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Jazz rebuilt too fast

L

Lord of Turnovers

New Member
With Boozer gone and Okur very possibly having had a career-changing injury it is a good time to look back at the achievements of the first post-Stockton-and-Malone team. It was a good team, they were in the 3-5 range in the West for a while. However, they never went to the Finals and were in the Conference finals only once.

Why? Yeah, they had some injuries, but it was'nt anything on the scale of Houston. Every team has its share. Even when perfectly healthy the Jazz did not look as the team that was going to come out of the West. There was AK's contract, but, again, almost every team has some bad contract of this magnitude:, AK was a good, productive player, he was just overpaid by 5-7 million. Nothing on the scale of Curry.

I have my theory - the Jazz never became a serious contender because they have rebuilt too fast. Several teams in the league (the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks, Heat) can win by attracting star players via trades/free agency - big markets, good locations, storied past etc. Like the most of the teams the Jazz cant do that, so the only way for them to get top players is through the high draft picks.

Unfortunately, the Jazz rebuilt extremely fast, getting only one top-10 pick (Deron). Yeah, they got two decent bigs, that soaked up almost all their available money - Okur and Boozer. But they were unable to surround them with additional quality pieces, since all that they had were mid and late first-round picks. And Okur, Boozer and Deron are not the players that could carry the team with many holes on their own. The result: no servicable SG and no quality defensive big, despite all the Jazz' attempts to get them (Borchardt, Araujo, Koufus, Brewer, CJ, Almond...)

Many of the Jazz fans were proud how fast the Jazz rebuilt, but actually it was their biggest mistake. If you are a small market team and want to have a shot at the championship the only thing you can do is to stay really-really bad for 3-4 years (except for the lucky shots like SA drafting a one-in-a-generation big).

Look at the current most promising young teams: all of them were in the deep rebuilding mode for at least 3 years: Sonics/Thunder (2007 - 2 pick, 2008- 4, 2009 -3), Portland (2005 -3, 2006 - 4, 2007 - 1), Bucks (2005 - 1, 2007 - 6, 2008 - 8, 2009 - 10).

If the Jazz ever want to win a championship, there are only two options. The first is to hope that they can again somehow pull off the biggest all-times steals of the draft (Stockton and Malone). The other way is to go into the full-scale rebuilding, and stay at the bottom for 3 years accumulating high picks. Unfortunately, I know that the team's owner and management will never do it. That is why the Jazz are destined to always be in the playoffs... and never win it all.

P.S. Just think about it, had the Jazz spent one more year in rebuilding after drafting Deron, they would have had a shot at drafting Aldridge, Roy and Gay, one more year - Durant, Horford and Noah.
 
Clippers??? You don't want to be in the lottery every year because they are often crapshoots and KOC has found good second round talent. What the Jazz are guilty of more than any other team in this league is not taking chances on high risk/ high reward picks and FA's so they've been stuck in the good but not contending mode for about three seasons.
 
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I completely disagree. Utah will still make the playoffs next year, and they have assests. They have a couple of TPE's, they have an expiring contract, they have a very talented seven footer, they have decent role players, and a couple of draft picks that look like they can be solid NBA players. Wait until after the lockout before you get disheartened. Let's hope the owners stay as pissed as they sound right now about the Miami Heat and player summitt and they might institute a hard cap, or more realistically, essentially the same thing with with very, VERY strict lux tax penalties (like a $3 per $1 over). If that is the case, then Utah becomes no less appealing than Green Bay, Kansas City, Tampa Bay in the NFL and they have no problem getting Free Agents.
 
Making the playoffs is more important than oxygen to some Jazz fans. I hate it when this topic comes up because "the Clippers" excuse comes up. No one thinks the Jazz will ever become the clippers but I would have been OK losing for three years to get more top 5 picks to build this team. I am sure OKC fans would agree with me.
 
The part that bugs me is look at all the teams that have been bad for the last forever. They have gotten all these high draft picks for years and where has is got them? Of Course the Clippers are used because they are the worst of the worst. For every OKC, Portland, and Milwalkee (see OP) There are the Warriors, Nets, Bulls, 76ers, Gizz, and Knicks. All of these teams have been bad for over 3-5 years and have multipule top 10 picks on there teams. Plus how many of those teams just mentioned have ether been sold or are up for sale because they have been bad for so long that they are losing tons of money. And were has that gotten them. More picks, Plus bad FA contracts. The Bulls may have a pretty good team going forward now. But It has 8 YEARS (1999-2007) of horrible teams to get there. The Jazz did a great job of keeping the team competitive and being in the playoffs. And by doing so make money. You can never say that being bad for 3-5 years is going to get you any place. Its a complete crap shoot in the draft.
 
Miami doesn't have the market size of LA or Chicago or even NY or Dallas but let's see what they did:

2003 -- Draft Wade 5th overall, build team around him
2006 -- Win championship
Late 2006 to early 2010 -- so-so years
2010 -- Re-sign Wade, add Lebron, Bosh, all through 2014, probably win championship(s)

Now that is a team that rebuilt 'too fast' and it hasn't been a bad thing.
 
I disagree. Gasol trade is what killed us. We definitely make the WCF and have a good shot at winning the west at least one of the past three seasons if not for that. The Lakers could have very well beaten us without Gasol though, but you figure with Bynum's injuries they get a lower seed and someone else takes them out.
 
if that was the case...let me think...the clippers play in a large market city....they haven't not won anything, golden state warriors haven't when rick berry was playing with them in the 70's, who else washington. these are team that play in a much larger market city so overall i think utah done very well for the smallest market city
 
The Jazz made good moves during their re-build. At the time they maxed AK, he was regarded as being a better player than Pau Gasol, so they gave him a similar contract. It turned out to be an oppressive contract, but AK could easily have been picked up by another team like Dallas, who was high on him. The Jazz targeted Okur as their big free agent, and when Boozer magically became available, the Jazz had to take him as a great, free asset.

Along the way, the Jazz parlayed Giricek into Kyle Korver, who helped dramatically for a year or two. They picked up Millsap, Miles, and Fess in the 2nd round, which wasn't bad. The Jazz couldn't have foreseen that AK would stop playing hard once he got his big contract or that Boozer wouldn't play hard and would sit out. They had higher hopes for Ronnie Brewer and CJ Miles, both were good athletes who have had some borderline all-star potential.

You can't blame them for signing high-character guys like Derrick Fisher and Matt Harpring to hold the team together during the process.

The Jazz blew their draft when they picked two lemons in Kris Humphries and Kirk Snyder. Morris Almond and Kosta Koufos could have turned out better, but I can't think of any obvious players the Jazz should have taken instead--maybe DeAndre Jordan?

There haven't been many big opportunities that the Jazz have missed out on, to be honest. It would be great if the Jazz got Pau Gasol instead of the Lakers, but there haven't been that many home-run trades available. If the Jazz had traded AK for Marion, who knows how well that would have worked out. Marion would have left after a year, and the Jazz would have chased other free agents.

The Jazz have a bit of a reputation for being the team that players go to when they need to prove themselves and raise their stock, then they get a big paycheck and go somewhere else. For a lot of players, they just don't want to play in Utah, so that weighs into just about every decision the Jazz front office makes. There are several players this applies to--Raja Bell, Shandon Anderson, Kirk Snyder and DeShawn Stevenson are examples. It's interesting that Boozer was willing to come back, but it was the Jazz that didn't make him an offer.
 
To those who mentioned the hopelessly stuck in the lottery Clippers and Warriors - yeah, I did not say that this way is without its pitfalls. Three (or even more) years of high picks do not guarantee the team a championship. However, it seems to be the only realistic road to the championship for the small-market teams. No pain, no gain. And the Jazz, unlike the Clips or Warriors had a commited owner and good organization, so their chances of falling off the map for a decade were pretty small.

To those who keeps thinking that the Jazz were ever among the West best, and only Gasol's trade prevented them from going deeper - you are dreaming. The Jazz were never better than the Spurs. And they would have probably lost to Dallas too. They were a team on the level of Houston and Denver, that why their meetings were so intense. The team built around Deron, Boozer, Okur and AK was simply not good enough to be a contender without several more good role players. And the late first round is not the place to draft good role players without some serious luck.

Now, just think if the Jazz had high lottery picks for 2 more years after drafting Deron - we could be talking about the starting five of Deron, Roy, AK, Boozer and Noah (with Okur off the bench), for example. This team looks like something.

Boozer was never good enough to be the big man that carries the team to the championship. Second-round (or even the late first-round ) picks simply are not good enough for it, unless you have a Jordan on your team. The sad part is that the Jazz learned nothing and they are as afraid of going into the rebuilding mode now as ever. We are looking at additional 4-5 years of second-round playoff exits, unless Deron bolts away.
 
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