Thoughts from KOC

Really really interesting interview with KOC in The Deseret News a couple days ago...

Quote :

— Do you think the league will be active with trade-deadline options?

"I think it will be. And I think the reason it will be is because people will be concerned going into next year … with the extra luxury tax, the punitive tax, the repeaters luxury tax. I think some teams are going to be cognizant of that. Hopefully, we put ourselves in a pretty good position. We had planned on this from four years ago. Now I'm not smart enough to write all the numbers down, but (Jazz CFO) Bob Hyde did. He planned it and looked at it and said, 'Here's what we should look like.' We thought it'd be two years before the implementation before the tax would come in and we guessed right, and hopefully we can be the beneficiaries of making some moves."

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865565777/Utah-Jazz-Former-GM-Kevin-OConnor-gives-now-rare-interview.html?pg=1

Well I think that is as clear a signal as you will find that the Jazz are looking to deal.

I think the two teams that could be most likely to deal up some decent players in trade are Phoenix and Memphis.

Phoenix is sort of stuck in Salary cap purgatory, they don't have a single player making more than 8 Mil a year, but they also won't have enough cap space to sign a decent free agent. If they don't make a move I think you can basically guarantee that they will be at the bottom of the west for the next 3 years. They just lost Frye, and while Scola and Dragic are dollar for dollar probably the best frontcourt value in the NBA, they don't really have anything after those two. I could easily see a deal involving one of the Jazz bigs with Phoenix, probably for one of the Suns PG's.

Memphis is basically at the Luxury tax line for next season with only 10 players, and their core of Randolph, Gay, Conelly, and Gasol will put them over the salary cap by themseleves for the next 3 years. Gay is undoubtedly the guy they would want to deal, because he is MASSIVELY overpaid, and I think he's the guy the Jazz should be least interested in. Marvin, Gordon, and Burks all are or will be better and cheaper than Gay. Conely is the guy that I'm interested in if I'm the Jazz, and Mo Williams is probably the guy they'd have to give up to get him unless the Grizz really struggle this season, because the Grizzlies will not want to make a move that basically throws their season unless their season is already blown to hell, so they will want an adequate short term replacement while they bring Wroten and Selby along.