A Dismal End to the Jazz Season

So, Karalee and I are pretty big Utah Jazz fans (we also love BYU football and basketball. Surprisingly, Karalee is interested in more sports teams than I am--she also loves Ducks hockey and the New York Yankees. But, things are more normal when you look at the amount of time each of us spends with sports) and we're disappointed that last night the Jazz season came to an underwhelming end.

If any of you follow the Jazz, or the NBA, you might know that the Jazz' struggles came in the form of a lot of injuries and an atrocious road record--they beat two winning teams on the road this entire year.

What then, should the Jazz do to improve their fortunes next year? Well, you've come to the right place if you wonder what I am thinking:

The Jazz should trade Carlos Boozer and Andrei Kirilenko and find a way to get good draft picks in the upcoming draft. In return for Boozer and Kirilenko and aside from getting draft picks, I would like to see them land Andrew Bogut, Chris Kaman, or Marcus Camby.

Boozer should go because Paul Millsap, while not as talented--is younger and has time to become as talented, actually wants to stay in Utah, and for now would likely be cheaper to pay than Boozer. All the Jazz needs would be to re-sign Millsap to keep him and get rid of Boozer!

Kirilenko should go because he is probably the fourth or fifth best player on the team while also easily being the highest paid player on the team. I believe he still has the potential to be the best or second best player on an NBA team (he didn't get his monstrous contract in the first place because he got splinters riding the bench) but I must attribute his foundering play to a weakness in coaching on Jerry Sloan's part. http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=ctqqc2
ESPN makes me look like a big Bobcats fan, but I think this trade would work out for the Jazz, by just waiving or benching everyone in the trade but Andrew Bogut. I've tried other trades too, but they don't factor in trading draft picks--something the Jazz could surely use.

The point about Kirilenko is that I would love to see him reach his full potential with a team willing to utilize fully his talents--I think those teams would most likely be from most to least: Phoenix, Golden State, and New York.

By bringing in Bogut (or Kaman or Camby) the Jazz bring in much needed size and defense, along with people that hopefully want to stay. Plus, I think the trade would slim the Jazz' contract.

In the end, I would be very interested to see a Jazz team that started Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, Matt Harpring, Mehmet Okur, and Andrew Bogut with Ronnie Price, Kyle Korver, Paul Millsap, and CJ Miles coming off the bench.

Almost as interesting would be seeing Steve Nash, Jason Richardson, Matt Barnes, Andrei Kirilenko, and Amare Stoudemire starting for the Suns, with Leandro Barbosa, Louis Amundson, Robin Lopez, and Grant Hill coming off the bench. I say almost as interesting because I liked the Suns a lot just a couple of years ago when they had Raja Bell, Shawn Marion, and Boris Diaw, and didn't have Jason Richardson or Shaquille O'Neal.

In the end, I think the most shocking thing that might happen to the Jazz is that Boozer will opt out of his contract. That would be insane, because Boozer has spent half his Jazz career on the bench and I can't believe he'd earn more than his current contract somewhere else--especially in this difficult economy. Unfortunately, I really think Kirilenko would be even less likely to be traded because his contract is bigger and has shown even less potential than Boozer. This would also mean that the Jazz couldn't afford to keep Paul Millsap :(

So I think the Jazz' biggest off-season shake-up would be deciding between Millsap and Boozer. I'm sure that in such a situation, the Jazz would prefer that Boozer opt out of his contract (unless the Jazz could get someone on the very cheap in return) and then sign Millsap to a modestly big contract, while the main core of Williams, Okur, Kirilenko, Brewer, Korver, Harpring, (maybe Ronnie Price),and Miles would remain. For financial reasons, Boozer would likely lose big in this scenario, but at least his ego would be really big until he signed that new contract. Unfortunately again, unless the Jazz sign someone that can shore up the defense and put a new wrinkle into their total scheme, I don't think the Jazz in such a situation would be markedly different from the team of this year. Who knows though--maybe they'll do something crazy. However, they've hardly done anything remotely close to crazy trading in their entire history that I'm aware. Maybe we'll be surprised then next year with essentially the same team, but minus Boozer...