It's very sad news, because just a few hours ago I was reading about Big Al and the struggles he had growing up. How his father died when he was very young, and he was raised by his grandmother. And now she died, so it is with a heavy heart that Big Al will be playing tonight.

Thoughts and prayers out to the Jefferson family. MY grandmothers were big parts of my life too -- and I'm not quite over things, they both passed away about a year ago. Let's all cheer for Al a little bit louder tonight as he dedicates this game to her memory.

Tom Ziller combines two of my favorite things, basketball and Seinfeld. His Festivus previews have the feats of strength, airing of the grievances, and of course, Festivus miracles. Under airing of the grievances, he has this to say about the Jazz,

The Jazz crashed back to Earth so hard last season that it'll be amazing if they are able to climb from their crater within the next couple of seasons, let alone make it back to the top of the conference. I believe in Derrick Favors, but that rookie season was as deflating as a needle in an innertube store. Gordon Hayward is similarly a long ways away, and who knows what Alec Burks or Enes Kanter will contribute and when? Remember: rebuilding in the NBA is messy. You'll have some nasty seasons. Without knowing what Kevin O'Connor will do with those expensive veterans on the club, this figures to be one of the Jazz's messier seasons.

Rebuilding is a long process. Even when a team lands an all-NBA talent such as Kevin Durant, it takes a few seasons to return to a contender status. While we have high hopes for our rookies and sophomores, there's so much more basketball to be played with them that we may not know for another season or two. Some of them will progress faster than the others. Although, Kevin O'Connor said to give him two years and then judge him on Hayward. Year one ended well. How does year two go?

Due to league rules, the Jazz couldn't introduce an alternate uniform last season when they got new unis. Now they can. At noon today they'll be revealing the new ones. There shouldn't be much shock. The alternate green uni was leaked in NBA2K12 a few months back. And now it's available on NBAStore.com

UPDATE: This is is new uni. Much better.

via p.twimg.com

The actual jersey may vary a bit. This doesn't have any blue on it. They look good though.

If you're not there already, head to the ESA for the reveal and a bunch of free stuff.

The Utah Jazz lost a lot of money over the past two seasons and the biggest reason for that was that they paid the luxury tax for the first time in team history for the 2009-10 season and then again in 2010-11.  Miller called paying the tax "deliberate" and "by design."  The reasoning for the 2010 season was that all of the big free agents opted back in to their contracts given the down year on the FA market.  The Millers may have hoped that one of the three -- Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur, and Kyle Korver -- would opt out.  That didn't happen and that was one of the possible risks that the Millers took. Because of this, the Jazz dumped Matt Harpring to the Thunder and paid a steep price when they had to include Eric Maynor.  The cap hit would have been much larger had they not done that.

The reason for going over the cap in 2011 was to trade for Al Jefferson and keep Deron Williams happy.  When it looked like Deron wasn't going to re-sign with the team, they traded him for the best package they could get.

Will the Jazz be willing to pay the luxury tax in the future?  Don't count on it.  With the changes in the luxury tax system in the next CBA, the Jazz would have paid about $2.5 million more than they did this past season.  Instead of paying a dollar for dollar tax, the rates would be as follows:

Below is a chart that shows how much the Jazz paid in salaries last year and then looks at how much they would have paid under the new rules.

*Thanks to Tim Donahue for this info

As you can see, by paying the luxury tax this past season, the Jazz paid or missed out on over $12 million and that's not counting the missed revenue from missing the playoffs.  Under the new rules, that amount would have gone up to almost $15 million and possible more if the luxury tax distribution amount increases.

I suppose that in several years that if the Jazz are contenders once again and need an extra piece or pieces to push them over the top that the Millers would consider it.  But with the more punitive tax, don't count on it.

We already know that the Flash will be fading to black for this season. If there's an NBA season, the Jazz are going to need a DLeague team to send a rookie or two should playing time minutes dry up.

Thankfully we have DLeague expert Ridiculous Upside to fill us in:

IDAHO STAMPEDE (Boise, ID)
Denver Nuggets
Portland Trail Blazers
Utah Jazz

The Jazz have have been close to the Stampede in the past. Before the Flash came into existence, Boise is where the team sent the likes of CJ Miles for seasoning. They've also signed Sundiata Gaines who was with the Stampede at the time.

Now hopefully the league will be in a position to use the DLeague next season but won't have to use them.

The Turkish national team for the upcoming European Basketball Championship has been announced and the list includes many NBA players including our own Enes Kanter,

Ömer Aşık of the Chicago Bulls, Semih Erden of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Ersan İlyasova of the Milwaukee Bucks, Hidayet Türkoğlu of the Orlando Magic and Enes Kanter of the Utah Jazz are all part of the squad.

There's a lot of good to come of this.  One, Kanter will get practice in with NBA-level talent and more importantly, he'll play in an actual game where defense will be played.  Second, we'll actually get to see him play this summer whereas we won't see our other draftee Alec Burks play until the lockout is over.

Mehmet Okur of course won't be playing as he continues to rehab and prepare for the upcoming (crosses fingers) season.

Now, to start the countdown clock to August 31 when play starts.

This is pretty admirable of Evans. I would say he drew the short straw again but he genuinely seems to enjoy hitting the road and working in these Jr. Jazz camps. One year should suffice for any player. Two years in a row though shows a great level of commitment to the organization. From the press release,

The Utah Jazz announced today that forward Jeremy Evans will take part in this summer's annual Junior Jazz road trip, a barnstorming tour in which he will conduct 42 basketball clinics covering 4,000 miles across four states over three weeks between June 6 and June 22. This will mark the second straight season Evans has participated in the Junior Jazz road trip.

Normally these have occurred in July following the draft. That's how Evans did it last season and Fess before him. However, with the impending lockout, the dates had to be moved up.

While he's still low man on the totem poll, I'm sure there was no hesitation on his part when approached about doing it again. Maybe we'll get some good sketches out of it.

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I had heard this from another source as well, but it looks like the DesNews is reporting that Harpring will be back with the Jazz broadcast team,

As he did last season while injured, Harpring will provide color commentary for the team's TV telecasts alongside play-by-play announcer Craig Bolerjack in 2010-11, multiple sources close to the Jazz have confirmed to the Deseret News.

I had actually tried to get a comment from KJZZ earlier today on this and received the following from Jeremy Castro, VP of Broadcast & Operations,

We will not be making any announcement or comments in regard to any talent changes at this time.

I also tried to contact some others in the org and didn't get a reply.

Some additional information that I received was that Harpring would work a 61-game schedule and that Ron Boone will indeed be moving to the radio booth with Locke.

The Jazz are likely waiting to announce specifics until Craig Bolerjack's contract gets re-worked.

What's funny is that it was the DesNews who reported earlier this month that Harpring likely wasn't going to be coming to the Jazz.

Good luck to Harp, I know many Jazz fans will be happy with this move.