What David Locke Could Have Blogged

You can find the original David Locke blog here:  

It all felt so normal.  Everyone boarded the bus on time.  We went through security and all the players were on the plane.  I was the final person boarding the plane and Carlos Boozer was outside the plane's front door on the phone.

That is not totally unheard of, we aren't allowed to be on the phone on the plane so players will sometimes make a final call before a long flight.  Then word spread that a player needed to get off the plane and all of us got a pit in our stomach. 

You are a traveling party and anything that breaks that up feels very strange.  The same way we all felt when Eric Maynor was moved in Miami. It is a tough day -- we all like Carlos a ton.  He is wonderfully caring person who was once deemed to be the next Karl Malone.   He has been a wonderful teammate and good friend for many of the guys.

However, this is really about basketball, and from a basketball standpoint it makes a lot of sense.

Miami called the Jazz about  four months ago and wanted to make a deal with the Jazz for Carlos Boozer.   On the first call the Heat offered the Jazz Udonis Haslem and Dorell Wright and Kevin O'Connor turned them down.  The Heat countered with an offer of Haslem and Quentin Richardson for Kyle Korver and Boozer and again O'Connor told them it was a no deal.

Now on the deadline the Heat returned to the table offering the Jazz their first round pick with some protections.   The Jazz felt that was a good enough asset that making the deal was worth being made.

Boozer was a restricted free agent at the end of the year and could have left the Jazz without any compensation if he got an offer that Jazz felt was more than they were able to match or wanted to match.

Now the Jazz with plenty of protection at the power forward position, with Paul Millsap, Andrei Kirilenko, and Mehmet Okur, have added a first round pick to their cache for the off-season.

Paul Millsap has shown he can be a starting power forward, and with AK, Okur, and Ronnie Brewer's games being much better when Boozer isn't using more than his fair share of possessions,  the Jazz have plenty options depending on the match-ups.

On draft day the Jazz will have both the Knicks first round pick and the Miami Heat first round pick.  This may allow O'Connor to couple the picks into a better position or to parlay that into some other piece of the puzzle.

Once before, O'Connor was able to work his magic on draft to get into the top 5 of the draft maybe this gives him the ability to do it again.