Upper Bowl Jazz Fan

Utah Jazz record after trading Ronnie Brewer

// April 22nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Trades

The Jazz traded Ronnie Brewer to the Memphis Grizzlies on February 28, 2010.  Many people felt that trading Brewer was a sign that the Jazz management was ceding defeat barely halfway through the season.  Or else why trade our starting shooting guard?

With wings such as CJ Miles and Wesley Matthews filling in the Jazz went 21 – 10 in the regular season since Brewer was traded…which is pretty respectable after trading a 3 year starter.

I think that record would have been more like 24-7 had Andrei Kirilenko not gone down with a calf injury with about 20 games left in the season.

Regardless, the Jazz didn’t become a worse team by trading Brewer as I’ve already outlined here.  The difference in the end of the season was losing Kirilenko who was posting his best regular season in a few years.

Potential trade/draft scenarios for the summer of 2010

// February 23rd, 2010 // No Comments » // 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.

Rating the Western Conference Trades

// February 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // General NBA, Trades

With yesterday being the trade deadline there was a lot of action.  We’ve already covered the relatively minor trade the Jazz executed in sending Ronnie Brewer to Memphis.  But how do the rest of the trades affect the Utah Jazz and our season?  For the sake of the argument, I’m going to say that the trades involving only eastern conference teams don’t really affect the Jazz.  They do in any game where we face the eastern conference team but they only occur twice a season and don’t have anything to do with how our playoff seed is determined or what matchup we get.  Sweet!  Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…

Houston Rockets – Sacramento Kings – New York Knicks 3-way Trade

This was one of the bigger trades.  Everyone assumed that the Rockets were going to trade T-Mac but it seemed like the Knicks didn’t have the right pieces which was true until they recruited the Kings.

New York Knicks got: Tracy McGrady and Sergio Rodriguez

Houston Rockets got: Kevin Martin, Hilton Armstrong, Jared Jeffries, Jordan Hill, the right to exchange 1st round picks in 2011 and the Knicks’ 2012 1st round pick.

Sacramento Kings got: Larry Hughes and Carl Landry

The Rockets came out well.  Kevin Martin has been a proficient scorer for the past few years.  The Rockets have been missing such a player since T-Mac checked out before last season.  The Rockets have been a defensive minded team for the past couple years and Kevin Martin plays defense about as well as he recites Shakespeare in Chinese.  Hopefully, the rest of the team’s strength in defense makes up for Martin’s lack there of.  The Rockets also got Jeffries from NY who is a defensive minded player with no offense to speak of…sort of like the rest of the Rockets.  However, the Rockets might now play Jeffries (6’11) or Armstrong (6’11) at the center since their starting 5 (Chuck Hayes, 6’6) is, um, a little short.  They also get some assets in the next few drafts which should help their rebuilding efforts as well as NY’s lottery pick in the ’09 draft Jordan Hill.  While Hill has not played much this year he should help contribute w/ the void formed by Carl Landry leaving.  I will say that I am very surprised that Houston gave up Carl Landry.  I’ve always wished we had him and the Rockets have been very high on him…with reason.  I get the feeling though, that the Rockets were hesitant to give him up and that, ultimately, the whole deal hinged on their willingness to give up Landry.  They have been struggling lately and have been looking to be in a battle for the 8 seed.  After this trade, they may be able to pick things up and get the 8 or the 7 seed.

Sacramento got a frontcourt presence in Carl Landry and, more importantly, cap space.  Larry Hughes’ contract is expriring and I’d be willing to bet they will reach a buyout agreement before the end of the season.  Tyreke Evans and Kevin Martin weren’t playing very well together and with his contract of Sacto’s books, they seem like a good big man away from being in the playoffs.

LA Clippers – Washington Wizards – Cleveland Cavaliers – 3 way trade

Cleveland Cavaliers got: Antawn Jamison and Sebastian Telfair

Washington Wizards got: Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Cleveland’s 2010 1st round draft pick, and Al Thornton

LA Clippers got: Drew Gooden

The Clippers have officially thrown in the towel for this year.  Especially since word for Clipperland says they’ll buy out Drew Gooden in the coming days.  With Blake Griffin’s injury and trading away Marcus Camby, Al Thornton and Sebastian Telfair they are clearly telling the world that they aren’t competitors this year.  Unfortunately, this is like the Clippers crying wolf because they’ve been declaring the same thing every year.  The crazy thing is the Clippers have a significant amount of money to spend this summer.  People are saying they could land Lebron…and then they all starting laughing uncontrollably.

It’s safe to say that Cleveland got a lot better and that the Wizards are 2 (out of 3) grenades into their implosion.

LA Clippers – Portland Traiblazers

Clippers got: Steve Blake , Travis Outlaw, and cash

Trailblazers got: Marcus Camby

The Blazers have finally found a replacement, for this year only, for Greg Oden and Joel Pryzbilla.  Portland has also been struggling as of late (especially with Brandon Roy injured) and now seems to be revitalized with Roy coming back from injury and a high quality frontcourt player in Camby.  Camby is a great defender, rebounder, and a decent scorer.  Steve Blake was the backup PG (up to this point in the season) and now Jerryd Bayless will have to step into that role.  Travis Outlaw – which has got to be the world’s coolest name – has been injured for most of this season so the Blazers haven’t really missed his production since Batum and Webster have been filling in nicely.  I expect a close race, now, for the Northwest Division title.  I’m just glad we’ve already played Portland 3 times.

Dallas Mavericks – Washington Wizards

Dallas got: Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, & DeShawn Stevenson

Washington got: Drew Gooden, Josh Howard, Quinton Ross, and James Singleton

Dallas got upgrades at the wing and the center but only marginal ones.  Josh Howard and Caron Butler have both been having a bad year and have similar numbers.  Haywood is definitely better than Gooden but it remains to be seen what is influence will be like while playing for Dallas compared to Washington (where he was the only person who had heard of defense).  Stevenson is…well…we remember him on the Jazz since we drafted him.  That was a great idea right?  I do think this makes Dallas better but are they at the level of Denver and the Jazz?  Maybe…but I don’t think so.

Jazz trade Ronnie Brewer to the Memphis Grizzlies

// February 18th, 2010 // 6 Comments » // Player Profile, Trades

Today was the deadline for trades in the NBA and it was quite a busy day around the league.  One of the more minor trades (compared to everything else that happened) was Ronnie Brewer heading to the Memphis Grizzlies.  Who did the Jazz get in return?  Well…the better question is what did the Jazz get in return?  The Grizzlies gave the Jazz a conditional 1st round draft pick.  The first year the Jazz could exercise that pick is 2011 but it is top-14 protected.  Meaning that if the Grizzlies draw the 14th pick or better they retain it.  In 2012 it is top-12 protected.  In 2013 it is top-10 protected.  In 2014 and 2015 it is top-9 protected.  If it goes past then and the Jazz have not been able to use that pick (which is extremely unlikely) then the Jazz receive “cash considerations.”  The Jazz will almost certainly be able to use that pick in the coming years because the Grizzlies, as a team, have gotten better and better and should be in the runnings for the playoffs for the next few years which means their record won’t be bad enough to get that high of a pick.  Sounds like a heck of a deal right?  Do you think they could have thrown in a ’72 Datsun like when they traded Pau Gasol away?

Was it a salary dump?

Jazz fans everywhere are crying foul and calling it an outrage that Kevin O’Conner got rid of Ronnie Brewer in a “salary dump” and got nothing in return.  This is NOT the case…at least not the primary reason.  For the record, if this had truly been a salary dump the Jazz would have figured out a way to get rid of another $2-ish million dollars to get under the tax.  Remember, if the Jazz got under the tax, not only would they not pay the league the penalty, they would receive approximately $4.5 million from the league for being under the tax.  They did not do this, however, illustrating that this was not, primarily, a financial move.

Brewer is a restricted free agent this summer which means a team can make him an offer and if the Jazz (well, the Grizzlies now) don’t match it then Brewer can join that team.  I believe the Jazz organization had discussed it and decided that if Brewer were to be made an offer (which would have almost been a certainty) they would have decided not to match it.  Basically, they decided that they were willing to let him leave the team this summer.

That being said, if Brewer were to have left in the summer the Jazz would have received nothing in return.  So the Jazz were faced with a choice when Memphis made an offer.  ”Do we keep Brewer for the rest of the season and have him contribute to our success or do we let Brewer walk in the summer and get nothing out of it?”  As any Jazz fan knows, there are a lot of wings vying for playing time: Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer, CJ Miles, and Wesley Matthews.  So it’s not like if they traded him we would be left with a gaping hole at the 2/3 with no one to fill it.  So, the Jazz decided that getting something as opposed to nothing was the best move.  They had good reason too.

On Defense

On the plus side, Brewer is an above average defender with long arms and a knack for getting steals.  He’s not an elite defender but does a decent job against the Kobes and Wades of the NBA.  His defensive efficiency rating is better than average.  (more below)

Will we miss his messed up looking shot?

On offense

I think he’s been a bit of a disappointment.  He leads the league for all shooting guards in field goal percentage but only because he gets the majority of his shots around the rim.

The league average for FG% around the rim is nearly 61% while Brewer posts a 65% average…which is great!  However, that’s the only area in which Ronnie Brewer shoots a good percentage.  In short range shots (less than 10 feet) Brewer shoots a putrid 27% compared to the league average of 44%.  In mid range shots (10-15 feet) Brewer shoots 27%, again, while the rest of the league averages 40%.  On long 2′s, Brewer records a better, but less than impressive, 35% which is still below the NBA average of 40%.  As a shooting guard he has never shot better than 30% from 3 (which is awful) and this year is the same.  Oh, and this year he is shooting 63% from the free throw line…I mentioned he’s a shooting guard right?

All those stats mean that Brewer is a poor shooting guard.  He is a phenomenal slashing and cutting guard.  However, last year in the playoffs, we saw the Lakers dare Ronnie B to shoot the ball from mid to long range and he came up short so often.  While he hurts defenses with his ability to cut to the rim and finish there he hurts the Jazz with his awful shooting.  Shouldn’t the Jazz demand a bit more out of, um, a shooting guard?  No one expects Fesenko to make mid to long range jumpers because he’s a post up player.

The Jazz, undoubtedly, looked at this same data, saw that over the 4 years he’s been with us that there hasn’t been much improvement (in fact, his shooting percentages have decrease mildly the last 2 years) and felt like it wasn’t worth it to keep Brewer for two or three times as much as he’s making this year.  His salary this year is $2.7 million dollars.  This summer, an offer of $5-7 million/year seems likely to be headed Brewer’s way.  If there was no luxury tax or salary issues with the Jazz I would imagine they would have been happy to keep him.  That is, of course, not the case and, while we might forget that, the Jazz are trying to make money in addition to winning a championship.

Now What?

Now there is more playing time available for our other wings, namely Wesley Matthews.  So, it’s been nearly 4 years and we bid Ronnie Brewer farewell.  He has been an integral member of the Jazz.  Many have complained that we shouldn’t be trading away a 3-year starter for so little but it comes down to this: is Ronnie Brewer a starting shooting guard on a championship team?  Sayonara Brewer!