The summer is practically over and the Jazz haven’t made any changes to the team. Goodbye: Mr. Old-Reliable, the respectful Jazz citizen as well as his elite Stanford compadre. Also, Goodbye to the one Hots would call Almond Joy… we hardly knew ye! Incoming will be a rookie point guard. “Nothing more, nothing less.” The Jazz are over the tax-line…
So it doesn’t look like we’ll be inviting anyone else aboard the good ship Utah Jazz this year. Is the status quo good enough for you?
If CNN.SI were making the summer call, they’d give the Jazz an “A”.
"That's an "A" for now. The Jazz did everything they were supposed to do to remain a West factor. They locked up Mehmet Okur, they matched Portland's brutal front-loaded offer sheet on Paul Millsap, and they drafted a point guard at No. 20, Eric Maynor, with the composure and decision-making skills to back up Deron Williams. What remains to be seen is how Utah resolves the Carlos Boozer situation, the decision that may ultimately determine the success or failure of the offseason. There's wiggle room because management could easily choose to do nothing now and reassess the landscape early in the season and heading toward the February trade deadline."
Can you really give a team an "A" when it didn't do anything? Maybe if the team was the Lakers and had just won a championship... then you wouldn't want to mess with a championship-mix. However, the Jazz aren't even close to the Lakers, and have plenty of flaws. It'd be nice if we could mix things up a little bit.
If I were giving a grade… I’d give the offseason a B-. The summer of player options and opt-in decisions was a dud. We haven't seen any attempt to improve the team. Couldn’t we at least attempt to execute a trade? Granted... there's really not much we can do. The Jazz are stuck with big contracts, and not able to maneuver through them. We even added to our mess by extending Memo’s contract and re-signing for Millsap (albeit… I agreed with both decisions). Next summer will be very much of the same. What’s evident is the core looks to be in place with Deron, Memo, Millsap, Kirilenko (by default), and perhaps Brewer. Boozer won’t be kept next season because we won’t have the money to sign him.
2 comments:
"Couldn’t we at least attempt to execute a trade?"
How do you know the Jazz didn't try? Do they ever talk about trade deals before they're locked up?
It's true, they probably have been trying. But Boozer's running at the mouth hasn't helped much.
If we're talking about the Jazz summer overall, I agree with the B- grade. If we're talking about how Jazz management has handled things I might give a slightly higher grade. Most decisions were out of their hands, but they re-signed Memo and drafted well. The big misstep was not locking Millsap up and then having to go to Zion's Bank for a loan to pay him his upfront money. Yikes.
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