So I have admit I was a little let down from the lotto last night. I guess it just goes to show that Toronto psychics are full of it. She did say that things favored east-coast teams and it played out like that with Washington, Philly, and NJ getting the top picks.
Not including getting Deron at #3 in 2005, this will be the highest the Jazz have drafted since 1983 when they picked Big T. Though we're not in the top three, this pick will still have a good chance of becoming a fixture with the team. Given our team's salary situation, I don't think the pick gets traded. That will be important for the next few years.
So who's going to be there at #9? Most mock drafts have us either taking Greg Monroe or Ekpe Udoh. If you're worried about the Jazz taking Cole Aldrich, most mocks have him taken before we pick. Hassan Whiteside or Daniel Orton might make for interesting picks.
We'll be having more on potential picks now that we know where we're picking.
The local media seems to think that Boozer is going to be back. Putting basketball reasons aside, tell me financially how that's going to play out? Let's say we pay Boozer exactly what he's getting now, about 12.6 million. The luxury tax limit is going to be about 68 million. We have 54 million already committed to contracts. That puts us at 66.6 million just with Boozer. After that, we still have 5 more players to sign to get to 13. Those are players like Matthews, Korver possibly, Fesenko, Gaines, and Jeffers. Oh, and the #9 pick will get close to 2 million.
So let's say on average the Jazz have to dole out 2 million on average for those 5 players. That puts us 8 million over the luxury tax. Last season we had to pay OKC to take Hapring's contract and then give Brewer away just to get to 5 million over the tax limit.
What's is going to cost to lower their tax next season? They might be able to dump AK's contract on someone close to the deadline, but at what cost? If they re-signed Boozer, would Millsap have to go (either from a trade demand or for tax reasons)?
We've already discussed that Memo's deal isn't going anywhere. That leaves us having to move either Millsap or AK to lower the tax limit. While it would be nice to have AK's contract off the books, that's a huge hit to our team.
The only thing I've heard as to why we can't let Boozer go is that you can't replace a 20 & 10 guy. That's true except we have that guy in Millsap. He put up nearly that two seasons ago when Booze was out for an extended period of time. If you're looking for the backup PF, look no further than AK. Has everyone forgotten that the best season of his career was when he was playing PF?
I'm glad someone over 20 years ago had the foresight to let our offensive leader go so that a PF from La Tech could take over.
Corbin has interviewed for the Hornets job and will likely get a look from Chicago and maybe another team. Brad Rock brings up the point that he could be the next coach for the Jazz though. I would be fine with that. I don't know if the Jazz will have that luxury though as eventually he's going to get hired I think by someone else first.
Only Sloan knows when he's going to retire and I don't think he even knows when that's going to be yet. It would be hard to convince Corbin to stay around and wait for Jerry.
Wednesday poll