I was looking at the Chad Ford article on the 2010 free agents. We spent our cap space in 2009, why do we care? Possibly because of something that just occured to me. All through this offseason, one player I've wanted to get is a defensive specialist at SG. If we traded for Kirk Hinrich, I wanted to try to get Thabo Sefalosha as well. I then wanted us to draft Danny Green. Reading the entry on Ronnie Brewer in this article, I got another idea: Brewer's numbers aren't sexy, but he's a versatile guard who can defend and get to the basket. If he would ever figure out how to shoot a jumper, he could be really good. His numbers have improved every year he's been in the league. With the Jazz in somewhat of a financial crunch, he could be one of those restricted free agents who can work themselves free if the right offer came along. What if we made that offer for Milsap, not to force a Boozer trade, but to make it hard for them to even match a MLE offer for Brewer?
Brewer's jumper can only improve so much b/c of the bone he broke during his childhood, which forces his elbow to stick out when he shoots. Umm....Utah have 20 million in expirings and Millsap contract actually goes down around 3 million according to multiple sources, the Millsap offer was frontloaded to pay 1/3 of the contract within 10 days. Next year Utah won't be in as big of a financial crunch, and are more than likely, willing to pay Brewer (a cornerstone to their future) since Okur & Kirilenko both expire (27 million) the following year.
Brewer is nice but he is too good to be 3rd string, and wasting our biggest asset (MLE) that offseason on a position of strength wouldn't make sense. If we were to trade Rudy and say, one of our SFs for something we need (young PG), he would make a ton of sense as someone who, as opposed to Rudy and Roy, is big enough to guard the bigger 3s.
We're really talking about a 3rd string SG? Is that even on the radar of needs? How about a PF who can rebound? Or a point guard for when Andre Miller retires?
Yeah, as I was typing my post, I was thinking that the offer we gave Milsap was so hard on them because we front loaded it. He also said we wouldn't be able to sign Outlaw after signing Roy and Aldridge. We might decide that we don't want to sign Outlaw, Roy and Aldridge or not, and the new CBA might make signing him difficult, but I don't see any problem with signing him as things stand now. I don't think we can take what Chad Ford says as fact, but it is an interesting idea IMO.
For all the talk about getting a PF who can rebound, we were the team with the highest rebound margin in the league last seaon and, according to 82games.com, Outlaw is a better rebounder at PF than Frye, Webster was a better rebounder at SF the last year he played than Outlaw was at SF last seaon and Miller is a better rebounder than either Blake or Rodriguez. We also will probably have one or Oden or Przybilla in the game at all times to grab the rebound when Outlaw is shooting from the outside, I think we'll be fine there. By the time Miller retires, we should have a good idea as to whether one of Bayless, Koponen or Mills is our PG of the future and draft somebody else if the answer is no.