jazz since Deron is on the roster. A back up PG has been a problem for the Jazz for years, but it's better than finding a starting PF.

[Donuthole]

I don't think they traded Boozer because Sloan really likes him. Plus, Paul hasn't been anything to write home about since his nice big contract was signed.

Maynor doesn't really have a future with the Jazz since Deron is on the roster. A back up PG has been a problem for the Jazz for years, but it's better than finding a starting PF.

Boozer is bolting the second free agency opens, so on July 1, the Jazz will have to find a backup PG and find a replacement for Boozer. It's not as if trading Maynor meant Boozer was suddenly going to stay.

EDIT: The only hope, I suppose, is that Boozer will agree to a sign-and-trade, in which the Jazz get a young player, one or more picks, and some expiring contracts in return. That is definitely better than pure cap relief, but I have my doubts about whether or not it will happen.

[MarkGrace]

We all know what the Jazz are doing. KOC's statement is just attempt to retain some bargaining power. If he stresses tax relief, then all they get are tax relief offers when I think he's still hoping to get some young talent in return.