Is Boozer heading to the Nets? As some here have suggested, he could be according to Marc Stein,
Multiple teams have passed along their belief to ESPN.com that the Nets have serious interest in Johnson at No. 3 largely because they believe it will help them land Utah's Carlos Boozer in free agency.
New Jersey's main position of emphasis once the free-agent market opens July 1 is power forward, with the Nets possessing an estimated $27 million in salary-cap space and with Brook Lopez and Devin Harris entrenched at center and point guard.
The connection between Johnson and Boozer? They're both represented by the same agent: Rob Pelinka.
Agents swinging deals for the same team isn't new but I wonder about the Nets' interest in Boozer. He seems to be third on the PF free-agency food chain below Bosh and Stoudemire. Perhaps they know they're not going to be able to land either?
In addition, if he does get an offer, does he come to the Jazz asking for a sign and trade? Outside of Brooke Lopez, I don't think there's anyone on their roster that interests the Jazz and that's not happening.
Walt Perrin, the Director of Scouting for the Jazz, gave this information to Siler,
Whatever player the Jazz draft at No. 9 in the first round likely would lead them to select a player at a different position in the second round
That only makes sense. Given the team's need of just having bodies to fill the 13-man minimum roster, the Jazz are going to be relying heavily on making a good pick with #55. I guess it's possible they trade that pick plus a future second rounder to move up a bit.
So the Dodge Barrage will start registering teams on August 1st. The cost is going to be $500/team with 8-10 players each. So it will be between $50-62.50 per person. From the poll results last time, we should be able to field at least 2 teams.
So you have about a month to start saving your money if needed to join up. We'll get an official pre-signup list as we get closer to the 1st.
Perrin was on 1280 The Zone this morning talking about the draft. He mentioned their drafting strategy (character plays of big part of course), best player available, yadda, yadda, yadda.
However, he talked about Ante Tomić and Tadija Dragićević (pronounce exactly as it looks). Tomić, he said, had put some weight onto his 7' 2" frame and is shaping up to be one of the better European players. He still has a year left on his current deal so the earliest the Jazz could bring him over would be for next season. He thinks though that he might get a big enough offer from a club over there to keep him there.
The bigger news though was that Dragićević is going to be playing for the summer league team this year. He's not going to be around for the fall, but it was surprising to say the least to me. I didn't think there was any way either of them would end up here. They still might not ever play in a Jazz uniform, but this is still closer than I thought they would get. They are 23 and 24 respectively, so I would think they would have to come over in the next year or so.
Not only will this be one of the biggest free agency years ever, but we could be seeing a whole bunch of trades. Milwaukee has already traded for Corey Maggette, a long-time rumored/wanted Jazz target. They just traded for Chris Douglas-Roberts. They just traded away their SF? They must be opening that up for AK.
There's also the Chris Paul to everywhere but Utah rumors. Everyone wants to trade up or down it seems. If your team didn't just win the NBA title, this is the biggest time of the year for you right now as an NBA fan. The draft, free agency just around the corner, summer league, etc.
Great time to be alive.