<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">For Kevin O'Connor and anyone who works in an NBA front office, the best summer is a short summer, when the end of the playoffs bleeds into the homework period before the draft, which leads directly into the start of free agency on July 1. And O'Connor, the Jazz's senior vice president of basketball operations, couldn't help but appreciate that on Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, his team was playing host to the Spurs in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals. The series ultimately arrived at a sour end for the Jazz, with a 25-point loss in Game 5 in San Antonio followed by accusations from players of their teammates making early vacation plans, but the positives of the season were not to be overshadowed. The Jazz won 60 games including the regular season and playoffs, reached the conference finals for the first time since the end of the Stockton-to-Malone era, nearly played into June as a result and left O'Connor with the shortest summer in recent franchise history. "That's one of the things that's fun about this," O'Connor said in a half-hour interview Wednesday in his office. "Is it a short offseason? Do we have to sleep quick? Yeah. But it's well worth it." </div> Source: Salt Lake Tribune
I guess Utah are one of the contenders after that Greek guard that said he wanted to go to the NBA. I hope they go after Pietrus, Posey, Nocioni, and Barnes, they all could help us.
Kevin O'Connor is fairly limited in what he can do in the free agent market. Depending on who comes back and who doesn't, the Jazz may have too many players to even make a signing. They typically like to have fourteen players, and there are thirteen on the roster at the moment. That includes Brown and Miles who are restricted free agents, as well as Araujo who is unrestricted. Then there's the two draft picks on top of that. The Jazz are already over the cap, and obviously can't afford to throw too much money around. As a result, any signing will probably be a role player. Which isn't really a problem, the core is there, but there are weaknesses that could be fixed to help the team, such as shot blocking, guarding opposing shooting guards and lack of a shooter. If I had to choose, I'd go for the shooter. Brewer can play defense, and next season when he isn't a rookie should get some minutes. Hopefully. A shot blocker would be nice, but they're hard to find and would probably struggle to get minutes behind Okur and Boozer. Utah's offense revolves around the layup, but they'll take the jump shot if it's there. A shooter who can stretch the defense would help out the slashers like Harpring. Boozer will also draw some double teams, and if he can kick the ball out to a shooter consistently, the other team may be forced to start going back to guarding him one on one. If Boozer's down low, good luck with that. Jason Kapono or Matt Carroll would be perfect, but that might be asking too much.
