All-star recap coming in a bit. Now that that's over, it's time to turn to the rest of the season. The Jazz waste no time getting back to work as they'll take on Houston tomorrow night to begin a four-game roadie. They'll end up playing 5 games in the next 8 nights with two back2backs.
None of those games are going to be easy. The Rockets are a tough team and even tougher without TMac. Hopefully they don't make a trade before then to bolster their team. The last time we saw them was at the ESA and we got trounced.
Following that is a game in New Orleans who has been playing pretty well despite having lost Chris Paul for a bit. Still better to play them without Paul though.
After a swing through the Southwest conference, the Jazz will head to the NW to take on Golden State and Portland. Who knows what we'll see against Golden State. And the game against Portland will be tough as they'll have a little extra motivation seeing as how we beat them there last time.
So if you've been waiting for some real NBA action, here it comes.
In that stretch of games will be the trade deadlines on Thursday. There haven't been many rumors about the Jazz making any major moves. It's mostly been talk about making something happen to get under the cap though Greg Miller has said this isn't the case.
I'm not expecting much movement at the deadline from the FO. Take a look at the last two major trades the Jazz have made. You have Giricek/Korver and Jeff Malone for Hornacek; both good trades but they just don't make big deals.
The Jazz keep things pretty close to the vest. If they are going to make a deal, you're likely not going to hear about it until shortly before it goes down, if even then.
I'm excited for the post All-star break to see what kind of team we have. We last left our heroes getting crushed at home by a Kobe-less and Bynum-less Laker team. Not exactly the kind of ending you want to have going into a break.
What team are we going to see coming out of the gates? They have a tough road trip this week and March features 17 games. This next month and a half is going to give us a lot of basketball.
Are we going to see 12-2 Jazz or jumpers and turnover Jazz? I need to find out.
Good read and interesting question posed by Siler,
All of which led to a thought tonight: What would happen if LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade and the NBA’s other superstars decided to turn their backs on a league that reportedly proposed to cut the amount of money they could earn in half?
What if James led the push to form his own NBA? What if he could cut out the Charlotte Bobcats and the Milwaukee Bucks and, yes, the Utah Jazz and created a 10-team league in exclusively big-market cities that would be home to the league’s biggest stars?
He goes on to talk about the players becoming part owners in the league. One reason this might not take off though would be the shear amount of money to get off the ground. Even if you had just 10 teams, look at all of the marketing, playing venues, TV rights, team names, etc. (and there's a lot of etc.), you're talking a lot of cash. Given the time it would take to get it going, I don't think they could get it done before players start hurting financially.
It did get me thinking though, if it were the end of the NBA, and there wasn't a team in Utah, who would I root for? Undoubtedly whatever team Deron played for would be at the top of the list. But what if he was paired with Kobe? Ugh.
I finally got around to doing a podcast with the guys from The Utah Jazz Blog. We talk about SLC Dunk, the All-star game, and what extremity I would be willing to give up for a Jazz championship.
Also, you can see if I or Bill Simmons has the worse voice.