What might set a precedent for Deron William, Chris Paul signed a three year deal with a player option for a fourth that would pay him $68 Million.

So will that have an effect on Deron's contract?  Maybe.  I think their situations are a little different in the I think Deron might be thinking a little more long term because he has a family and likes the SLC.  My guess still is that he signs for four with an option for the fifth.

Of course, as clarkpojo pointed out in his excellent post, a lot of Deron's decision might depend on the brass of the Jazz convincing Deron that they will do what it takes to build a championship team around him.

At the very least, we'll have  Deron for the next four years with his remaining deal and a minimum of three on the new one.

via www.nba.com

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.

The Utah Jazz are the only team that can boast that they are sending two players to Beijing in August to play for the USA Olympic team.  Of course AK will be suiting up for the the Russians, so that brings the total to three.  Is there another team with more?

I don't think that fans have to be worried about this wearing out Deron and Boozer for the season.  If anything, they should be working out anyway over the summer.  It may not be to this extent, but they're both young.  I think it should make for a smooth transition into training camp. 

I wonder how it is going from playing with the top basketball players in the nation (possibly the world) to going back to playing with just "regular" NBA players.  It's not like you're playing just one All-Star game with no sets and nobody caring until the final three minutes. You're practicing with these guys for a month and playing for almost a month.  Is Deron going to cuss out Memo because he didn't catch an oop that was at the top of the backboard?  "Come on Memo, Howard would have had that!"  If I were other members on the Jazz, I would be practicing right now too.  Because Deron and Boozer are going to be coming back from Beijing already in stride.

And a poll question that I thought about while writing this.  Obviously, every Jazz fan would prefer to have an NBA championship over an Olympic gold.  But if you were a player, which would you prefer if you could only have one?  Stockton & Malone have the gold, but not the ring.  I guess it might be seen as more of an accomplishment winning an NBA title as you don't have the same talent around you.  But the Olympics might be considered the only true "World Championship" as it involves every country (including qualifying).  So would you rather have never won an NBA title but won the gold, or would you rather have the ring and have some other country win the Olympic gold?

Well , this will end all  the speculation.  Chauncey Billups has withdrawn his name from Olympic consideration.  That means we'll see Kidd, Williams, and Paul in Beijing.  That will be an impressive set of PGs.  Kidd has slipped of course, but there's no question he can still get it done.  Williams played terrific in last year's Olympic qualifier.  And Paul will allow the USA to mix things up a bit.

This combination was probably the least likely had Billups not withdrawn his name.  I think it would have been Deron or Paul that got bumped.  But I don't think any fan will be displeased with these three.  In fact, Williams outplayed Billups last summer I thought. 

This will most likely be Kidd's last Olympic showing.  Williams and Paul will lead the team for the next two to three Olympics.

The official team roster is set to be named on Monday.  Although I would have to think that most players would know by now whether or not they're going.

Great summer basketball coming up with the Rocky Mountain Revue, Las Vegas summer league, and the Olympics.

So we're starting off the season recaps of the players and teams.  I'll be putting mine up along with UtesFan89 and the guys at My Utah Jazz..  I'm very late in mine, but still ahead of My Utah Jazz..  Up first is Deron Williams.  If anyone has any strong desire to do the write-up for any of the players, let me know and I'll get yours posted.

So we start things off with the leader of the pack.  There's no doubt to the fans in Utah and to those outside the rabid fan base who the team MVP is.  We had other players that had a good years and even played at a team MVP level throughout the season.  But if I were to put up a poll as to who was the man during the season, I think I would get over 98% of the vote for DWill.

Regular Season & Stats

Let's take a look at the numbers for the season,

As I noted on my old site ,   Deron Williams became just the third player ever (Magic and Kevin Johnson being the others) to score 1500 points, dish 800 assists, and shoot at least 50% from the field.  Now it's kind of easy to pull  stats from whatever columns you want and make up your own "He's only the x player to do such and such" claim.  But when two of the biggest stats of points and assists are put together with FG%, I think that's pretty significant.  And any claim that I can throw out that shows that 8>3, then it's even better.  Of course Paul did have the points and the assists, but he ended up shooting 48%.  And the closest Stockton ever got was in 88-89 and 90-91.  But he had over 1100 assists those years, so I think we'll look past that.

I've been trying to figure out what caused Deron's huge rise in his assists in January.  He started the first couple of month at about 8.8 and then, bam!, he jumps almost 3 assists a game.  He went on to average 11.7 for the rest of the season.  The only big changes that we're aware of are the Korver trade and the New Year's Eve party.  Could all of those assists come from having a more wide-open floor?  Is Korver really worth three more assists a game?  I really can't find any correlation and so if you have ideas, let's hear them.

Thanks to the TrailBlazers hot December, Deron was snubbed for the All-Star game in favor of Brandon Roy.  The Jazz of course had their worst month of the season in that same month.  But January quickly reversed that when the Jazz went 11-2 and had a ten-game win streak that extended into February.  Conversely, Portland went 8-6 and lost the division lead.  And then they continued to crap the rest of the season.  I guess that wasn't enough of a crapfest for the coaches to vote for Williams instead of Roy. 

But it was all good for the Jazz.  Deron Williams went on a All-Star snub tear in February and March when he went for nearly 20 (19.7) & 12 a night.  He also got to take out some frustration on Chris Paul and the Hornets on Feb 4th for 29 & 11 to Paul's 6 & 6.

Deron finally cooled a bit in April when his shooting percentage dropped to a season-low 43%.  The Jazz still went 5-2 during that month, but scored only 89 points a game, far below the season average.  And while Deron still averaged over 10 dimes a game, the team assists were the lowest since the dreadful month of December.  They went 5-2, but needed to go at least 6-1 to get home-court advantage.  One of those losses was a heart-breaker in Dallas on a three at the buzzer.  But the final loss of the season against SA might have been one of Deron's worst performances of the year when he went for just 5 & 2.  Granted, he played only 18 minutes and the whole team stunk up the joint.  You can't blame April for not having home-court, but getting one more win that month could have made a huge difference in the playoff picture.

Playoffs

Outside of maybe Millsap and Brewer, Deron was really the only one that showed up in the playoffs.  He picked it up a notch going for 21 & 10.  He probably would have had a higher assist total but no one else could hit a shot.  If you take out Deron's stats, the rest of the Jazz shot just 43% in the playoffs.  Their poor shooting is one of the reasons why they had a hard time getting past Houston in the first round.  And when the couldn't pick it up in the second round, they didn't have a chance against LA.

But Deron made a name for himself again in the playoffs.  He kept the Jazz in most games and almost single-handidly brought the Jazz back in game 6 against the Lakers.  I don't think that there's anyone else that you want taking that shot in that situation.  I think more people were surprised that it didn't go in.  Boozer can lay claim as this being their team, but for me and I believe most fans, it's Deron's team.  He's the only one that's shown he's the leader and not just claimed it.  As Deron goes, so goes the Jazz.

via Yahoo! Images

The Future

If it weren't for the rise of a certain other PG this year, perhaps more of the talk would have been on Deron Williams' great season.  There's no doubt that we're seeing one of the NBA's elite players that's only getting better.

The good news is that he wants to stay in Utah.  And he wants to get the extension done and out of the way before the training camp for the Olympics starts.  One of the biggest questions about his contract extension is, "How many years will he sign for?"  James and Wade both signed just three-year deals which gave their fans heart attacks because they took that to mean that they wanted to leave in a few years.  When really, it's because the current CBA expires in a few years (after the 2010-2011 season I think) and they wanted to take advantage of any changes there.

I don't think the Jazz have to worry about signing Deron for just three additional years.  We all know he can earn the most by signing with the Jazz.  And a three-year deal would expire a year after the new CBA went into effect.  I'm not a CBA expert, but when have the players gotten the better end of the deal in negotiations?  They tried to strike, but eventually collapsed.  Stern has done a great job in maximizing profits for the owners and to make sure they get what they want.  So I think Deron will go for the long-term security and sign the the five-year deal.

And as I've talked about before, Miller and the Jazz desire stability above almost all else.  They were able to keep Malone here for nearly two decades despite his numerous attempts to leave.  So I think the brass do what it takes to keep Williams here for the rest of his career.

The Utah Jazz's season recap of Deron .  Here's an excerpt,

Team MVP!
No doubt about this… he was the team MVP in the playoffs. While in the regular season he was a contender for it, in the playoffs he was the runaway winner. The Jazz went as Deron went, especially with a disappearing act that could rival Houdini. As the stats show, he upped his game in the playoffs. He scored more, had almost the same number of assists, and while his shooting percentage fell a touch, his long-range shooting percentage jumped up. Kind of fitting, too, that what ended up being (unfortunately) the last shot of the season came from his hands.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.  The Jazz have one poor quarter.  Boozer does jack on either end.  The Jazz get down double digits.  The backups lead a comeback in the final quarter, only to fall short.

Second verse, same as the first.

Utah is known for their strict liquor laws. It's all watered down. But maybe the legislators need to call a special session to up the alcohol content, because our Booze is weak. See what I did there?

One of our team captains continued his two-month long crapfest. He's the reason we got in the hole early. He picked up two amazingly stupid fouls in the first and was in trouble the whole game. He ended up with only 10 points and 5 boards in just 24 minutes. And it took him 3-11 to score that. Here's a tip. If your guy goes by you or is in front of you for a rebound, get your forearm out of his back. Maybe the league is calling those more now, but you have to adjust to that. I'm still not ready to give up on Boozer, but if this is one of those situations where he comes out after the series and says he's been hurt or some other excuse, I'll be ticked.

And sorry Booze, the AND-1 mantle was passed to Millsap for now. Millsap had three or four such opportunities as he came in to pick up the slack. He shot 7-13 from the field and grabbed 10 boards and finished with 17 points. He did have a blown layup in the fourth that would have cut the lead to 4, but without Paul, the Jazz aren't anywhere near that close.

Williams didn't play well in the first half. And then he realized, "Man, I'm going to have to carry this team again." Unfortunately, his 22 points in the second half weren't enough to bring the Jazz back. He finally started realizing that he could take Fisher any time he wanted to. The highlight of the game came after Boozer got a quick rebound and got it to Williams for the break. Deron was going full speed and didn't stop until he took off from the bottom of the free-throw arc and slammed down a ferocious dunk. Watch the video in the FanShots (coming soon).

You'll look at the box score and think that Kobe lit up Brewer. But Ronnie played excellent defense on #24 all night. The now reigning MVP made tough shot after tough shot. He had a couple of shots that were at ridiculous angles and he was able to kiss them off the glass.

We're still getting karmic payback from Fisher. He would squelch any Jazz run with a huge three-point shot. He was 4-5 from downtown and finished with 22 points. If you're at the game Friday, please, please give him applause. We need to reverse something.

As far as the overall play of the Jazz, they took 101 shots compared to LA's 68. How is that even possible? How can you take 23 more shots and still lose? Well, there's two ways. One is to shoot only 44%. The other is to allow the Lakers to shoot 57%. And the Jazz didn't even play that poorly on D. The Lakers just shot lights out.

But the biggest reason has to be the free-throw discrepancy. LA attempted 43 FTs compared to Utah's 16. For those without calculators, I'll do the math. That's 27 more attempts. And it wasn't even so much the number of attempts as it was the timing of the fouls. Just when the Jazz were getting going, out would come the whistles against the Jazz in successive LA possessions. A classic example of this was when Fisher was running with Memo on a fast break. Memo ducked under the basket and away from Fisher and still got the foul. And when the Lakers were struggling, the refs would bail them out. And I don't know how much contact Deron has to get for a foul to be called. He gets hammered on almost every drive. Doesn't the free throw distance have to be some sort of statistical anomaly?

But despite all that, the Jazz still had a chance to win. It's going to take four good quarters to beat these guys. The Jazz outscored the Lakers by 5 in the final three quarters. The 15 point first quarter deficit was too much, especially on the road.

At the risk of sounding like a first-round Houston fan, the Jazz can still win the next two at home and make this a series again. When you think in terms of winning 4 out of 5, that sounds pretty impossible. But if you think in terms of taking care of business at home, and finding a way to get one on the road, it's not as imposing. But a game 7 in LA, against the NBA's MVP, against a marquee franchise doesn't sound appealing.

Other notes,

• On Deron's dunk, we didn't see a replay until after the game. had that been Kobe, we would have seen it going into and coming back from every commercial break.

• Matt Hapring should never set foot on an NBA court again. I'm with Biased now on this. You have to play CJ. There is no way he could be any worse.

• In both comebacks, there hasn't been that little extra to get us over the hump to tie the game late.

• Andrei, Korver, and Memo played well tonight. Usually when get 40 points from those three, you win the game.