RealGM

Reported by Woj on twitter.

The Jazz stole our trade!!

But yeah, the current state of franchise players in small markets doesn't seem so good.

They were offering us 2 extra picks in all fairness.... hahahaha wow. This was one of the last things I was thinking I would have woken up to this morning. Im kinda feeling our return for Melo even more now because I think the Jazz took a far more drastic step backwards than we did.

I wouldn't look at it that way... the Nets were offering 2 extra for an extended Melo. The Nets still have a huge task of surrounding talent around him and convincing him to stay.

I think it is kinda sorta good for both teams the more I think about. Utah avoided going through what Denver just went through, and the Nets landed a top tier player, which is what they were after. Now the question becomes can the Nets convince him to extend?

As a ticket holder in Utah or Denver you wake up today not happy with the value of your tickets. I suspect in the new CBA it will be much harder for players to dictate their future. I'm sure a lot of players will whine about it but when you are making millions of dollars and the fans are spending hundreds (or thousands) of dollars each season to support the team you are just going to have to deal with it. I'm tired of hearing commentators defend this... nobody is forcing these players to sign multi million dollar deals and play in the NBA... If Carmelo isn't happy in Denver I really don't care... imagine how the trash collector in the cheap seats feels.

While I feel bad for the jazz fans (as hard as that is to do as a Nuggets fan), I am also happy that the Nets pulled off this deal. Regardless of extension they got a better player for less then they were willing to give up for Melo.