Ten Days of Christmas
It's Not Lame, It's The 10 Days Of Christmas...
by Basketball John on Jan 25, 2010 10:00 AM MST
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Not sure why it took me so long to get this post up. What would a INLITTDOC be without a late entry though?
I won't start out the last INLITTDOC like I did with the previous ones. Given the number one story of 2009 for the Jazz, it wasn't appropriate.
Of course that story is the passing of owner Larry H Miller.
There was quite a bit said when news broke and then I had a post up afterward on my thoughts about LHM. I'm not sure much more can be added to what's already been said.
I would like to think that maybe the Jazz would have gotten out of the funk they were in earlier a little bit sooner had LHM still been here to roam the locker room. Though had he still been with us I can't imagine that their play would have done much good for his health.
I won't add too much to what's already been said, but what brings us all together is the Jazz. We're all from different backgrounds, races, religions, political ideals, and countries, but we have something that unites us. Every night the Jazz play, we gather at the ESA, our televisions, radios, and here at SLC Dunk to cheer on the Jazz. We consume all that we can about the Jazz. To steal moni's blog name, we live and die with them.
So for nothing else, we should be grateful for LHM for keeping the Jazz in Utah when they probably had no business being in Salt Lake City at the time. Now they're ingrained into the culture. What do you mean there's no jazz in Utah? We've had Jazz for over 30 years now. To think that if the Jazz weren't here, given our geographic location, we might be Nuggets fans or heaven forbid, maybe Lakers fans.
As we come up on the one-year anniversary of his passing, I hope the team pulls out all the stops to remember him and to make sure future generations will know who he was.
It's not Lame, it's the 10 days of Christmas - On the 9th day of Christmas...
by Basketball John on Dec 24, 2009 2:00 PM MST
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...the Utah Jazz gave to me... "Cap casualty"
This is a late-comer but it's definitely one of the top stories of the year. Generally a cap casualty is generally associated with the NFL when a good player is cut solely for financial reasons.
Well, Eric Maynor became a cap casualty for the Jazz when the team had to include him in a trade to Oklahoma City in order for them to take Matt Harpring's contract off of Utah's hands (and books).
As a result, the Jazz were able to cut more than $10M off of their total salary and get pretty close to being under the cap completely. This was possible because OKC had plenty of cap room in which to absorb both contracts. They'll get most of that cap space back in the summer when Harp's deal comes off the books.
It was probably something that we should have seen coming given that the Jazz had likely planned on going over the luxury tax a bit in order to re-sign Millsap. But as soon as everyone opted back in, the financial hit was going to probably be too much for the Jazz, even if it was one year.
And had been mentioned, the Jazz now have some flexibility going forward whether it be a trade or come this summer.
This could also come back to haunt the Jazz a bit should Maynor develop into a PG that haunts the Jazz four times a year.
So good luck to Maynor. It's too bad that we had to lose him at all, let alone this way.
It's Not Lame, it's the 10 Days of Christmas - On the 8th day of Christmas...
by Basketball John on Dec 23, 2009 10:00 PM MST
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...the Utah Jazz gave to me... Millsap's "toxic" contract
The Jazz made it very clear that they were going to re-sign Millsap no matter if it would cause them to go into luxury tax territory. What should have been a relatively easy process turned into somewhat of a soap opera.
A lot of that drama came because of third parties.
The first source came when Millsap's uncle and agent, DeAngelo Simmon, took on a partner in Ara Vartanian. There were claims that the Jazz weren't offering Millsap a "fair" deal. The two sides couldn't get a deal worked out. So being a restricted free agent, the Jazz decided to let the market set his price.
And what may be a glimpse into what Kevin O'Connor and the rest of the FO might have had to deal with, we had this quote from Vartanian about Millsap,
"Paul Millsap has got more game than anyone knows,'' said agent Ara Vartanian, who represents Millsap. "People just haven't seen it because he played in a structured offense (in Utah). But he can shoot, and I'm talking (range from) NBA three.''
I know it's the agent's responsibility to get the most value for their client, and we all love Millsap, but saying that he has NBA three-point range is absurd.
Though Millsap's agents were contacted by many teams, not many had the cap room to sign him. Those that did have cap room weren't rumored to have been making an offer. There was some rumblings that the Thunder might use their cap space to sign Millsap. But once the Thunder stated that they had no interest in signing him, it looked like the Jazz were going to be able to get Paul on the cheap.
That's where the second round of drama comes in. See, the Blazers had gobs of cap space, not to mention a salary cap exception.
They were on the verge of signing Hedo Turkoglu when he backed out at the last minute and ended up signing with the Raptors instead.
That left a little egg on the Blazer's face. Feeling like they had to do something with the cap room, they turned their focus to Paul.
They promised to offer a "toxic" contract offer to Millsap, one that would hurt the Jazz financially should they match. It became apparent that the Blazers didn't want so much to land Millsap as they wanted to strong-arm Utah into a three-way trade with Chicago or another team that would have landed Portland a point guard.
So regardless of what happened, the Blazers would benefit by either getting Millsap, getting a PG, or at the least, doing some financial damage to a division rival.
When the Jazz didn't give in to that, the Blazers made their "toxic" offer to Millsap which included a front-loaded max bonus of $10M. As has been stated here before, the remainder of Millsap's 4-year, $32M deal is actually pretty reasonable.
What's hypocritical about that whole situation is that just earlier this year, Portland got worked up about someone signing Darius Miles just to stick it to Portland. You see, they had a salary exception because they had Miles retire due to injury. But if he played in 10 games, that $9M they were saving would be put back on their salary total. They threatened to sue anyone:
The Portland Trail Blazers are aware that certain teams may be contemplating signing Darius Miles to a contract for the purpose of adversely impacting the Portland Trail Blazers Salary Cap and tax positions. Such conduct from a team would violate its fiduciary duty as an NBA joint venturer. In addition, persons or entities involved in such conduct may be individually liable to the Portland Trail Blazers for tortuously interfering with the Portland Trail Blazers' contract rights and perspective economic opportunities.
It's Not Lame, it's The 10 Days of Christmas - On the seventh day of Christmas...
by Basketball John on Dec 23, 2009 1:48 AM MST
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...the Utah Jazz gave to me... "No opt outs"
The Jazz had known for quite some time that there was a chance that everyone that was eligible to opt in would do exactly that.
But they had to be hoping that somebody would opt out so as to not have to face getting hit with the luxury tax. In fact, I believe Greg Miller went to KSL for an interview for the main purpose of trying to make sure that Boozer opted out. He spoke well of Okur and Millsap in that interview. He questioned Boozer though.
But one day after Korver announced that he would be back, both Memo and Booze announced that they too would be back.
Wow. I don't have any idea what Larry H Miller's reaction would have been had he been around to see this. We know that he was iffy on bringing CJ back at $4.7M per. He was adamant about not paying the luxury tax. I suppose though that he must have known that it would be a possibility.
They all came back for the same reason mostly. None of them were going to be given a raise with that poor market.
I believe Memo truly wanted to stay though. He followed up his opt-in with an extension. He always spoke fondly of living in Utah.
Korver I think didn't have too much of a preference other than he wanted to play for a contender. I think Deron probably helped sway him a bit into staying. We also know that he has a certain affection for a certain Dunker.
And Boozer was all about the cash. Nothing else. That's fine if that's why he wanted to stay but let's not pretend otherwise.
So here the Jazz were looking at a Knicks-like salary and not having a championship team. That's a lot of cash to pay for a second round exit in the playoffs.
I guess that makes the Hapring/Maynor trade today kind of timely. The biggest reason for that move was to dump salary. The Thunder weren't going to just do the Jazz a favor. Their payment was a young point guard who has shown a lot of promise. This kind of reminds me of when small market baseball teams get in over their heads and they look to the big market clubs like the Yankees to take their payroll mistake.
OKC made out like bandits because they were able to relieve the Jazz of some salary. They get Harp's expiring contract that has most of it paid by insurance. They also get a very cap-friendly deal in Eric Maynor that they'll control for the next 3 years.
It is a steep price to pay for the Jazz but something was going to have to happen when everyone opted in and the Jazz no longer controlled their fate.
Hopefully the Jazz have learned from this and it will better prepare them for contracts down the road.
It's Not Lame, it's the 10 days of Christmas - On the 6th day of Christmas...
by Basketball John on Dec 22, 2009 10:55 AM MST
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...the Utah Jazz gave to me... "Boozer opting out"
I hope I don't spend too much time on this as it's been talked about ad nauseam. You can find plenty on SLC Dunk of the whole Boozer situation along with many other Jazz sites.
This is the quote that started it all,
I'm opting out. No matter what, I'm going to get a raise regardless
That came in December 2008 right after the Jazz had overcome a 22-point deficit against the Nets on the road. This of course also occurred while Boozer was out injured.
His next statement that inflamed the situation was when he was asked if he would be willing to come off the bench given Millsap's good play to which he replied,
I'm the starter, period.
He didn't even give the PC answer of "I'll do whatever coach asks" or "If it helps the team win..." It was a "hell, no I'm not coming off the bench" statement. Do you know who else used the "I'm a starter, period" quote? Stephon Marbury.
On one hand it's nice to have a player that will speak what he's thinking and not give you the fluff. But at this point, the Jazz were in a tailspin to end the season after having such a promising couple of months in February and March. This statement couldn't have helped things in what appeared to be a team with chemistry issues.
You know how the rest of the season played out.
You also know what the off-season was like. It became the Summer of Carlos and the traveling "I'd love to be on your team" talk show circuit.
First stop, Chicago, where he was sure he was going to end up. But wait, there's more. Maybe hoping that people in Chicago don't read Miami newspapers, he goes on to tell the Miami Herald that he would prefer to play for the Heat.
Boozer in both of those interviews stated that he and the Jazz had mutually agreed to part ways and that the Jazz were going to trade him. He also stated that the Jazz had told him that he was not in their long-term plans. What's weird is that according to David Locke, that conversation never took place.
Even Pat Riley was weirded out by Boozer's statements.
So who's to believe? I actually believed Carlos when he said it because it made sense. The Jazz had stated before that they were going to do everything they could to keep Paul Millsap, even if it meant paying the luxury tax (man, they didn't know the foreshadowing that was happening there). Whatever happened, it all seemed to be a game being played between the Jazz and Boozer in the press. The Jazz also stated that they weren't going to trade Boozer for nothing. They were going to have to get something of equal value in return. If not, they were content with just letting Boozer's contract come off the books.
But as the summer faded, the realization that Boozer was going to remain with the Jazz crept in. After Boozer's comments in Chicago, he was as good as gone. At least that's what it looked like to everybody else. But as training camp neared, it became almost a certainty that he was going to be back.
A few things happened that made that happen. First, the Jazz didn't feel that the trade offers they were getting was enough. Second, Boozer's yapper probably put a damper on things. Finally, the market just wasn't there for him to get a long-term deal. The recession hit everyone. Almost every team was trying to get under the cap for 2010. The cap was also lower and will probably be lower next season. He also didn't have the best season being injured and then throwing up bricks to close the season. He just wasn't going to get his raise, regardless.
So I don't know if he crawled back, but he didn't have a choice when it became apparent that he wasn't going to improve on his $12M+/yr deal.
So here we are now. He's been back with the team and has been putting up monster numbers. He could get put into the All-star game by the coaches.
Most importantly, he's kept his mouth shut about things and has played everything, both on and off the court, the right way. Part of that is that he has no choice now. He doesn't have a fallback contract that he can opt into next season if he doesn't get a deal that he likes. This is it for him. This will likely be his last long-term contract of his career.
And the other part is that I hope that he's learned how to handle things better and perhaps has been humbled a bit.
This won't be the last you hear about Boozer on the ITLITTDOC
It's Not Lame, It's the 10 Days of Christmas - On the fifth day of Christmas...
by Basketball John on Dec 21, 2009 9:00 AM MST
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...the Utah Jazz gave to me... Hot Rod's final call.
April 27, 2009. It's the last time we hear Hot Rod Hundley call a game for the Utah Jazz. Much like other Jazz greats, John Stockton and Karl Malone, Hot Rod deserved to retire having seen the team that he devoted his career to win a championship. Instead, they all went out in a forgettable first-round loss on the road.
But like Stockton receiving a final hand from the Sacramento Kings crowd, Hundley received a similar ovation from the Laker fans at the end of last season. It's too bad that his last game couldn't have been at the ESA and couldn't be given a proper sendoff.
What a fine career it was. He had over 42 years in the broadcasting business. He called games for the Suns and the Lakers after his playing days with the Lakers was over.
His run with the Jazz started with the team in 1974. Up until his retirement last season, he was the only holdover from the days when the team was known as the New Orleans Jazz. His longevity is rivaled by few. In January, Hot Rod called his 3000th game for the Utah Jazz,
Hot Rod's catch phrases were many, even if some of them are self-admittedly lifted from the late, great, Chick Hearn. Some of the all-time favorites are,
- Hippity-hop
- Belt-high dribble
- With a gentle-push, and a mild arc, the ole cowhide globe hits home
- StocktontoMalone
- Good if it goes... it's gone.
- Frozen rope
- It's in the ole refrigerator
- You gotta love it baby
- Leapin' leaner
- Hammer dunk
His place in Jazz history is up there with Piston Pete, Stockton, Malone, Larry H Miller, and Jerry Sloan. All Jazz fans have only known up to this season is the distinctive voice of one Hot Rod Hundley. His retirement marks not only the end of an era in Jazz history, but in NBA history,
He'll be sorely missed.
It's not Lame, it's the 10 days of Christmas - On the fourth days of Christmas...
by Basketball John on Dec 17, 2009 4:41 PM MST
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...the Utah Jazz gave to me, European Vacation.
The Jazz got called to Europe to serve a 2-game mission to spread the NBA gospel in the pre-season. They went as part of the NBA's EA Europe Live tour which has been going on for a few years now.
For Jazz fans and NBA fans alike, we finally got our first action of the season.
The Chicago Bulls were joining them for the first game in London as Luol Deng returned home. I was just hoping that Deron could escape that game without injury.
The game itself was good. The Bulls had quite a lead in the third quarter until the Jazz started chipping away and finally took the lead late in the fourth. Paul Millsap ended up missing a crucial free-throw late, giving the Bulls a shot to win the game. After a miss, the long rebound ricocheted right to rookie James Johnson who quickly put it back up to win the game at the buzzer.
The Jazz then traveled across the Channel to take on Real Madrid. Confusion abounded when the Jazz arrived here and tried to get in a practice session. Suicide drills became literal and most keeled over when having to run 5 laps after missing layups.
via upload.wikimedia.org
Anyway, when they finally arrived at the right place, they must not have been too winded as they soundly beat the Real Madrid basketball team, 109-87.
Couldn't wait for them to get state-side and for the rest of the season to begin.
It's Not Lame, It's the 10 Days Of Christmas - On the third day of Christmas...
by Basketball John on Dec 16, 2009 3:36 PM MST
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the Utah Jazz gave to me... No KJZZ
So I guess that should read the "Utah Jazz took away from me." And technically they're not taking away KJZZ, they're just not ever broadcasting Jazz games again on that station.
It started when it was getting late in the offseason and the team still hadn't announced its TV schedule. So I emailed the program directory at KJZZ to find out when they were going to be releasing the schedule. I didn't ask if there were going to be games, just when would we know,
BBJ: Has the schedule been released for what games will be on KJZZ and what games will be on FSN?
KJZZ: There will be no games on our station this year. All games will be on FSN Utah.
That post prompted Siler and others to question Randy Rigby about it when they were in Europe which Randy denied,
Jazz president Randy Rigby also disputed a blog report that KJZZ will not be televising any Jazz games this season. Rigby said the final decision has not been made and that he has some issues to address on the subject once he gets back to Utah. If nothing else, he's been quizzed on the matter in three different countries in the past week.
You can read the team's response to me and then the official announcement.
It still seems like this has been in the works for a long time given that the program manager was so up front with me when I asked. Deals like this normally don't come to fruition in just a couple weeks. Also, as was pointed out by someone, the pocket schedules that had been printed stated,
"All games televised on FSN-Utah in High Definition (except nationally televised games on TNT or ABC)."
I'm guessing that the printing of that had to be planned for a while before it was released.
I'm sure they were working on the final details, but it was a done deal a long time ago I venture. There were comments on my first post about it that the Jazz wouldn't comment on stating that FSN had offered them a deal that they couldn't refuse. But that and other comments all appeared to be true.
As it is, it's pretty significant that the station that had been carrying the Jazz, and still bares it's name, dropped the coverage for almost 20 years. Now FSN has a contract through 2020 for exclusive rights to Jazz games.
There are some winners, namely those that didn't get to see KJZZ but now will have extra games to watch on FSN. There are losers in this, more than the winners I would think, that could only watch the Jazz over the air. That's how I first started watching though I was a fan before that. But I wonder if I hadn't been able to watch, would I have lost interest? Hard to say. It will be hard to say what impact, if any, this has on the Jazz keeping and building up fans.
As I stated before though, if the deal leads to the long-term viability and stability of the team, then it will be a good deal in the end.
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