This post is in response to Banker’s post concerning the Jazz off-season moves and the discussion it provokes. I know CBAC Smack rules dictate that we respond in the comments section but I felt that my rebuke was enough of its own topic to be a separate post. I’ll start off by saying that I’m no stranger to Carl’s Jr. I’ve been a fan for quite some time and my current belt notch is probably thanks to that franchise. In my years of patronage, I’ve never had the guacamole six dollar burger. I’ve always thought it looked okay and some of my friends would get that burger every time we went there and go on and on about how good the “Guac-burger” is. Recently I had a coupon for it so I thought I’d try it. Man, I opened up that box and it looked great! Bacon, Cheese, Guac, the works. From the first bite only one thought came to my mind. GROSS. I was immediately regretting my choice of lunch. I finished that burger hoping with each bite that the choice I made would somehow get better. By the end, my stomach was reeling and my colon was very upset, almost yelling at me, for making such an ignorant choice. I have a feeling my system will be paying for that choice for awhile longer.
In my mind, this experience could be correlated to the Jazz. This off-season is like the Jazz standing in line, coupons in hand, waiting to order. The choices made could disrupt the system for many moons to come. Everyone’s talking about “Bosh for Booze”, “Get Memo out of Town”, “Lose the bigs and get some defense”, and “Blah,blah,blah”. I’m just here to say that sometimes the best change is no change. Stick with the spicy chicken or the super star. Jazz fans should be careful what they’re wishing for in being so quick to lose our “20&10” guys. If we're not careful we could be on the outside of the playoffs looking in. Loosing records haven’t ever really been part of the Jazz culture but believe me, if we’re too hasty with our coupons, we’ll most likely regret our off-season choices. I say we keep our core group of guys (except CJ – he’s always expendable) and make a go at it again next year. If Boozer gives us 4 or 5 months without injury and solid effort all will be water under the bridge and the fans will love him again. Look at AK, after the Houston series a few years ago the whole city wanted his head on a skewer. Now he’s just “Overpaid but Lovable AK”.
Keep the team. Ride out the waves and turmoil. Take the cap hit for a year and we’ll have a look at going deep in the playoffs this coming season. Hasty decisions this off-season could be more damaging to the Jazz system than the Guac-burger was to my system. Just saying…
