If the team stays as is, with a few tweaks here and there, would the Jazz be considered a sleeper team in the West if AK47 decides to sign with the Jazz? It's a long long long shot considering all we could realistically offer him is the mid level exception but imagine our defense with AK47 and Derrick Favors on the court together. Is it just me that thinks Andrei is capable of being this unselfish?

I started playing with a name search engine to find out the meaning of different names for our jazz team. The most famous, Erik Bork, actually does turn up as a real name. It's meaning, and the meaning of several of our other favorite jazz players is after the jump.

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I think it is a concensus among Jazz fans that our biggest needs are outside shooting and finding a young PG. It seems like there is a lot of momentum behind the Iggy for Big Al idea. However, I've been secretly coveting Jrue Holiday for a while. He shoots 38% from three, can pass and is a peremeter defensive menace. At 21 years old, he'll continue to improve. To me, Holiday is the answer to our search for a PG.

It seems like Philly really wants to unload Brands bad contract. Well, to do that, they'll need to give up an asset...like Holiday. Brand + Holiday = roughly 18 million in salary. We could offer them Harris (decent PG) and Millsap which gets within 1 million in salaries. I know that trading Millsap is heresy, but I think getting Holiday in return is worth giving up Millsap and taking on Brands contract. A starting linup of:

Holiday, Hayward, Carrol/FA, Favors, Big Al with Brand off the bench is pretty good.

Anyways, maybe I'm overvaluing the Millsap and Harris. Anyways, thoughts?

Sorry, I know I just barely posted yesterday as well about Favors getting minutes. But the status of Ante Tomic seems like a mysterious enigma that everybody knows (except for me), and nobody talks about. All I know about his is that it would be awesome if we could get him over here and play him as our 3rd/4th big and then we would be able to trade Big Al to address other needs.

I know there's some sort of contract issue of some sort (he's getting better pay there than he would here or something of the sort). How could we get him over here though? I just need a bit of clarification. Thanks for any info you have.

I just had a quick question about the rules for the amnesty clause. Is a team allowed to amnesty a player, then re-sign him for a smaller contract to save money on the luxury tax? For example, let's say the luxury tax kicks in at $60 mil and the Bulls' salary is at $70 mil. For the first $5 mil over the tax, they pay $1.50 per dollar, or $7.5 mil total. For the next $5 mil, they pay $1.75, or $8.75 mil, for a total of $16.25 mil in tax, and a grand total of $86.25 mil. Would the Bulls be allowed to amnesty a player, say Carlos Boozer who makes about $14 mil per year, then re-sign him for a million? They'd still be paying him the full $15 mil, but it would take their salary down to $57 million, plus the $14 mil that they still pay Boozer from his old contract, which doesn't count against the tax, and they'd save a cool $15 million in luxury tax payments. Would that be legal under the CBA, or is there something that I'm missing here? Of course, they'd be running the risk that Boozer could just turn around and sign with a different team for more money, then they'd be stuck paying him $14 million per year to not play for them, but you can trust a guy like Carlos Boozer to keep his word, right?

It is rare that you see the thesis of a post so clearly laid out in it's title. However, in this case, I decided to eschew any subtleties to instead see the most important part of this post in quite large letters at the top of the screen. That way, if the Jazz brass happen to stumble upon SLCDunk, they can get the point of the post quickly and easily. And that's important to me.

But, I would encourage them (and you) to read on, in order to truly understand why Paul Millsap is our best player, and why it would be a mistake to trade him, even though we have a really awesome new Derrick Favors toy.

When making a general evaluation of a player, it makes sense to check many different sources. Because different stats measure different things in different ways, in order to get a complete idea of a player, we'll need to look at many different numbers, not just one.

BasketballValue.com's Adjusted Plus-Minus

Here are the top players by BasketballValue.com's Adjusted +/- over the last two years. Quick adjusted plus/minus recap: you may know of regular plus minus, which simply tracks how much a team's lead or deficit grows or shrinks when a player is in the game. Of course, that can be affected by a whole bunch of factors, including, of course, how good a player's teammates are. You might expect Joel Anthony's +/- to be really good, because he has exceptional teammates in the starting lineup in Miami. In order to account for this fact, adjusted plus-minus adjusts for the other players on the floor. The result is that Lebron, Wade, and Bosh's Adjust +/- is really good, and Joel Anthony's is below average. Just as it should be.

Because of how much noise can be in +/- statistics, they need a really large sample size to be meaningful. Luckily, Paul Millsap's been good over the last two years, so much so that we can be extremely confident that he's a really good player: using that standard error above, we can calculate that there's only a .07% chance that Millsap is merely an average player, and a 99.93% chance he's above average.

That kind of surety is actually pretty uncommon when looking at APM (adjusted plus-minus). It means that by this measure, Paul Millsap is fourth in the entire NBA in affecting the score when he is in the game. As you may know, one extremely important factor in winning basketball games is scoring more than the other team. When Paul Millsap is in the game, the Jazz do this extremely well. That's pretty important.

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Two words. Greg Oden.

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Since the season is over, we are all starting to think about this next season. What player are we going to draft? What trades are we going to make? What free agents will we grab? What improvements will our players make during the offseason? Since I've started pondering these questions, here is what I want to happen (after the jump). Do you agree? What do you want to happen (post in comments)?

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First it was Raja:

Resting on the Laurels of the past. Raja had the reputation of a good defender, but was clearly no longer a good defender. On top of that, he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with his jumpshot. He was clearly killing us yet his minutes weren't seeing any cuts. Thankfully, his abductor muscle became as useless as he was. Burksy made him obsolete yet Burksy's minutes remained sporadic at best. In large part due to the minutes somehow owed to this next fellow...

The Curious Case of C.J. Miles:

If there's one thing CJ Miles has remained consistent about in his odd career it's inconsistency. Truly the poster-child for streak shooters. A professional Rookie. Sure, he can light you up for 30 if he's feeling it...but you can bank on him not even showing up the next night if he does so. Then, making him even more unreliable, he has no other aspect to his game besides scoring to hang his hat on if he's having an off night. He's one of those guys that's really good when things are going well and really bad when things are tight. I don't have the figures but I'd feel pretty safe in assuming his FG% on shots taken with a ten point or more lead is double that of shots taken when his team is down 10 or more. It's called weak-minded. Not his fault, some people rise in adversity and others succumb to it. It's up to the coach to know the personalities of his players and put them in positions where they're more likely to succeed. The weak minded poster-child for inconsistency does not belong in a starting lineup. Nor does he belong out there in the 4th quarter where most games are decided. But Ty kept him in those positions until yet another injury made the right decision for him.

Earl the Pearl

I hated having to get down Earl when he came back from injury mid season. As his intensity and unselfishness was an integral part of the Jazz overcoming an early season lull. I especially didn't want to have to turn on the guy who stood up for a young Derrick Favors when he didn't dare stand up for himself. But Earl clearly wasn't himself post-injury and Jamaal Tinsley was running the offense like a fine symphony in his stead. The Jazz were rolling with Tinsley running the show as the 2nd point. With no questions asked, Earl retained his reserve role after injury. With our momentum firmly derailed Tinsley now buried back on the bench had to watch Earl drop the ball(sometimes literally). But...as is the theme here, Watson got hurt just in a nick of time and yet another win for the Injury Gods.

Josh Howard

I can't remember a Jazz player that fits less with Jazz Basketball than this guy, "ya' know" (if you've been watching Howard's post game interviews you will most likely get the reference. He says "Ya' Know" at least 50 times per minute) Josh practically does nothing within the context of team basketball. As soon as he touches it you can bank on him firing it up regardless of the defense. Yet another past his prime member of the Jazz who's stealing minutes from promising young players. I'm fine with minute thievery if it's actually translating into team success. But as with all of these guys, IT IS NOT. His +/- is terrible I'm sure. Anywho, Josh gets hurt and the "inexperienced" replacements completely outclass him en route to a somewhat surprising playoff appearance..

And How does Mr. Corbin reward those young guys???

Back to the Bench ya go.

Howard, here's your job back. Doesn't matter if you earned it.

I don't care if the Jazz are rebuilding or playing to win now...

It's just that Ty is somehow finding a way to do neither!!!

Injuries led to Ty's only good personnel decisions. I don't want to have to root for injuries on my team. I want a Coach who's smart enough not to put us in such positions to begin with.

This is long-winded and I haven't even started on Big Al's Defense & unwillingness to do the little things. Or the decision making of Devin Harris...yeah, after 18 years of Stockton and 6 years of D-Will he is just not going to cut it. We've been spoiled with Point Gaurds and we know when we're seeing it done right. Nor have I gotten into Favors inexplicable lack of playing time. Ty, please try to suck less so my angry rants don't need to be novels. I'd like to be writing angry rant pamphlets.

Jazz Fans, don't make the mistake of praising Corbin too much for getting this far. Favors, Hayward, Burks, Millsap, Carrol, Tinsley and some long overdue 3 pt accuracy for Harris got us to the postseason, . Not Ty, he did everything he could NOT to get there by playing has-beens for far too much time all season and making the offense far too Jefferson reliant. The hand the ball to Al and stand around offense didn't win in Minny so why would it win here?

I don't under any circumstance expect to beat the Spurs in this series. But I would like to get the feeling that we'll at least go down swinging. Not just going through the motions sticking with the same rotations & gameplans that have repeatedly proven themselves ineffective against quality opponents.

Lastly, Josh Howard belongs in a Charlie Murphy look-a-like contest. Not in our starting lineup.

I live in the Philippines and I've been a Jazz fan since I bought my first pack of trading cards and the card on top was of John Stockton. That was in 1996. It didn't take long for me to be a die hard fan. I missed classes and exams to watch Jazz games. I woke up at 3 a.m. to watch Jazz games. I cried when Stockton hit the game winning shot against HOU and got depressed when Jordan hit - after pushing Russell - his "last" game winning shot. I played basketball barefoot because the only available shoes my friend had were Air Jordans. Being a Jazz fan is and will always be a big part of my life even if I'm thousands of miles away. It's an exciting time to be a Jazz fan. This season, despite the ups and downs, was very satisfying for a lot of us. I've never been more proud to be a Jazz fan.

Let's go Jazz!!!