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Boozer Agrees to Terms With Bulls (5 yrs/80 mil)

Gotta love how Boozer is exalted to a savior as soon as he's given away. I for one am glad we got rid of a redundant, undersized, injury-prone PF and freed up some cap space, instead of taking on Bulls garbage. Here's to hoping AK and Okur will soon follow.
 
I'm assuming this is NOT a S&T. And wow. Just wow on the money. That is simply crazy. I liked Booze and thinks he's underappreciated around here, but he is not worth that kind of salary. Scary.

Okay, assuming this is NOT a S&T, how does this affect our cap situation in the immediate now (as Yoggi might say)? We've got AK coming off the books after next year, some good young talent assuming we re-sign Matthews now in him and Gordo, and probably no problem maxing out Deron. I actually like our core and like that we've got some flex room moving forward. Are we championship material? Not even close, but I like this team:

Deron/Price/Gaines (probably not)
Matthews/Miles/Evans
Miles/Gordo/AK
Sap/AK/Gordo
Okur/Fes/Koufos

Scrubtastic, but I'll take it over not being able to get another player because we paid Boozer nearly $100 million.
 
The Jazz had no choice but to let him go. Bulls overpaid quite a bit for him. I don't blame KOC at ALL.
 
I don't know how important that TPE Hollinger mentioned is worth, but I'd probably rather let Booze walk and go after Beasley with the Harp TPE.
 
You know, I tire of Jazz fans using hyperbole to bolster their point. I'm guessing no one expected us to contend with Boozer on this team. However, we had at least a solid nucleus to be pretty good. And pretty good in the exceedingly improved west probably meant at least the second round in the playoffs.

The most ideal situation? Of course not. But I had a helluva lot more fun cheering on Utah over Denver than I did when we were an eighth seed the year prior.

Now we'll be lucky to grab that eighth spot because not only did we regress as a team, we did it in a conference that is getting better and better.

So was Boozer the difference between lottery and championship? Of course not. But he was the difference between mediocrity and fairly decent.

I'd take fairly decent over mediocrity every damn time. I know some fans don't see the difference and believe if you're not contending, it's pointless - but I'm not of that line.

Unfortunately, I think the Jazz are now destined to be an average team. Maybe 8th, 9th or 10th in the west. Which isn't good enough for an ideal playoff spot and certainly not bad enough for a good pick in the NBA draft.
 
@johnhollinger: $80 mil deal has cap figure of $13.8M, which should leave juuuuust enough for LBJ if no cap surprise tonite. S&T drops 1st year to $13.2M.

S&T still a possibility?


Don't think Bulls need to do it they got him just cheap enough so they can afford a second max (lechoke)
 
If the Bulls sign Bron, too, I think they'll be pretty damned good, but I still say the Lakers eat their lunch and drink their milk.
 
The TPEs do have a better chance to get used now, with the Jazz in no danger of hitting the tax while using them.

And DAMN, if the Jazz come in a couple million below the cap, there goes the MLE and there goes Matthews.
 
Jazz just regressed. Hope the Boozer haters are happy. Jazz are now a 41-41 team at best.
Addition by subtraction. I can't wait until the first Jazz-Bulls matchup. For the first time in years, Utah can have a starting frontcourt rotation that plays on both ends of the floor.
 
The TPEs do have a better chance to get used now, with the Jazz in no danger of hitting the tax while using them.

And DAMN, if the Jazz come in a couple million below the cap, there goes the MLE and there goes Matthews.

They would still be able to use the MLE to re-sign Mathews if the contract takes the Jazz over the cap.

Mid-Level Exception
Once a year, teams are allowed to sign a player to a contract equal to the average NBA salary, even if the team is over the salary cap already, or if the signing would put them over the cap. This is known as the Mid-level exception (MLE). The MLE may be used on an individual free agent or split among multiple free agents, and is available to any team that exceeds the salary cap at the beginning of the offseason. The Mid-Level Exception for the 2008-09 NBA season was $5.585 million.[2] The MLE is $5.854 million for the 2009-10 NBA regular season.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Salary_Cap
 
What happened to the ace up KOC's sleeve for working out a sign-and-trade? Well, now that reality has set I'm hoping we can all overcome the first of our off-season delusions.
 
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