Upper Bowl Jazz Fan

Potential trade/draft scenarios for the summer of 2010

// February 23rd, 2010 // NBA Draft, Trades

In the past week Carlos Boozer has come out saying that he would be very open to the possibility of staying in Utah and resigning with the Jazz.  I would not be surprised if that happened at all.  I also wouldn’t be surprised if Boozer left either.  I think the question of Boozer staying will come down to money.  Boozer will want a max deal (or near max deal).  Teams like Chicago, Detroit, or Miami might be willing to give him that.  Only time will tell for sure.  I have been thinking a lot about what will happen with the Jazz this summer and wanted to throw around a couple of my ideas.

Right now the Jazz are looking to have a #5-10 pick in the upcoming draft thanks to the pick we own from the New York Knicks.  Side note, the Jazz have had only 2 top 10 picks in the last 30 years or so…just crazy.  It’s possible the Jazz could win one of the top 3 lottery picks but those are all remote chances so I’ll go with a safe bet of a pick in the 5-10 range.

But, just as a dream, let’s look at our lottery chances.  In the 2007 draft the Portland Trailblazers had only a 5% chance of winning the draft having the league’s 7^th worst record.  The Memphis Grizzlies had the league’s worst record but only managed the #4 pick.  The Seattle SuperSonics had the NBA’s 5^th worst record, had a 10% chance of getting the #2 pick, and somehow landed it.  The Blazers and Sonics/Thunder took Greg Oden and Kevin Durant in that draft and the rest is history.  Right now, the Knicks project to finish somewhere between the 5^th and 9^th worst record in the NBA which means the Jazz would have similar chances at landing a top 3 pick.  Oh the dreams I dream.

Back to reality.  There are a number of great players in this draft.  Clearly, John Wall, the PG from Kentucky, is the #1 favorite for pretty much every team in the league this year.  As 2009 was the draft of point/combo guards (Jennings, Rubio, Evans, Flynn, Lawson, Curry, etc) the 2010 draft seems to be full of wings and bigs.  As it turns out, the Jazz are lacking at the wing/center position.  I could easily see the Jazz draft a good big man like Cole Aldrich, Hassan Whiteside, Donatas Montiejunas, Ed Davis, Derrick Favors, or even DeMarcus Cousins.  From there we could either trade Millsap or AK for a good wing player and resign Boozer and have a very high quality rotation of the 3, 4, and 5 position.  Given that Memo’s contract will have only 2 years left on at that point, that’s a good length for integrating our new lottery pick into the rotation while working Memo out especially since after only a year Memo will have an attractive expiring contract.

Or we could draft one of the quality wing players like Evan Turner, Wesley Johnson, Al-Farouq Aminu or Xavier Henry to fill the void we have at the wing.  From there we could also resign Boozer and trade AK or Millsap for a quality big man and we’d have a solid rotation in the 3, 4 and 5 spot as well.  I might be looking too optimistically about this, I realize that.  We’re not likely to get a top 3 pick which means we likely won’t get Turner, Wall, or Cousins.  But I think that however the draft plays out, we should be able to fill a weak spot in our roster and make a trade or two to have a contending team.  That’s good news from where I see things.