I haven’t heard this trade rumor come up, but in the wake of the knowledge that Portland is willing to throw a lot of up front money at Paul Millsap, in a front-loaded contract, even though most people agree that Millsap is too small to be a starting Power Forward in the league, it makes me wonder if the Jazz should pursue an alternative course of action.
Since everybody else is getting into the trade rumor arena, I figured it was time for me to throw my hat over the wall.
The Jazz could easily trade Carlos Boozer and CJ Miles (or Matt Harpring) to the New York Knicks for David Lee (via sign-and-trade) and Jared Jeffries.
Why would the Utah Jazz do it?
They wouldn’t need Millsap at this point, but they could keep him on as a backup if they didn’t mind the hefty up-front price tag. (His next 3 years were much more reasonable.) They would have a bigger player to play power forward at a nice salary of $8-9 million per year. Jared Jeffries is another big body to help them out. Carlos Boozer, his history of injuries, and his bad locker room influence would be gone. They would have a nice nucleus of young players at most of their positions for several years to come.
Why would the New York Knicks do it?
Jared Jeffries is one of the last multi-year contracts that the Knicks have on the books going into next year. They’d be taking back a multi-year contract in CJ Miles, but it would be less money than Jeffries’ current contract. They would also get the Bird-rights to Carlos Boozer, and a lineup of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, and Carlos Boozer would be devastating indeed (if they could actually woo Wade and James away from their respective teams). If they really wanted to shed all the multi-year contracts, they could probably persuade Utah to trade Matt Harpring instead of CJ Miles (especially in light of the fact that Harpring might just be retiring this year anyway).