2008 Rocky Mountain Revue, second thoughts on draft, and news

by Basketball John on Jun 30, 2008 1:31 PM MDT in Rocky Mountain revue Comment 3 comments

Even the official Utah Jazz site doesn't have the teams mentioned for the Rocky Mountain Revue, but if you follow The Fan Sports pre-sale link, you can find the following teams,

Dallas Mavericks
Atlanta Hawks
San Antonio Spurs
New Jersey Nets
Golden State Warriors
FIBA National Team
D-League All-Stars

So we should be seeing such players as Brook Lopez, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Goran Dragic, and Anthony Randolph in addition to our players. The Hawks didn't have any 2008 picks and the Mavs had just the one. I was hoping to have Chicago here again to see Rose, but that's not happening. I guess the teams could change between now and then, but this is pretty much it.

We're down one NBA team from last year, but they've added the FIBA team and Dl-League All-stars. So it's not the death of the RMR yet. But there aren't any big name players this year. Lopez is probablyt the biggest one. But we all go to see the Jazz team, right?

Should be a great Revue. For the Jazz we'll see Koufos, Fesenko, Almond, and maybe CJ Miles. He got QOd again. The brass was a little disappointed that he didn't play last year and so he may play just to please them. He didn't want to play because of the chance of injury. He and his agent also stated that there was a lot of interest from other teams, but I don't recall who those other teams were. If CJ wants to earn some brownie points with Sloan, he'll play. I wish the Jazz would just give him a guaranteed contract and be done with it. He's an obvious upgrade over Hapring, but Matt still has two long years on his deal.

And there will be outrage if I don't see Fess and Kosta on the floor at the same time.

More Kosta

Surprisingly, Kosta isn't the only Kosta in the league. Kosta Perovic is another 7-footer and hails from Croatia. Seems like if you want your kid to be 7 feet, you name him Kosta. And should his nickname be the Big K?

via upload.wikimedia.org

I like what I've read and heard about Kousos. He sounds like a gym rat that just wants to play ball. He doesn't have any distractions and will be a hard worker (Sloan's only requirement).

And I might have been a little hard on Ante Tomic in my draft recap. Part of it was that it was late, I was tired, and I was just trying to finish up. I still don't think we'll see him with the Jazz, but there's definitely potential there. He just doesn't seem like he'll ever be able to put on the weight that's necessary to play in the NBA. Too bad we probably won't be the first team to have the triple-towers. Maybe we'd see it in the Revue, but not likely.

Other news

Millsap had his team option picked up. Shocker. I know the Jazz would prefer to keep him on the cheap, and I see the advantages of the rookie scale, but it seems like there should be some option for the rookies to get some type of performance pay or bonus. You don't want to have to pay players based on hype in case they don't pan out, but having guys like Millsap and Williams playing for relative peanuts doesn't seem right. I'm sure something like that would open up all kinds of loopholes though. If they're good enough to stick around for a few years, then that second contract should make up for it.

Speaking of Williams, he and Boozer are in Vegas training for the Olympics. It would be great to be there right now. You have the Olympic practices going on along with the Vegas summer league. I don't know where you could get any more basketball right now.

And of course tomorrow is the first official day Williams could agree to a new deal. The length of the new deal is what seems to be the discussion right now. It could range from 3-5 years with a player option. Of course we'd all love to see Deron here for 5 years +. I'm guessing the length of the contract depends on how Deron sees the stability of the team. We know he loves the SLC. The team will have to assure him that they'll be doing what's necessary to keep and bring in players. It's kind of a catch-22 because having Deron here will help the Jazz in what has traditionally been free agent hell. But I'm sure Deron has to be convinced that the team can bring in FAs.

I'm predicting a 4-year deal with a player option for the fifth. He could set the tone for Chris Paul's similar deal.

Crazy month coming ahead.

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Paul Millsap

Actually, since Paul Millsap was drafted in the second round (47th) he’s not subject to the rookie scale – only contracts given to first round selections are subject to the rookie scale. Second rounders are free to negotiate whatever contract they desire, but most sign for the league minimum. Currently the minimum is $442,117 for the 2008-09 season, but “only” $412,718 when Millsap was drafted in 2006. Millsap signed a two-year contract, but we don’t know the exact dollar amount since the Jazz are notorious for withholding contract information. But, if he signed for the league minimum in 2006 he probably earned $687,456 for the 2007-08 season (league minimum for a player with 1 year experience).

The lack of standard contracts for second rounders is a double-edged sword. Obviously you don’t want to give a second tier rookie a guaranteed three-year contract for 2.3 million (over the life of the contract) if you’re not even certain if he will make the team. But, sometimes that lack of contract certainty can bite a team in the butt. See the example of Gilbert Arenas: he was drafted 31st (first selection of the second round) and given a contract for the league minimum over two years. During those two years Arenas proved himself to be worth more than the league minimum, and expected a big raise. But, Golden State was over the salary cap, and couldn’t offer him a contract that matched the ones offered by Washington and LAC. So, after two years of development, GS lost him on the free agent market for nothing.

When I saw Millsap’s play as a rookie I was afraid we were heading for a Gilbert-type situation. Fortunately we have a team-option for his third year, but if he continues to play at his current level he’ll be expecting a big raise next year when he becomes a free agent. In a summer when Boozer will also be looking for a new deal I’m not sure if we’ll have the cap space to retrain Millsap.

by kris247 on Jul 1, 2008 9:25 AM MDT reply actions

Bah.

Ignore all of that. I completely failed to understand how the “Arena’s Rule” works in the 2005 CBA. With the new Arena’s Rule a team can not offer more than the mid-level exception to a third-year player. This prevents the exact scenario outlined above. (Unless the team that drafted the player in the second round spends their entire MLE on another player).

by kris247 on Jul 3, 2008 10:07 AM MDT up reply actions