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Out with the old, in with the new…
Posted by: Jason Crannell on August 13th, 2011
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.If the lockout ever ends, and we end up having some sort of an NBA season in 2011-2012, the landscape of the league will be quite different. There will be no Shaq O’Neal, or Yao Ming. There will be no Phil Jackson, or Jerry Sloan. Even players like Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett figure to get less publicity, then in the past, with young guys like Derrick Rose, and Kevin Durant taking over more of the spotlight.
In Jazz land, a sense of the change of the guard is quite evident. Tyrone Corbin will begin his first full season as head coach, and the roster is loaded with first or second year players. Even the core veterans on the roster (Jefferson, Millsap, Harris), are in their prime, and far from being over the hill. I would like to see the organization play the young talent as much as possible, and not be so concerned with the win/loss column. The victories will come in time, as the young guys develop chemistry, and learn the ropes of what it takes to be successful.
Andrei Kirilenko/Raja Bell/Memo Okur - It’s time for the Jazz to part ways with these three players. The Jazz are at least a season or two away from being a serious title contender, and playing these older veterans will only steal valuable minutes from young players we need to develop. The addition of Enes Kanter not only made Kyrylo Fesenko, and Francisco Elson immediately expendable, but also to some extent, Memo Okur. With a potential frontline of Jefferson, Kanter, Favors, and Millsap the services of Okur are really no longer needed. I guess I could see the benefit of having Okur tutor Kanter during his rookie season, or being kept around as an insurance policy in case of injuries, but for all intent and purposes, the Jazz no longer really need Memo. In the backcourt, and at the small forward, the Jazz need to find playing time for Paul Millsap, Gordon Hayward, Alec Burks, and C.J. Miles. I’d hate to see a player in the twilight of this career, like Raja Bell, eat into their time on the floor. Raja was brought in to play for a different team, and coach, then what we now have. I also don’t think he would respond well to finding his place near the end of the bench. With the draft addition of Alec Burks, the Jazz are going to need to open up some minutes for him in the backcourt, which means Hayward will need to split time between the shooting guard and small forward. If A.K. is still around, this will be hard to accomplish. Not to mention, the Jazz also plan on playing Millsap some at the three spot, and any time that Jeremy Evans will see on the floor, will probably be at this position as well. For the good of our future, Memo, Raja, and A.K. need to hit the road. We can develop a new identity faster as a unit, if those guys aren’t around.
I also wouldn’t mind if the Jazz elected to not bring back Earl Watson (though I like the guy), if they can find a younger free agent or rookie they can bring in to develop behind Devin Harris (similar to when the Jazz picked Howard Eisley off the scrap pile to play behind Stockton). I want to see youth. I want to see a young team grow before my eyes. But if that’s to happen, certain roadblocks need to cleared out of the path. Out with the old, and in with the new.
Feel free to chime in if you agree or disagree.
Replies: 6
Views: 669
6 Responses
I’ll chime in and agree for the most part. I still think Jefferson, Millsap and Harris should be the core of this team, at least for the next two seasons. They’re young, they still all have something to prove, and I think it will bring us wins. There’s nothing that says your rookies have to start all season, and in some cases I think it can be a blow to their careers to have to shoulder that load, try to lead your franchise to victories as a starter, and fail. I think our young guys will get plenty of time to develop, and will do it in a more natural progression behind Jefferson, Millsap and Harris.
Raja can go. It would be nice to see him join a team like the Celtics or someone who still can make a go at a title. His style of play and attitude would fit right in in Boston IMO. Could the Jazz buy him out maybe?
AK47, while I still think he has some years left and pretty good talent for his position (fringe all-star), I question his competetive spirit, his desire to win games and to dominate his opponent. I think he can guard some of the elite wings in the league and cause them trouble. But he’s on the down slope of his career and some team will inevitably pay him more than the $4-5M I think he would be worth re-signing.
Memo has one more year on his contract ($10M or so). I don’t really know what to do with this guy. If he could come back 80%+ for his final year, I think it would be fine to keep him and give him some minutes and a chance to get one last contract somewhere else when he becomes a free agent.
Here’s a thought for you. If the lockout lasts a whole year and Deron leaves New Jersey, it will mean the Nets gave up Favors, Kanter, Harris and one more first round pick (Golden States 2011) for about 30 games of Deron Williams. That could potentially go down as one of the most lop-sided trades in the last decade. Hmmm.
I totally agree that Jefferson, Millsap, and Harris should be the “go to” guys for the next couple seasons. They are the perfect kind of veterans that the young players can learn from.
I’m not sure why the Nets made the trade with the Jazz when they did. They knew a lockout was looming, and that Deron’s contract would expire after the 2011-2012 season. That doesn’t give them much time to bring in the kind of star players they need in order to keep D-Will from wanting to bolt for greener pastures. Why would Deron stay with them if he could potentially go play for Dallas, Orlando, New York, or either of the L.A. teams? At this point in his career, Deron’s more about chasing the ring, then collecting the paycheck.
I also agree with pretty much everything. Bell definitely needs to go, trade him for a 2016 conditional 2nd rounder for all I care. That would be addition by subtraction as far as I’m concerned. AK shouldn’t be re-signed, even if it is for cheap, for exactly the reason you suggested. He would eat up development time for the young guys, not to mention his chronic injuries would keep him out anyway.
I agree about Okur and Watson in regard to the long term, but all things considered I think we might as well keep them for one more year (if there even is a season). Nobody is going to take Okur’s contract and it’ll be off the books after this year anyway so we might as well keep him to help Kanter any way he can. I definitely like the idea of bringing in a young point guard, but where are we going to get one now? I say re-sign Watson for one more year and then get a point guard in the next draft. For Watson’s small price, he brings solid leadership to the team and is a great locker room presence for the young guys.
Bottom line though, I agree with you completely that the young guys need to play. The Jazz aren’t going to win the championship over the next couple years, so put the young guys in and let them grow together. That’s what OKC did… Durant, Westbrook, Green, Ibaka, Harden, all those guys were drafted over the past few seasons and they all got thrown into the fire together. In ‘08 they started the season 3-29, but then ended up finishing the rest of the season 20-30. The next year they went to the playoffs, and the year after (last year) they went to the Western conference finals. Could the Jazz be 3 years removed from the Western conference finals? It’s not out of the realm of possibility if we allow the young guys to develop
I agree with the thrust of your post – which I see as the attitude of letting the young guys get enough minutes to improve so that we can see what they are capable of.
However, I think that you are missing a few things. Millsap may be one of the better veterans on our team, but by the end of last season it was apparent that Favors needed to get the starting minutes at the PF. If Millsap can successully make the transition to the SF and still give you quality minutes and a great attitude, I am all for keeping him. If not, we need to deal him while he still has good value as a starting PF option (possibly also bundling either Okur or Bell).
Both Okur and Bells contract are virtually untradable (until close to the trade deadline, when Okurs will become tradable as an expiring contract – but we would then need to take back close to $10 million in salary). I think that while Bell is a competitor, the reason he took the deal with the Jazz was that it kept him in the league for 4 years. He isn’t going anywhere, and his experience is something that can really help our young players if he can get on board with being a small minutes player / mentor for the younger players. I bet we see Bell in a limited 10-15 minutes a game situation, but even if the situation is different, I guarantee that he will remain a Jazz player for at least 2 of the next three years on his contract.
As for AK, I think that the Jazz will probably resign him for $5-7 million 3-4 years. He doesn’t sound like he wants to leave, and the entire league has known that he was one of the most overpaid players ever – they are not going to step up and overpay him again. If Millsap pans out at the SF then he will be a good off the bench SF, if not he will probably still only get 15-25 minutes a game.
As for our position lineup, I want to see Jefferson, Favors, and Kanter sharing the majority of the PF and C minutes. If those three can average starter minutes they can basically each get close to 30 minutes, and we should be able to both get the young guys playing time, and be competitive. I would like to see Burks get some time as our backup PG and backup SG, with Harris and Hayward as the starters. Then I would like to see Millsap and AK splitting time at the SF. I don’t think that playing our young players means that we have to field an uncompetitive team.
I disagree strongly with letting all the vets go like AK,Memo and even Watson. The strategy for the Jazz that has ALWAYS kept us in playoff contention is having vet players in the system to work and build up the young guys. If you get rid of Memo and AK(you lose the only defense we have with AK) the only person with any true talent and long term familiarity with our system in Paul. A big mistake teams make is building teams from the ground up with nothing but fresh faced draft picks and it keeps them out of playoff contention for years on end. Mixing vets with young guys is going to kee us competitive. Trading Memo,not resigning AK and having the only “vet” leader be Paul while the rest of the new guys(including Al and Harris,even though they are vets they are still only a season at most into our system) run the team is recipe for disaster. When you have more players who know how to play the Jazz way it makes it easier for the new guys to adjust and learn to that style of play. Although changes are imminent in some ways with Ty the Jazz system will stay the same, and you don’t want to fix what isn’t broken. Memo is perfect for Kanter. Memo is Kanter’s hero and there is noone better to teach him the in and outs of the Jazz,spend time with him, even play side by side at times to allow them all to learn how to play “Jazz ball”. Deron Williams was pissed when he didn’t start when we brought D-fish in, but he didn’t realize at that time it allowed him to observe and learn how we play ball and eventually when he and the others took the reigns they had melted into what they had learned. We have some amazingly talented “students” but it’s useless without good on the court teachers. AK can still play, he wants to play and for less. So let him. Memo has had a full season off and it looks like it’s going to be two. His heart is here and you can’t buy that kind of dedication, Kanter looks up to him and needs a mentor. Memo played Just fine before his injury and played just fine after, just needed a stronger back which he will now have the time to get. To be honest though….trade Raja for a new jumbotron. Start Hayward in his place. As much as we all want to see the young guys get all the playing time, all the playing time won’t get us into the playoffs. It has to be gradual and split with the vets. Sloan preached and practiced this and is the reason why we were always a playoff team. /endrant
colby is the only one thinkign straight here sure minutes are good but how much does rookies learn from vets you keep the vets on to teach and oreach to the kids on the team while playing time is great to you need to learn from someon how it’s done as well. It’s not something you pick up on the way. I believe to it’s also great for fans as well it helps with winning games period wich is always great for us fans it give us hope that this team has something here. you get rid of you vets like AK Memoo and earl i think you loose half of the games you could be winning this season milsap to me can’t play three but you bring him off the bench because i think favors earned it out there milspa can’t compete with hieght plain and simple and you have way to many threats on this team to have the offence running thru just two to three guys. harris needs to play better team ball as well if you want this offence to run thru him and Al the kids a great scoring threat but doesn’t pass the ball enoughyou run A high tempo game and get all those guys touchs on that ball i would say fast pase and a spread offense game but, we have way to many big guys for that one