Jazz fans: lend me your ears. I come to bury your hopes and dreams, not prod you into a violent outburst. But inevitably, because of the banner that so elegantly graces the top of this site, and because even the mention of Chris Paul is apparently synonymous with a full-blown crusade against Deron Williams’ honor, this post will enrage you. I’m here to tell you that such rage is a natural reaction to the fact that your team is on the fast track to nowhere.
Oh, burnnnn.
In a vacuum, I’ve got no qualms with the extension the Jazz have just given to Mehmet Okur. He’s well worth the money. But this move is nothing if not symptomatic of the greater force at work here, in particular the oh-so-powerful inertia. Holding on to Okur, Deron Williams, and Andrei Kirilenko, who form somewhat of a three-man cap-wrecking crew, only sends the message that everything is alright. Let me tell you, it’s far from it.
Carlos Boozer and Paul Millsap are on the ropes, and potentially involved in a doomsday scenario that would leave Utah with nothing more than a black eye and Tyrus Thomas to show for it. Moore would forever curse my name if I dared utter a word against Tyrus, but one sentence needs to be bolded, underlined, circled, and highlighted: Tyrus Thomas is the antithesis of a Jerry Sloan player. As talented as Tyrus is and even keeping in mind the player he could one day become, I can’t help but shake a feeling that Sloan would tie him up in a cave and never let him see the light of day. Jerry Sloan’s a fantastic coach, but his experience and tenure don’t come without drawbacks; One of the curses of having a tradition or convention is being bound by those same traditions and conventions.
The real rub here is that even if the Jazz do hold on to either Boozer or Millsap, they’re stuck on a treadmill. This was a team that was thoroughly embarrassed by the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs, and aside from a shift in salary obligations, nothing has changed. The Jazz still have the same flaws that plagued them yesterday and yesteryear, and those flaws won’t be remedied by standing still and hoping things work out for the best.
There will eventually be a day where AK’s strangehold on Utah’s cap comes to an end, and there will be rainbows and sunshine and good will towards all men. But in the meantime (two full seasons of meantime), the Jazz have done nothing to improve their standing aside from hope for Boozer and/or Millsap’s return, and pick up Eric Maynor and Goran Suton in the draft. Those picks were sound, but is this really the movement needed to elevate the Jazz from would-be contender status? The same status that had them as inferior to the 2008 Lakers, much less the moxie-infused 2009 model? I doubt it. In fact, I guarantee that it doesn’t. The Jazz have been left out in the cold of the Western Conference arms race, and that isn’t just a stab at Utah’s climate; despite the world getting bigger and bigger around them, the Jazz have either the resolve, the foolishness, or the lack of alternatives to stay just as they are.
