It needs to be said. Boozer looks like dogcrap.

[DelaneyRudd]

We either trade or extend him. I honestly don't see the Jazz just letting him go when his contract is up. I could see us moving Okur and drafting Cole Aldrich.

I hope not. I'm tired of Jazz drafting white bigs from Kansas.

[ColdBlue]

Actually its closer to 11, and even then is that YOUR money they are paying? No, the Jazz made the decision to go into the tax. This has been a team that's been in the upper 3rd of the league in income for the past 3 years AT LEAST and perennially had one of 5 lowest payrolls. You're looking forward and worrying about what it might bring down the road for us to pay that kind of tax, I'm saying we've been 5-15m ahead of the game every year and we haven't even caught back up yet. The luxury tax argument is ridiculous, as none of us knows exactly how much the Jazz management group has in assets, and thus we have no idea how much it pinches them to lose this much money on the team this year.

Conversely, we have a player who has made All-NBA and All-Star teams, and when healthy is easily a top 20 player in the league, if not top 12 or 15. And we want to GIVE him away? That's insanity.

Are you seriously claiming the Jazz have the assets to throw away millions in luxury tax? I would expect a much better argument from you...

Besides, I'm talking about a risk assessment, not a status. The risk is paying 20 plus million for a player who couldn't do better than opting in. The gain is what? That is what I'm asking you.

[erudite23]

1) Who cares if the Jazz have to pay money UNLESS them paying it will effect our ability to be competitive somehow in the future. My point is that we should have been making enough of a surplus over the past few years by winning at a top 5 or 6 rate in the league and ranking 10ish in income while having a bottom 5 payroll that we can now afford to have an exorbitant payroll for a season or even two if necessary. Only if the team is in dire straits should we be concerned about how much money we are paying this season. The fact that Jazz management has decided to retain Boozer's services tells me that they are well off enough that its not that big of a deal. They've said in years past that they would ONLY pay the luxury tax if they felt it was the difference in winning a championship. That is obviously not the case this year, so that tells me that they value the asset of Boozer as a player more than they value saving their asses financially. Given that its not your money, why do you care as long as they can afford it. They obviously can, therfore there is no risk...unless they don't know how to count their money. In which case we have a lot bigger problems than keeping or dumping Booz.

2) The real issue for us as fans is simple: what gives us the best chance to win? Carlos Boozer is a dominant rebounder and scorer in this league when he is healthy. Right now, he is healthy. That means he has a ton of basketball value. Why would we just cut bait with him instead of doing everything we can to retain that value (by transfering it into a different medium such as draft picks or another player or players) ? It doesn't make sense. We need to find a way to maximize him as an asset to the team. Simply letting him go hurts the franchise....and the ONLY reason why we would do it is as a response to the emotional involvement and reaction of the fans. You don't make emotional decisions in business unless you want to be OUT of business. That's why we should be proud of the franchise and the way it has handled this situation despite all the pressure they've faced to just get rid of his ass.

[freakazoid]

Wow. What a stinker of a game. I wont be too surprised to see him lose his starting spot next game.

Yeah, Boozer sucks.

Millsap is clearly the better player.

[ColdBlue]

My point is that we should have been making enough of a surplus over the past few years by winning at a top 5 or 6 rate in the league and ranking 10ish in income while having a bottom 5 payroll that we can now afford to have an exorbitant payroll for a season or even two if necessary.

Ok, I'll go with your hypothetical here...

Even if this is the case, the question of value remains. Do we waste this surplus this year, or do we sit on it and use it when we have a better shot?

Why would we just cut bait with him instead of doing everything we can to retain that value (by transfering it into a different medium such as draft picks or another player or players) ? It doesn't make sense. We need to find a way to maximize him as an asset to the team.

We do it so we can possibly retain this surplus you are talking about and use it later? I do agree that we should maximize his value, and his play of late might change things a bit.

I do think that we still have until the trade deadline and not pay luxury, or maybe even longer... not sure.

[erudite23]

The problem with the Jazz payroll right now is NOT Carlos Boozer, and it never has been. It's one simple thing: Andrei Kirilenko. The dude is making 8-10m more than he is worth.

That and Harp's last year coming back to bite us just like everyone knew it would. Those two together are the 14-16m difference between the Jazz being the #2 payroll in the league versus being the #25 team in the league. Well, Harp is expiring this year and AK is expiring next year.

From the Jazz' perspective, that's how it should be looked at. Whether people around here want to hear it or not not, Boozer has easily earned his contract. He may not have been healthy all the time, but 1) injuries are part of the game and 2) when he was healthy, which over the life of the 6 year contract will likely end up around 70% of the time, he was a 14 or 15m a year player.

Boozer's salary is not our problem, and Boozer's PRODUCTION, we have come to find out, is a large part of what made us such a good team during 06-07 and 07-08. Why trade a guy like that? It doesn't make sense. The only reason you do it is if you are so cash strapped that you are forced to give away a basketball asset in order to save the financial fate of the franchise.

The Jazz clearly aren't in that spot now, so you keep him and find a way to either fit him into the long term plan or to parlay his value into some other BASKETBALL assets.

The "surplus" I'm talking about isn't in the form of some money that is just lying around with the tag "surplus" on it. The farther you get from that excess money coming in, the more likely it is that it dissipates elsewhere. Right now is the only time you can make that argument, because if you come back in 3 or 4 years the money has dissipated and found its way all other sorts of places. Just human nature. Its not like they looked at it as being one, but now that circumstances have conspired to force them into paying tax they should step the hell up and pay what it takes to look out for the best long term basketball interests of this team. That's what they're doing, and I applaud them for it.

I don't understand why you're actually advocating giving away a really good player just so that LHM Group can post a bigger profit for this fiscal year. It's not going to benefit your team any more down the road, and giving away a player like Carlos could HURT us substantially. This is confounding me.

[ColdBlue]

^ Now that is the kind of E23 argument I know and love. (No gayness intended)

You are right, it's not necessarily Booze in particular here, but the bottom line. All I'm saying is that the FO shouldn't waste this season emulating the Knicks. Regardless of how much "surplus" we have saved with our frugality over the years, this season is not the season.

I'm advocating moving Booze for peanuts is because of his play last season and the play of the first 10 games, and mostly... I'm sick of this FO being so damned complacent. Here we are with the 3rd highest payroll and flirting with .500. Maybe I'm wrong... and I hope I am... and this team gels and makes a serious run. I would gladly eat crow.

But... like I said earlier... I call it like I see it. I think for this team to move forward, it is sans Booze.

[erudite23]

Yeah, seeing the state of the team is pretty depressing. There's always something that is keeping us from consistently gelling. With Boozer back and dominating this year, Memo is now playing like ****, AK starts out really strong and CJ and KK are out. Matthews steps up to give us a boost off the bench and Millsap plays like ass. We just haven't been able to put it all together and keep it together. The way this team played from January to late March of 2008 was championship level basketball. They were playing at an All-Time Great level offensively and playing top 10 (re: just good enough) defense and they were killing teams. The only blemish was the occasional dud against a few bad teams on the road. Then Boozer went into a slump and his drop in production likely was the difference between us getting by the Lakers in the 2nd round. A series that was back and forth before a horrific first half in game 6 cost us our season. One monster game from Boozer at Staples--for example, in Game 5 where we were neck-and-neck despite a stinker from him--and we could easily have taken that series.


Its always been something with this team, really. Its time for a shake up.

[ColdBlue]

^ Well, we pretty much painted ourselves in a corner this season by failing to pull the trigger. I think our best move now is to play it out as we near the trade deadline. If we somehow pull it together and have a outside chance of homecourt in the first round... maybe we go for it and pay the tax. If we are fighting for a playoff spot with inconsistent play, then we dump where we can and save our chips for a better hand.

I do think that Booze is turning into a pretty good asset. I think Miami is the team that will make the trade.