So, the Jazz have nearly 30+ million dollars to spend in the free agent market in the off season. How do they spend it? Here is what Dennis Lindsay just did. He took on the salaries of Richard Jefferson, Andris Biedrins and Brandon Rush.
Rush tore his ACL in game 2 of the 2012-13 season. But was good the season before where he had good numbers, mostly coming off the bench. He shoots over .400 from 3-point range. If the Jazz get those kind of numbers, this trade wasn't all bad.
The other two players are at the end of their NBA careers. Richard Jefferson is far removed from his best days where he was putting in 22 points per game for the Nets. It is obvious that his career is in decline and it is possible that if he actually plays in 2013-14, it will be his last season. Last season he averaged 10.1 minutes and 3.1 points per game. He is owed 11 million for the coming season, guaranteed.
Andris Biedrins is even less productive. He is a 7-foot power forward that clocked 9.0 minutes per game and scored 0.5 points per game. He is owed 9 million for 2013-14.
For 20 million, the Jazz get 19.1 minutes and 3.6 ppg.
It is quite possible that neither Jefferson nor Biedrins will play a single minute in a Jazz uniform in 2013-14. But their contracts are guaranteed.
Is this what winning teams do?
Well, this is not everything that Utah gets from the deal. They get 4 draft picks. Two first round draft picks. One for 2014 and the other in 2017. They are unprotected. So if the Warriors have a bad season and end up in the lottery, the Jazz get the pick. The Jazz get 2nd round picks in 2015 and 2016. The Jazz also sent away Kevin Murphy who spent most of 2012-13 in the D-League.
It was really a bad trade for both teams. The Warriors traded away their future so that they would have the cap room to sign Andre Igudola. If this does not work, the Warriors will have to rely on free agency to build their team.
But it basically ends any hope that Jazz fans had of playoff contention in the coming season. It means that they have to rely on young and essentially unproven talent. It will be a lot of pressure to put on young kids playing for a franchise that has only missed the playoffs 4 times in the last 35 seasons. Fans like the young guns now, but could turn on the team when the team struggles to win 35 games.
Now to be fair, this is the way that the NBA works. Salary caps are designed to ensure that the Lakers and Nicks don't buy up all of the talent. But salary caps hurt the small market teams as well. There doesn't really seem to be enough superstar talent to go around, and it seems that small market fans still suffer.
The so-called experts tell us...next year we will have some money to spend for a quality free agent. Next year, we will get that lottery pick that will help us turn the corner. They have been saying these things for a long time in Sacramento, in Milwaukee, in Minneapolis and in Portland. Every year it's the same thing. Sure, Damien Lillard wins Rookie of the year, but how long does the Oakland native stay with the Blazers? Will he really stay with Portland as long as Chris Paul stayed in New Orleans? Perhaps longer? How many times does that lottery pick pan out? How many championships the Andrew Bogut win for the Bucks? How many of those lottery picks turn out to be just good instead of great?
The Jazz didn't become a premier small market team by making trades like they did today. If another team wants to spend 20 million on a player in the declining years of his career, let them do it. Let's not take on their problems and bail them out so that a big market team can better afford a big player. Let's not turn the Utah Jazz into the NBA dumping grounds. That is not the way it was done when Larry Miller was alive. Let's not do this now that he is gone.
Projected Jazz depth chart now.
PG--Trey Burke--Rual Neto
SG--Alec Burks--Brandon Rush
SF--Gordon Hayward--Marvin Williams--Richard Jefferson
PF--Derrick Favors--Jeremy Evans
C--Enis Kanter--Rudy Gobert--Andris Biedrins
The Jazz have about 4 million left to spend. Hopefully on a point guard who can mentor Burke. It will truly be a long season if one rookie point guard is baking up another.
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