Dollar$ and Cent$: Just say 'No' to the 2009 NBA Draft

First of all, if you are a Pete Maravich/Ricky Rubio fan, then you don't need to worry about this draft. Secondly, if you are the Utah Jazz, you don't want nothing to do with this one either, but for an entirely different reason: money. Money is a huge big deal in the NBA -- and in more than that art imitates life type of way. People want to get paid. (Even if they don't deserve it) Utah -- when healthy -- is a pretty nice team. In order to keep this team together the Jazz Brass (particularly Jazz GM Kevin O'Connor) is going to have to get new team owner Greg Miller to open the, how do you say, "cheque book". The salary situation is bananas. (but not in the "it changes every day" type of way) Just take a look for yourself. This off season the Jazz may have to ink new deals for Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur, Paul Millsap, Jarron Collins and Kyrylo Fesenko -- essentially all the bigmen on the roster except for Andrei Kirilenko and current rookie Kosta Koufos.

Boozer	Okur	Millsap	Fesenko	Collins
$12.7 mill next year, looking for more according to interview he gave weeks ago to ESPN	$9 mill next year, looking for more (according to Turkish media)	Making less than $800k, Restricted Free Agent will be offered 10x that on the market at least	Team option for less than $900k	Somehow making $2 mill this year

That's not all the free agents though, as the Jazz will need to figure out what they are doing with their point guard situation (both back-ups, Brevin Knight and Ronnie Price, have expiring contracts) and that Morris Almond guy . . . well, it's a damn shame what happened to that guy. The year after that (i.e. the Off-Season of 2010) there needs to be some money for Ronnie Brewer (who's qualifying offer is going to be at a hair under $4 million per season), Matt Harpring (who, for whatever reason, we are incapable of getting rid of) and anyone else who didn't get taken care of this off-season.

The 'best' thing is to find out which guys we really want, and develop a strategy to keep them. Out of all of those names the most important free agents (right now) are Boozer, Okur, Millsap, Brewer and Knight. Championship teams do not depend on the services of guys like Jarron Collins, or Ronnie Price. Brewer does not need a new deal until next season. Mehmet Okur has not made any waves about opting out, unlike Boozer, so both of them 'could' still be on the books for the next year. (At the rate of $9 million and $12.7 million respectively) If all three are on the books then we only really need to worry about Knight and Millsap. The back-up PG situation can be handled with part of the exception. (I could be wrong, as I'm not a cap-ologist) The rest of the money can be used on Millsap. (What money? Where is this money coming from? The Jazz are already over the cap . . . there IS no more money!) The closer to reality we get (and hence, the closer to actually dealing with the cap) the closer we get to recognizing that this situation sucks.

There just isn't enough money to go around. If you bare bones it, have Boozer opt out (and not be resigned by the Jazz), let Collins and Price walk, jettison Fesenko with the team option on his contract -- then you'll have enough money to go around for Millsap, Okur, Brewer and Knight over the next two season . . . but only have 9 players on the roster. You're not allowed to have only 9 players on your roster. The Jazz will have to pick up a few low cost scrubs in order to fill out the roster -- not a bad move, but still, there's no guarantee that Boozer will opt out now (even though he said that he would), and secondly, the Jazz may not (for whatever reason) get rid of Collins, Price *or* Fesenko. Under Larry H. Miller, R.I.P., the Jazz were a small town family more than they were a business. Guys like Harpring and Collins had expiring contracts a few seasons ago, and they were given (back then) seriously over priced golden handshake deals. It should have ended there, but I don't know if it really will. So, okay, let's scratch that idea of the Jazz actually going to 'not' sign company men. I really do not have a great solution to the Jazz financial situation, but, I do know where some money can be saved: the 2009 NBA Draft.

Right now the Jazz are not going to go over the hump with a late 1st round pick and a late 2nd round pick. Especially not from this upcoming draft. The last thing the Jazz need is to use money on a guaranteed contract that'll eat up some of the money that would be better served being spent on the likes of Millsap or Brevin Knight. Luckily, the Jazz are in just the position to get rid of their draft picks this year. We owe Philly a 1st round pick (from the Korver trade), and Philly owes Minnesota a 1st round pick (Rodney Carney trade). If the Jazz pick lower than 22nd in this year, Minnesota will get our pick. That helps out everyone involved, especially the Jazz. The hard part, though, is getting a good enough record to finish the season with so that we are picking at 22 or lower. The Jazz will need to finish with one of the top 9 records in the league when all is said and done. Where are we today? Sitting at #10, percentage points behind New Orleans. If Utah can leapfrog New Orleans, Portland and Houston we'll be in the clear -- while keeping Dallas, Atlanta and Phoenix behind us in the standings. Sounds very plausible, and while I'd love to give up on a very late 1st round draft pick and save money, I don't know how possible this is going to end up being. The longer we hold onto the pick that we owe Philly -- that they'll give to Minnesota -- the better the pick can possibly get (going upwards from #22 to getting near the lotto if we hold it till 2013). Better to get rid of it sooner, rather than later.

The 2nd round pick is an entirely different animal, as the Jazz may be willing to keep it in plans of a draft and stash with another International (most likely European) player. This way the money for that guy is not on the books, but we still keep the rights to him. We're currently doing this with International Men of Mystery Tadija Dragicevic and Ante Tomic. As far as I am concerned, we have enough European bigmen to last a few seasons. I don't think that European swingmen are the answer to our problems. Nor do I think that our future back-up PG is going to be a European point guard. Sure, we could draft and stash *any* International player, but I don't know how great our scouting of South America is. (If we're not getting a Euro, he'll be from the Americas somewhere -- don't see us drafting an Asian or African player -- I really don't think we're actively scouting those parts of the world) The answer here, again, appears to be giving our pick to Philly, as we still owe them future considerations in the 2nd round because of the Fesenko-Hill trade a few years back.

We skip the draft this season, focus on the players we have, and save some money right now. I think that's not a bad idea at all. Plus, then the next year's draft (2010), we'll have plenty of picks that we can use as assets for trades, or well, you know, draft picks. We may have a few holes to fill two off-seasons from now. We'll have two 1st round picks (our own, hopefully a low pick; and the Knicks unprotected, possibly lotto, pick). I'm sure both of those picks could be traded to a bad team if we wanted to move up in the draft . . . I dunno . . . if we actually find someone that we'd like to add to the team.

In completely unrelated news, doesn't this kid look like Fesenko's younger brother? This guy is Donatas Motiejunas, a Lithuanian center that projects to be a lotto pick in the 1st round of the 2010 NBA Draft. I don't know much about the kid, but I do know that unless he's the reincarnation of Wilt, I don't want the Jazz to ever get close to drafting this guy. We have enough young center prospects that we're not developing already.

Where in the world is Tadija Dragicevic and Ante Tomic?

It's very reasonable if you forgot this, but with their last draft pick from last seasons' NBA Draft the Jazz picked Tadija Dragicevic (2nd round, Pick #53 overall). In this All-Star game video he is on the East team and wearing #5. (The white jerseys) First of all this tells us a few things: a) he's not an imaginary player, and b) he's good enough to make an All-Star team somewhere professionally. Both are good signs for certain. [btw, don't show Jerry Sloan this video, there's no defense, especially not when Tadija just watches guys shoot the ball near him without even putting an arm up]

But let's try to dig up a bit more info on this European man of mystery. According to Wikipedia (yeah I know, it's a great source) he's 6'9 and weighs 235 lb. . . . and he wears #20. (Quincy Lewis' old number for you Jazz fans out there) He is 22 years old right now and this Serbian plays power forward. Which is funny because I could have sworn that he was projected as a SF in the NBA according to some web sites like ESPN.com; though DraftExpress.com suggests that he's a PF though. What's interesting is what people say about him . . . ESPN's Chad Ford says:

"Who? Not exactly a household name, and I've never seen this guy. He doesn't look like much of an NBA player, but this late in the draft, you can't ignore the numbers he's putting up in the ULEB." (Chad Ford, ESPN.com)

I don't know what the ULEB is, it sounds like some computer thing, or some acronym used by 'the kids' today with their texting. (sorry, txting) For the record, the ULEB is the Union of European Leagues of Basketball . . . and within the union of these leagues our boy Drazillah the Killah plays in the Adriatic league -- OH CRAP!

He got injured (I'm assuming) this year . . . he's only played in 1 game, and only played 17:30 minutes in it. The only stats that he has is that he made 6 foul shots in that game. That totally sucks because he was the MVP of that league last season. Why? I'll tell you why . . . because he scored 20.5 ppg (52.0 fg%, 45.1 3pt%, 81.0 ft%), 5.9 rpg, 1.4 apg and lead his team to a good record, I guess. I don't know. This website is kinda hard to figure out. And the news (assumed) that he's injured sucks. Let's move around to our other draft pick in the 2nd round -- Ante Tomic . . .

A-Tomic is probably my favorite player ever from Dubrovnik ever. He's Croatian, and that could pose an interesting dynamic with the Serbian Dragicevic. You know, in the off chance that we ever bring either of them over to the NBA. He's one year younger than Tadija, and he's a full blooded 7'1 center. He has no weight worth noting. So far this season he's averaging 17.2 ppg (54.3 fg%, 0.0 3pt%, 77.1 ft%), 10.4 rpg, 1.5 apg, 0.8 spg, 1.7 bpg and as the top value rating of the entire league right now. (I think this is how they figure out who's the MVP, like how Tadijilla D'Razillia was last season -- kind of like the IBM Award they used to have in the NBA)

I think it's pretty clear why the Jazz actually drafted Tadija in the first place -- because they were scouting Ante, and while they were looking in that league they found this other guy who was EVEN MORE under the radar than Ante Tomic -- they just HAD to draft that other guy. Anyway . . . the Orlando / Philly game is really dull. How dull? So dull that I'm surfing around on the NLB Liga ABA website. Damn you NBA schedule makers! You win this round!

A little early but . . . NBADraft.net's 2010 Top 10

This is really premature, but as Jazz fans, we all know why we should be keeping an eye on this . . . Well, here is nbadraft.net's mock draft for 2010:

1. John Wall, 6'4 PG
2. Ricky Rubio, 6'4, PG
3. Xavier Henry, 6'6, SG
4. Jrue Holiday, 6'4, PG/SG
5. Derrick Favors, 6'9, PF
6. Gani Lawal, 6'9, PF
7. Austin Daye, 6'10, SF
8. Donatas Motiejunas, 7'1, PF
9. Davin Ebanks, 6'8, SF
10. Scotty Hopson, 6'6, SG

I'm pretty sure that David Stern would do whatever it takes to make sure that we don't get Ricky Rubio, even though he's a dead ringer for a former Jazz player that we may all know . . . Who knows if any of those 10 guys will be true Lotto picks (i.e. the top 14 picked each year), or even if the Knicks will be in the lotto by then? (Thanks, guys . . . ) Even more surprising would be to guess what the Jazz would need in 2010.

There's just so much up in the air that will "eventually" sort itself out after next off-season. (God willing) So it'll be much easier to forecast a drafting direction for future years after that's all taken care of. I do know that if Price and Knight get short contracts from the Jazz this following off-season that the Jazz may be in need of a PG to help Deron out time to time.

By 2010 if our shooting guard situation still necessitates the drafting of young SGs then our current crop of 3 young guys (CJ, Ronnie B and Mobe) must not have panned out. Even more startling would be if one of our three recent centers all end up as duds (Fesenko, Koufos and Tomic). I'm guessing we'll either be on the look out for a PF -- we can't honestly expect to have Boozer, Okur, Kirilenko and Millsap all on the roster by then, and will need to reload at the 4 for sure.

Though . . . it would be fun to see Ricky as a rookie playing with our 2nd unit throwing oops to Andrei, and making crazy passes to Korver . . .

Utah Jazz Pre-Season 2008-2009: Top Transaction of the Off-Season

After being bounced out of the 2007-2008 Playoffs by the eventual Western Conference Champion LA Lakers the Jazz were faced with some glaring roster talent holes. The top three (for as long as this group as been together) have been:

1. the need for a defensive bigman,
2. a defensive wing player,
3. and more insurance at the point.

That last point is interesting because with Deron Williams' being drafted by the Jazz in the 2005 Draft you'd think that we'd be pretty solid there. It's actually a double edged sword because we have such a good point guard that we rely on him so much (over 37 mpg the last two seasons). If something were to happen to him (knock on wood, or well, knock on the current injury) then we would need to make up that 37 mpg that he's not going to be able to play somewhere. For those of you who are late to the party, this is exactly the current situation that the Utah Jazz are in.

And because of it, and a variety of other reasons, trading for Brevin Knight was the top transaction of the Off-Season.

But back to those points for a bit . . .

The need for a defensive bigman has not been taken care of, though, the Jazz have been drafting size for a bit now (Kyrylo Fesenko in 2007, Kosta Koufos and Ante Tomic in 2008 -- all three are 7'1 or better). The law of averages suggests that maybe one of them will develop into a better interior defender than either Carlos Boozer or Mehmet Okur sometime down the road. As it stands right now, Fesenko's blocks per foul ratio was already better than both of theirs (significantly) as a rookie.

The Defensive Wing project (aka. Ronnie Brewer), on the other hand, is going into it's third year of existence and early projections look promising. So really, the only thing Kevin O'Connor (who is severely underrated as a GM) had to address urgently this off-season was shoring up point guard. [Which is fine, as he's going to be really busy next off-season]

So what did Kevin do this off-season? He turned Jason Hart (our 3rd string guy) into Brevin Knight (who might actually start for us if Deron is out for longer than 2 weeks). Hart was so bad for us last season that trading him for Miami Heat's Chris Quinn would have clearly been a great trade for the Jazz. Trading for a better player, a guy who has a career assist to turn over ratio greater than 3:1 over a decade in the league, mind you, makes this transaction as a no brainer. The absolute cherry on top is the fact that Knight makes less money than Hart, and Knight is an expiring contract.

It's an under-rated move because it wasn't a team with a lot of cap space signing a big name guy like Elton Brand or Baron Davis . . . but as far as reward goes this was huge. Knight is a steadying force, a veteran guy who can help us win on the road (we won on the road with Fisher, we lost on the road when our veteran presence was Harpring), and a really tenacious defender. He gets a lot of steals and he's really scrappy. He can play man-to-man defense against the shorter, quicker guards. (There's currently a pretty good one right now that the press talks about)

Lastly, with the events of this Pre-season resulting in a very key injury (that we shouldn't be too worried about), hind-sight suggests that out of all of the transactions made this off-season (and there was more than one) . . . that this was the most important one to make.

Really, if we had to go one week without Deron and rely on Hart and Price I'd really be worried. We could conceivably go for one and a half months without Deron now that we have Knight and Price and still be leading our division.

Trading for Brevin Knight was the top transaction of the Off-Season. Thanks Kevin O'Connor!

Things to look for this season: Jarron Collins

We'll get to Jarron in a minute, but first we have to look at how we got to Jarron in the first place. Jarron is a product of the Utah Jazz scouting team and has developed during his entire career as a product of our system. This, invariably, causes a player to have more relative value in our system, than in any other. (Look a guys like Greg Ostertag, Bryon Russell, and countless others) He would have a hard time finding a spot on another team -- especially with the suggestion that refs will call flopping more seriously this season. What is Jarron Collins? He's a 6'11 molasses footed center who does not rebound, does not play defense, and does not play offense. Really, he is only good at the mental aspects of the game -- pretty much the only things he has done right on the court have been to flop, and get offensive fouls called on Shaquille O'Neal back in the day -- which would make Shaq frustrated, and have him make more mistakes down the road. If we were smart, we'd get rid of him. We just may get that chance as Jarron is in the last year of his insane contract extension that he got a few seasons back -- insane in that he got one in the first play. During this 2008-2009 season Jarron Collins will make approximately $2,074,302. (More than double what Paul Millsap expects to make this season.)

There are several obstacles which prevent us from making a clean break from Jarron though. First of all, he's pretty much well liked by the rest of the team. He's like the token nerdy/smart guy that you keep around when you are having trouble with your Digital Video Recorder, or when you need someone to set up your wireless Internet at home. Heck, he's a member of the Kappa Alpha Order . . . how do you replace someone like that? Most likely the same way that we got him -- through scouting, drafting and developing his replacements.

I've love to just let him walk, but if what we've done with Harpring is any example, he's probably going to get some ridiculous golden handshake deal for all of his services to the franchise over his career. He was drafted in 2001, and as a Rookie he started in 68 of the 70 games he played for the Jazz. He's going to turn 30 years old this season and has played in over 450 games for Utah. The first 5 seasons here he was averaging 20 mpg, and these last two he's hovered around 10 mpg. He has made a stink about this though. (Apparently the Internet cannot currently support my argument, but I've read it that he was unhappy with having his minutes slashed in half) That said, what are three things to look out for this season, from the man we affectionately call Tree?

1. What you see is what you get: Jarron Collins does not improve, and actually, you can argue that he's only gotten worse over the past 7 seasons. He shot nearly a career low last season (43.9 fg%) and did manage to shoot a career low from the ft line (62.2 ft%). His rebounding numbers extrapolated over a 36 minute stint are 1.5 rebounds less than when he was a rookie. Collins is not going to improve vastly this season, one can only hope that his play continues to slide (in this, a contract season) that the Jazz Brass decide to just roll the dice on Kyrylo Fesenko, Kosta Koufos and Ante Tomic next season.
2. Must work hard on transition: Do I mean he has to work hard running up the floor to get transition baskets? No, I mean he has to work hard on developing into a veteran coach in the locker room type of guy. He needs to hang out with Coach Ty Corbin quite a bit and find a way to tap his vast storehouse of NBA Lore and use it to teach younger players. Jeff Hornacek did not have to do any of this, he just retired and called it a career. Then he became a coach after. Collins probably still wants to earn an NBA paycheck for another few seasons . . . hence, the need to transition. By Drafting/Trading for three guys 7 foot and above in the past two seasons it's pretty clear that they aren't going to be hoping to keep Collins around as a player for the next 10 years.
3. If he plays 70 games again this season, it is bad news: He played in 70 games last season. That is a lot games to go out and manage to grab a sum total of 116 rebounds, or score 118 points, or block 6 shots. 70 games, wow! That tells me a few things -- that for whatever reason, we had to use him and instead of playing Fesenko for 10 mpg, Kyrylo was sitting behind the bench in a suit. If guys like Koufos and Fesenko spend this next season with DNP-CD's and DNP-INJ's then it is bad news for the Jazz. Collins just isn't that good. And if he continues to play in games (stifling the development of our younger centers) then it just may very well mean that Kevin O'Connor is going to offer Jarron a contract next off season.

If Jarron Collins isn't playing with Gordan Giricek in Europe next season, it means we are in deep trouble, Jazz fans . . .

Flashback Friday: Greg Ostertag

Some knew him as someone to boo viciously. Other's knew him as a kind giant who gave his own kidney to his sister. Still, other people lauded him as champion or hero for his general, non-specific goofy ways. What we do know is that he played great in one of the final games of a contract year -- arguably outplaying a Hall of Fame center to be -- and cashing that performance to the bank for $39 million dollars. This only caused other people to boo him even more. Also, he got scored on a lot.

Greg Ostertag did not really pan out to reach his potential. What he did do in heaps was frustrate his coaches, his team mates, and mostly, his fans. He would alternate between being an integral defensive force and being a dispassionate bystander as other players shot the ball over his un-outstretched hands. His, truly, was a career defined by moments. Some highlights include: outplaying Tim Duncan during Duncan's rookie year in the Rocky Mountain Review; drop kicking the ball into the stands during a game; losing his dentures during a game; losing his contact lens during a shoot around scuffle with Shaquille O' Neal; being universally recognized for being poor on offense; being universally scored on by all manner of player; being a big goofy white guy. (you know, like dancing around in a purple Speedo)

What's lost in all of the spectacle that is Greg Ostertag happens to be the fact that he was a pretty good basketball player. While his love will always be outdoors activities, he grew up playing baseball -- but he continued to grow and grow. Ultimately when you get as tall as he gets you just 'ought' to be playing basketball. He was not going to replace Mark Eaton in the history books. Did Ostertag love the game? Probably not. Did Ostertag play the game? Certainly.

If you look over his career, you see that he carved out a little niche doing a few things well. First of all, dude blocked himself nearly 13k shots. He probably changed twice as many by just being in the area and getting his hand near the ball. For his career he almost blocked 2.0 shots a game. If you extrapolate his playing time to 36 mpg (his career average is only 19.5 with a season high of 27.9 in 1998-1999) that gets him a 3.2 career bpg average.

Sticking with blocks, how does he fare compared to blocking shots vs. fouling guys. He has a career 1293 blocked shots. He has a career 1873 fouls. That's not that great, it's *only* 0.69; for a point of reference, Eaton gets a value of 1.04 blocks / one foul. So compared to a guy who's won Defensive Player of the Year twice, he's about 0.3 off. (note, this is for his career, at Ostertag's peak his metric was 0.94) How does this compare with anyone currently on the Jazz roster?

Andrei Kirilenko	1.04	Kyrylo Fesenko	0.47 (0.51 NBA-DL)	Paul Millsap	0.29
Mehmet Okur	0.24	Morris Almond	0.20 (0.22 NBA-DL)	Ronnie Brewer	0.16
Carlos Boozer	0.16	Kyle Korver	0.12	Jarron Collins	0.08
C.J. Miles	0.08	Deron Williams	0.08	Matt Harpring	0.06
Brevin Knight	0.05	Ronnie Price	0.04	Kosta Koufos	Rookie -- no stats

Yeah, that 0.69 career blocks/fouls average doesn't look so shabby now, eh?

As good/bad/ugly as Greg Ostertag was, he was a certain kind of good/bad/ugly that I've previously alluded towards being one of the final hurdles towards our current Jazz team from being a serious contender. What kind of good/bad/ugly does Ostertag bring to a team -- and what did he bring to our team? First of all, he is 7'2 with long arms; and he blocks shots and rebounds well enough. He was never a threat to grab 10+ rpg, as his playing time fluctuated ridiculously according to the whims of Jerry Sloan. Most good teams have a big guy just like that who stands tall in the paint and discourages people from going in there with the intention to score on his basket. Tyson Chandler is exactly this guy, and the Hornets are lucky to have him. As of today, the Utah Jazz have no such player on their roster -- and the lack of a true defensive center who blocks shots continues to be a major tactical disadvantage.

Utah has used 3 of their last 5 NBA Draft picks on 21+ feet of center. Kyrylo Fesenko (7'1), Kosta Koufos (7'0) and Ante Tomic (7'1) satisfy the height requirement. Other guys on the team are long for their heights (Kirilenko, Brewer and Millsap), but all of those guys are under 6'10. So unless some sort of trade happens, the only way that the Jazz will have a tall, interior defender who blocks shots and rebounds will fall to the tall shoulders of one of those three Europeans. If I had to put my money on someone to be the 'next'-Ostertag I'd say it would be Fesenko. He's big and funny, and white of course; and he seems to be the only one who has a clue how to play defense without fouling.

It's funny, that the Jazz are so close to being a contender in the ever dangerous West -- but are apparently one Ostertag short. I guess it proves the old adage correct -- sometimes you just don't appreciate what you have until you no longer have it.