1 Roster Spot Left?

[bsutefan]

Before we get ahead of ourselves, we've got a major roster adjustment that needs to take place. Currently, we've got 14 players under contract (including CJ Miles restricted status). 15 is the maximum. We've got 1 first round pick, 2 second round picks, and a MLE to use.

So that leaves us with 4 options, please add any I may not have included:

1 - let CJ Miles walk (frees 1 more space)
2 - buy out Jason Hart's contract (frees 1 more space)
3 - Trade a player for a future pick, or player and a pick to move up in the draft.
4 - use all the draft picks and let them fight it out for the final roster position

Any thoughts?

[The Sheik]

1. Unlikely to happen. If it does a 2nd rder or minimum salary FA will fill the roster spot. Or we leave it at 14 like the Jazz like.

2. Unlikely to happen, he is expiring and has already been here a yr so he is the best 3rd string option we have.

3. What player could we trade besides AK, Memo or Boozer to move up? If we move these guys who will take on that big of a contract without us taking one back?

4. there is no "fighting it out". The 1st rd pick gets guaranteed money for 3 yrs, he gets the roster spot.

5. We wont use the MLE. CJ is a restricted FA and we dont use the MLE to re-sign him and the Jazz wont be adding any FA that make above 1 mil unless we free up a lot of salary. If we resign CJ we obviously wont be adding anyone. Besides that we use 1 mil of our MLE.

[bsutefan]

what about the 2nd round pick?

$2.5M is a lot to pay Hart. The Jazz could likely buy out his final year for $1M. Better to get a young talent as the third PG than have a veteran eat the spot for higher cost (2nd rnd pick?)

[fivas14]

^^^

5 bucks is paying a lot for Hart. He needs to be gone by training camp

[carrottop12]

Ideally the Jazz would trade AK, and Hart for one player.

Even then however I think the Jazz want to get both a PG and a C in the draft which would still fill up the roster.

[The Sheik]

what about the 2nd round pick?

$2.5M is a lot to pay Hart. The Jazz could likely buy out his final year for $1M. Better to get a young talent as the third PG than have a veteran eat the spot for higher cost (2nd rnd pick?)

What about the 2nd rd picks? You draft Internationally to maximize the asset.

Listen Im not defending whether Hart is a good player or not. I do however know this about him, he has been a good teammate, a good mentor to the younger guys and at this point I would take him over an inexperienced PG or a rookie. The problem at PG isnt Hart, its the combination of Hart and Price.

Now look at it from Harts perspective. Why would he take a buyout for a million and then go sign somewhere else for a million? He loses 500,000 dollars. Even if the Jazz pay him 1.5 or 1.75, then whats the point of buying him out and bringing on a minimum salary player, there in itself is Harts contract.

Hart and Collins=nearly 5 mil in expiring contracts, the Jazz are gonna hold on to them for add ons in case somebody wants to take on AKs contract. Or just let them expire.

This is a business as much as it is a game of chess. You dont just throw away pieces because you dont like them. You have to look at the bigger picture.

[JStockLivesOn]

I'm all for waiving Hart to free up a roster spot, but Sheik is right. Why in the world would he take a $1 million buy-out and lose out on $1.5 million in guaranteed money? That makes no sense for him. It's not as if other teams are foaming at the mouth to bring him in.

[hoops4life]

Jazz will not buy him out... it is not their thing.

[jazzfan1971]

I could definitely see them buying out Hart.

[HouseofBoozer]

I see a trade in the works. They are obviously going to draft so we'll see what happens. I don't see them letting CJ walk unless he's too much money to keep. 2nd round picks should definitely be used on Internationals or traded.

[BiggMann]

Gotta think that CJ stays... we'll match pretty much any reasonable offer.

Hart and Collins are here for one more year, we as fans need to deal with it. Unless we can package them in a trade get used to seeing Hart and Collins on the Utah Bench.

We are in a good postion, we can leave our team as is make our draft pick and have a full roster. But I think our front office realizes that we need to make a roster improvement to challenge the top tier teams in a 7 game series.

Alll in all, we keep this same team... eliminate our road woes and we're a top 3 team next season come playoff time.

[bsutefan]

financially speaking you're right on with Hart, he may not be able to make more money in the long run. So why would he leave? I dunno, why did he ask out of Sacramento after getting beat out by Ronnie Price there? Playing time can be very lucrative. If a player feels they can show their talent better somewhere else, and they do that successfully, it may earn them another contract.

If Hart stays in Utah, I doubt he earns another contract in the NBA after this year.

In response to BiggMann, I also love the makeup of our team, but if we re-sign Miles (i'd like to see him back), use our MLE on someone like Dooling or Nesterovic, and use our draft picks, that gives us 16 guarranteed contracts, with 2 second round picks that don't even have a roster spot. If that's the case, then it only would make sense to get rid of the second round picks, and buy out Hart.

[The Sheik]

^^

Rasho is not a FA and we dont have the money to use our MLE.

Unless we trade someone, signing CJ and drafting a C is all we do. If we get a guy we liked in workouts in the 2nd rd then perhaps we trade Hart.

You really think the Jazz are gonna have 16 guranteed contracts? First off its impossible to have that. So your theory doesnt work. You can have over 15 contracts, but they need to be non-guranteed contracts, kind of like how we have so many guys in the pre-season and work our way down to 15.

[bsutefan]

Not impossible, take a look at the Knicks a couple of years back. They had 16 guarranteed contracts going into camp, plus 4 or 5 more non-guarranteed. They had to buy out the guarranteed money, some of which still counts against the cap. So my theory does work. They had to make decisions on buyouts by the nba deadline.

[loserX]

^Yeah, you can have more than 15 guaranteed contracts (or fewer than 12) in the off-season. You just have to get within the limits before the season starts.

[The Sheik]

Not impossible, take a look at the Knicks a couple of years back. They had 16 guarranteed contracts going into camp, plus 4 or 5 more non-guarranteed. They had to buy out the guarranteed money, some of which still counts against the cap. So my theory does work. They had to make decisions on buyouts by the nba deadline.

I meant to say what LX wrote. That you cant have 16 guaranteed into the season.

Use you common sense though buddy, why would the notoriously conservative Jazz have 16 guaranteed contracts? My point is your theory is not very plausible.

[bsutefan]

My point is that the Jazz (being conservative) will not stay put with their current situation. They will move things around to get below the limit. The question is, which route will they take?...buddy

[outerspacefella]

My point is that the Jazz (being conservative) will not stay put with their current situation. They will move things around to get below the limit. The question is, which route will they take?...buddy

I have a feeling that Jazz will try to move up, trading the 23rd and one of the second round picks along with an expiring contract, so they can pick better and free roster space.

Then Jazz must decide wich player is the most acceptable option to part ways with: Boozer or Kirilenko.

I can't even imagine the Jazz letting Okur go away or giving up the youngsters Brewer, Millsap, Price, Almond or Fesenko, whom, by the way, could certainly be an almost entirely-draftee and decent lineup in the future (of course is only a "projection", but...)

Williams ig going nowhere unless he really wants and ask out loud to.

I think front office see Korver as a keeper.

Then we have only Miles, Harpring, Collins, Hart and the picks left. IMHO 2 of them must be packed along with picks in order to move up or trade and free some roster space, because a Kirilenko or Boozer trade would more probably than not bring at least 2 players to Utah.

If it was my call, even if I'm really pissed about Boozer, I'll put all my energy on trading a combination of Kirilenko with other assets to get us a solid starter SF.

What remains to be seen, and obviously will alter any speculation about next year roster, is what Jazz brass think about Boozer's future. If they see that keeping him will cost max money, they should be then working hard to trade him first. In my eyes Okur is way more a keeper than Boozer.

Anyway, what the hell do I know?