off_season.page

The Off-Season

The season is over and the players go to their homes to get some rest and get ready for next season. The fans will be spending some nights at home as their favorite team isn�t playing any more home games and the mascot will hang up his suit to finally leave the Delta Center and go home. The season is over so everybody goes home and get some rest to prepare for next season. Everybody, except a few men and women. For the general managers the season has just begun as they will try to lure free agents to the city, re-sign their own players for less money than they want, to draft the young talent the team needs and to make a trade which clearly benefits his or her team. Ladies and Gentlemen, let the off-season begin.

The Best And Worst Case Scenarios

It doesn�t take much to please the Jazz fans this off-season. As a matter of fact, there is only one thing that needs to happen in order to make the off-season a successful one: Stockton coming back. But that may be the only thing that needs to happen, it�s also the most difficult to accomplish since no single person can influence his come back. Except for maybe his family. Not Karl Malone, not Larry Miller and not Kevin O�Connor. He will decide if he is going to play another year or not and if he is then Jazz fans will be happy and forget about all the other things that have been done in the off-season. But for the critic more needs to be done to make it a successful off-season. For me, John Stockton just needs to come back.

But lets look at it from a critic�s point of view. The Jazz can almost

form a team with their free agents. The management has chosen not to use any of the player options which means that the following players will be free agents: Bryon Russell, John Starks, John Crotty, Donyell Marshall, Rusty LaRue, Quincy Lewis and Scott Padgett.

First we take a look at Bryon Russell. The Jazz had too much small forwards and Kirilenko and Marshall pushed Russell to the shooting guard position. Not a bad idea but the problem was that Russell couldn�t hit the statue of liberty this season even if he was 2 feet away from it. He has been a crowd favorite for years and the Delta Center loves Russ but he couldn�t shoot this year and had a hard time defending the NBA shooting guards. He made some crucial mistakes in the play-offs and that�s why the Jazz will probably say good-bye to Russell.

Another player we won�t see back on the roster next year will be John Starks. He wasn�t on the play-off roster this year despite Crotty�s injury. John Starks was signed because Hornacek retired and everyone thought that he would be a great addition to the Jazz team. But instead of playing well and let the fans partly forget Hornacek, there will be no Jazz fan who will forget him completely, he played like someone who just came out of the retirement home. He couldn�t hit a shot and we won�t see him back on the Jazz roster, and maybe not on any roster at all.

John Crotty. John Crotty. He had an amazing season until he got injured. John Stockton is still one of the best point guards in the league but when he went to the bench Crotty was there to guide the team. At some times you didn�t even notice that Stockton wasn�t playing. Crotty is the best back up point guard Stockton has ever had. Even if Raul Lopez will join the Jazz then I still think the Jazz have to re-sign John Crotty, if he is totally healthy.

I knew what the Jazz thought when they didn�t re-sign Marshall. They thought �hey, he earns too much for someone with his numbers so we won�t use the option for another year and instead re-sign him for less money.� If it works the Jazz management has done a job well done but Marshall will likely be a bench player in Utah and I

know teams that really want a guy like Marshall��and have more money to offer. I want him to come back, but does he want to come back?

Rusty LaRue won�t be back. Period.

Quincy Lewis has played well the last couple of weeks and has really tried to get in the spotlight but overall he had a bad season and he won�t be re-signed. I don�t want him back and I think that the Jazz don�t want him back.

Scott Padgett. What a story. He played great in the second half of the season and his value skyrocketed. A forward who can shoot the three-pointer. Wow. Unfortunately he played very bad in the play-offs and got a huge mental blow when he made an offensive goaltending violation on a Stockton three-pointer to tie the game with absolutely no seconds left on the clock. I think the Jazz will re-sign him but that depends on how much money he wants because the Jazz won�t give him much.

Okay. Let�s see. In a perfect scenario Padgett, Marshall and Crotty will re-sign and 4 players will leave. That means the Jazz have two open spots not counting the three-players you can put on the injured list.

One of them is likely to go to point-guard Raul Lopez. That is, if he can get out of Spain. He still has a contract with Real Madrid but Raul�s agent is trying to get to an agreement with the team about Lopez going to Utah. Then you have the draft and the Jazz will probably give the first round pick a spot on the roster, that is if they don�t draft Jiri Welsch, Juan Carlos Navarro or any other player playing in Europe or any other continent besides North-America. I will give you my draft choices in May before the draft. So let�s make a depth chart for the best scenario and the worst scenario:

Best:
PG: Stockton, Crotty, Lopez
SG: Stevenson
SF: Kirilenko, Marshall
PF: Malone, Padgett
C: Collins, Ostertag, Amaechi
+ draft pick

Worst:
PG: Crotty, Stevenson
SG: Russell, Lewis
SF: Kirilenko
PF: Malone, Padgett
C: Collins, Ostertag, Amaechi
+ draft pick

I definitely don�t want to think about the last one. But we aren�t done yet. The Jazz will probably try to get a starting shooting guard and just good players in general. The Jazz are probably going to pick either a shooting guard or a power forward in this year�s draft and I would go for the shooting guard but the Jazz will probably go for the power forward so lets say that the Jazz draft a power forward to share back-up minutes with Padgett and Marshall, who both can play the SF position. Then we need a starting shooting guard so lets look at the free agency market. Here is a little list of players who will, in my opinion, be a nice pick-up for the Jazz.

Travis Best (PG, Chi), Eric Piatkowski (SG, LAC), Michael Redd (SG, Mil), Rodney Rogers (PF, Bos), Dell Curry (SG, Tor), Keon Clark (PF/C, Tor), Popeye Jones (PF, Was).

That isn�t much. If you want a starting shooting guard then you only have two choices: Michael Redd and Eric Piatkowski.

Michael Redd is in his second year in the NBA and a very good three-point shooter. He connected on 88 of his 198 three-point attemps which means that he is a 44% three-point shooter. He ranks eight in 3pt%. In 21minutes he has averaged 11.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg and 1.4 apg. He shot 48% from the field. When you put his stats and the stats of Russell next to each other then you will see that Redd gets more ppg and has a better fg% and 3pt% than Russell. Russell gets more rebounds and assists but he also plays 9 minutes more per game.

Eric Piatkowski is a pure three point shooter and a veteran shooting guard. He has played 8 years with the L.A. Clippers and this year he averaged 8.8 ppg, 2.6 rpg and 1.6 apg in 24 mpg. He ranks third in NBA 3pt% with 46%. In all his eight years he didn�t shoot better than that. He shoots 44% from the field. When you put the stats of Piatkowski and Redd next to each other then you will see that Redd beats Piatkowski in almost every category. The biggest difference is in the ppg, 11.4 and 8.8, but the rest is pretty close. Piatkowski however is a much better free throw shooter. Redd shoots just below the 80% while Piatkowski almost shoots 90%!

I would love to have the other free agents but the Jazz are in need of a starting shooting guard and those two players are the only good shooting guard in this years free agent market.

The only other way to get a starting shooting guard is in a trade. I personally would love to see Brent Barry in a Jazz uniform but Barry just had his best year ever so his stock is pretty high. The Jazz aren�t a team which trades much and the only trade that could happen, may god prevent it, is that Karl Malone will move away from Utah. Karl may want to get away but the problem is that no team in it�s right mind would give up a good, young, player to get Karl Malone so a trade would be very hard to accomplish. There are always situations in which a team might want Malone and are willing to pay the price, for example a top team which is going to lose it�s best player to free agency and decide to work out a sign and trade. But the biggest worry for Jazz fans is that if Malone goes away, Stockton will probably retire. And no Jazz fan wants that. Ostertag is always on the trading block and his last game of the season was a great one so KOC, Kevin O�Connor, may receive some calls of teams interested in this big man. But his huge contract makes him hard to move and he will probably stay here in Utah.

Okay, what do we have now. I have talked about the draft, my draft choices will be on the site later in May, the free agents and trades. I personally think that no trades will happen so we have to limit us to free agents and the draft. Let�s again look at the best and worst case scenario:

Best:
PG: Stockton, Crotty, Lopez
SG: Redd/Piatkowski, Stevenson
SF: Kirilenko, Marshall
PF: Malone, Padgett, Draft Pick
C: Collins, Ostertag, Amaechi

Worst:
PG: Crotty, Stevenson
SG: Russell, Lewis, 2nd round draft pick
SF: Kirilenko, Padgett
PF: Malone, 1st round draft pick
C: Collins, Ostertag, Amaechi

Michael Redd

Again, I don�t even want to think about the worst case scenario but if the Jazz management don�t play it smart they could lose their season, which would cause the Jazz to lose theirs. The best case scenario on the other hand is a great one. A solid shooting guard, a youthful roster, Malone at PF, Kiri, Collins and Stevenson improving and John Stockton playing 30 minutes on the PG position. And the only thing the Jazz management needs to do is sign a good shooting guard and the rest is up to the players the Jazz want to re-sign and come back.

But no matter what, if Stockton comes back, then in my opinion the off-season has been a successful one.

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