With all of the recent talk of Chicago as Boozer’s destination, here are some three way trades for the Jazz that make sense.
Carlos Boozer to Chicago and CJ Miles to Detroit along with Chicago’s Kirk Hinrich. The Utah Jazz would get back Rip Hamilton from Detroit and Tyrus Thomas from Chicago.
The Pluses
Detroit gets a real point guard (I’m skeptical about Stuckey). They also get CJ Miles who has yet to live up to predictions, but he is still very young.
Chicago gets Carlos Boozer for an expendable Hinrich and an underachieving Tyrus Thomas.
Utah gets the now expendable Rip Hamilton and Tyrus Thomas, giving them a great shooter and an up-and-coming defensive presence at the four. For the coming year, that makes them a better team, both offensively and defensively.
The Minuses
I don’t really see any minuses for Detroit. They get two very useful players with decent contracts for Rip’s monster contract. With Ben Gordon under contract, Rip Hamilton no longer makes sense.
Chicago essentially trades a valuable young defensive player in Tyrus Thomas for the injury prone Carlos Boozer. Can Boozer stay healthy? If he can, he’ll most likely be better than Thomas for the foreseeable future, but that’s a big “if”. The fact that they get to try him out for a year in exchange for Thomas seems a good deal.
These contracts don’t really save Utah any money for signing Millsap. Rip Hamilton’s contract still has a lot of years left on it. (I think he’ll still be playing at a high level, but his minutes are beginning to pile up. Of course, if anyone can manage Rip’s minutes well and give him a longer career, it’s Jerry Sloan.) If they let Millsap go to Portland, they’d probably be fine financially, but I don’t really see the Jazz doing that. Of course, they might be fine anyway, since a year from now, they have a couple more contracts come off the book, and a much easier time trading Andrei Kirilenko’s expiring contract.
Utah trades Carlos Boozer to the Chicago Bulls and Andrei Kirilenko to the Houston Rockets. The Rockets trade Tracy McGrady and Luis Scola to the Jazz. Chicago trades Brad Miller to Houston.
The Pluses
I don’t think there is any way the Chicago doesn’t trade Brad Miller for Carlos Boozer. That’s a no-brainer.
Houston gets Brad Miller for a year to replace Yao Ming. He’s no real replacement for Yao, but nobody other than Dwight Howard really is. They also get Kirilenko, who will give them something, rather than McGrady, who will likely give them nothing. Essentially they salvage the season, assuming that they really want to.
The Utah Jazz essentially are trading Boozer for Scola and a whole bunch of freed up money next year. They guarantee themselves that they won’t be in the luxury more than a single year. They can even re-sign Millsap without qualms if they want to (though Scola is likely a better starting power forward than Paul Millsap.)
The Minuses
There’s no way Chicago doesn’t make this trade.
Trading Scola would hurt, but Carl Landry is a very good power forward too. They’re much better with somebody playing center than nobody playing center. They also are much better with Kirilenko than McGrady. Of course, it’s all up to whether Houston really wants to compete or if they are happy tanking games for a good draft pick. In a bad economy, I would think that they would want to make sure their fans are seeing some wins and keeping butts in the seats. Yao’s and McGrady’s injuries really make it a “no win” situation.
I can’t see why the Jazz wouldn’t trade Boozer and Kirilenko for Scola and tax relief. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
The Utah Jazz trades Carlos Boozer to Chicago and CJ Miles and Matt Harpring to the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers trade Marcus Camby to the Utah Jazz. The Chicago Bulls trade Jerome James and Tyrus Thomas to the Utah Jazz.
The Pluses
The Chicago Bulls get rid of Jerome James’ contract and get Boozer for Tyrus Thomas. We’ve already discussed why this might be good and bad.
The Los Angeles Clippers get rid of Marcus Camby, who is unnecessary and would probably take away valuable time from Blake Griffin. If they’re worried about being a little slim on the front line after trading away Camby and Zach Randolph, they could simply sign some backup big men for the veteran’s minimum. They get CJ Miles, a young player with a small contract and good potential, and Harpring, who is likely to simply retire anyway. With the Clippers’ owner being very financially-minded, this deal makes financial sense.
The Utah Jazz get one of the best defensive players in the NBA in Marcus Camby and an up-and-coming defensive player in Tyrus Thomas. They also get Jerome James, who they could keep for depth in the front line or buy out. None of the contracts are for longer than a year, unless the Jazz extend the contracts, so there isn’t much risk.
The Minuses
The only minus for Chicago is letting go of Tyrus Thomas.
The Clippers don’t really get better from this move, they get worse. They also most likely save money and give valuable time to Blake Griffin.
I don’t see any minuses for the Jazz. None of the contracts are long. The Jazz get much better defensively.