Thanks to Bobby Joness for FanShotting this and to the theutahjazzblog for the reminder. Make sure to go vote in the NBA Jam player voting for which Jazz men will be in the game. My votes were Deron, AK, and Millsap. There's no guarantee that Boozer will be here next year. And it looks like CJ made the cut.
Speaking of Boozer, Siler makes some good points about Carlos coming back next season,
Simply put, I see only two scenarios by which Boozer returns next season, the first if the Jazz win a championship or advance to the conference finals, the second if they were able to shed salary commitments to Andrei Kirilenko and/or Mehmet Okur.
I’m not sure the Jazz are interested in bringing back Boozer, though there were rumblings in December that Greg Miller and Kevin O’Connor broached the subject for the first time since the turmoil of last summer.
From the other side, I’m not sure Boozer wants to return given the hard feelings that followed his decision to opt in for the final year of his contract, then his assertions that he and management had agreed to a trade.
Maybe time and a deep playoff run will heal wounds, but the salary cap issue it probably the biggest reason that he won't be back. Even if they could trade AK/Memo/CJ, they'd have to be taking back equal salary unless they just moved them for draft picks. Even then, the receiving team would have to have cap space to take them on and I don't see any teams with cap space doing that.
I guess they could re-sign Boozer and then hope they can trade AK before the deadline? Either way, I would say that he's not back next season but then again, he wasn't suppose to be here right now either.
Looking at the remaining schedule, is there really any game on there, other than the @LAL one, that the Jazz shouldn't be able to win? There are no more games against Denver, Portland, or Dallas.
We play Phoenix 3 more times with two of those on the road. We play @OKC as the final game of a four-game roadie. And there's a three-game eastern swing towards the end of the season. And there's Boston at the ESA. Those are the games that would concern me but really they should be winnable.
I realize I'm in full jinx mode, but the optimism is too much for me for this team right now. I realize it could come crashing down like it has in seasons past, but if the Jazz are going to have a strong finish to a season, this is it.
Sorry for no WYWS. I wasn't sleeping very much. But there were some good wins for the Jazz last night. First, Boston held on vs. the Knicks at Boston. Thankfully they didn't blow that one.
The Cavaliers took out the Hornets. They may be a ways back in the standings but as we learned from last season, every loss counts in the standings.
There was no miracle in NJ as the Trail Blazers took care of the Nets.
The Suns finally killed the beast that is the Thunder keeping OKC off our heels a bit. The downside of course is that PHX won.
And finally, we had the unfortunate return of Kobe who helped beat the Grizz in dramatic fashion. Overall, I'll give it a meh night.
Wednesday poll because I'm late/lazy