Not much.

Not that we expected much change for a team who was really good last year, losing to the Lakers in a series that they probably should have been able to win.

So what should we expect this year.

PG – Deron Williams
SG – Ronnie Brewer
SF – C.J. Miles
PF – Carlos Boozer
C – Mehmet Okur

I actually really like this lineup from an offensive standpoint, but I don’t believe that this unit will be able to accomplish much on defense. Williams is not a bad defender, but he certainly isn’t spectacular. Boozer and Okur really aren’t very good defensively, although against certain opponents they can be effective enough. Miles is an unknown. Brewer obviously a very good, especially for how young he is. His steals numbers speak for themselves.

What this really means is that they will have to rotate very well and play very good team defense or they are not going to be able to win on the road. Considering how poorly they played on the road this past season, they are going to have a difficult time this season, especially in the post-season.

The second unit is going to be a little more fuzzy, but knowing Jerry Sloan, I would expect a second team of:

PG – Brevin Knight
SG – Kyle Korver
SF – Andrei Kirilenko
PF – Paul Millsap
C – Jarron Collins

Although Ronnie Price is a fan favorite, Sloan will probably prefer steady experience and fantastic assist-to-turnover ratio over Ronnie Price’s speed and much better shooting. With Korver, Kirilenko, and Millsap on the floor, a good distributor like Knight will be a great asset. If those three struggle shooting, though, expect a quick look to bring in Harping, Almond, or Price to improve the shooting of the second unit. Jazz fans tend to bad mouth Jarron Collins, but Collins is a great center for the price, and he plays excellent position defense on opposing centers.

As far as defense goes, the second unit is much tougher than the first unit. Knight is a very good defender with a large amount of steals per 48 minutes every year. Kirilenko is one of the best defenders in the leagues if he wants to be. And also is a very good defensive center. Millsap isn’t a bad defender, though he is a bit short against some of the large power forwards in the league. And Korver honestly isn’t a horrible defender, although he has been much maligned over his career.

The third unit would then be (not that they will get much time):

PG – Ronnie Price
SG – Matt Harpring
SF – Morris Almond
PF – (Andrei Kirilenko sliding over to play PF)
C – Kyrylo Fesenko or Kosta Koufos (depend on who Sloan thinks is the readiest at the moment)

Despite a very real possibility that there will be no available playing time for these players, you still have a really good team at this level.

Price is good, though at times a little out of control. Nobody can fault his timely shooting touch, though.

Harpring has lost a step, but he is still tough and a good team leader.

Almond can really shoot the ball — from everywhere on the court — and he is really working on his defense.

Two more big but inexperienced centers could get some time if Boozer or Okur get in early foul trouble. When you watch Fesenko, you hope that he can get some playing time because his height and energy could be a huge asset to the Jazz lineup. He was certainly worth the risk of picking him up in the second round and signing him to a contract, for potential alone. Hopefully the Jazz can develop Fesenko and Koufos because both of them could make for very good centers in the next couple of years.

The main reason that they said they chose to match the offer sheet was that they had invested 3 years in him and they figured that he was now at the point where he knew the system and could start making a valuable contribution.

Jazz fans and sportswriters are likely scratching their heads at this decision. They invested a lot in BYU product Rafael Araujo, but they let him go.

There has got to be a little more to this story than just “return on investment”.

Let’s take a look at things a little bit closer.

Here are the facts (involving C.J. Miles):

1. The Utah Jazz have plenty of money to play the annual amount of the Miles contract over the upcoming year. The big problem comes in year 2 when they are going to have to give extensions and raises to some almost all of their key guys.
2. The Utah Jazz have enough room on the roster for C.J. Miles (just barely).
3. C.J. Miles knows the Jazz system.
4. The Jazz, with the current lineup, might be good enough to win it all next year. They were very close this year.

Here are the Utah Jazz salaries (as near as we can guess) for 2009-2010:

Andrei Kirilenko – $16.5 million
Deron Williams – ~$15 million
Matt Harpring – $6.5 million
Kyle Korver – $5.2 million
C.J. Miles – ~$3 million
Ronnie Brewer – $2.7 million
Kosta Koufos – $1.2 million
Morris Almond – $1.1 million
Kryrylo Fesenko – $0.8 million

For approximately $52 million (I had to guess on the new contracts for Williams and Miles)

FYI, the salary cap for that year will probably be right around $60 million, leaving just $8 million to spend to stay under the cap.

If you haven’t noticed, you still aren’t paying Boozer, Okur, Jarron Collins, Brevin Knight, Ronnie Price, and Paul Millsap, all of whom are free agents or can opt-out after this year.

You will probably have to pay Carlos Boozer near the $15 million that you offered Deron Williams. Okur and Millsap might well command $10 million salaries based on what Andris Biedrins and Monta Ellis got from Golden State.

And that doesn’t count trying to keep Collins, Knight, and Price who luckily would come in at much more pedestrian $2 million per year each.

What are the Jazz planning?

I’m really not sure, but the numbers certainly don’t add up after this year.

Perhaps they are trying for one last hurrah before the team has to go its separate ways for salary cap reasons. They certainly could let Boozer, Okur, and Millsap depart after next season and be just fine. They aren’t under any sort of contract to keep them (as long as Boozer and Okur opt-out of their contracts, as they are expected to do). If they let them all go and move Kirilenko to the 4, they would have Williams at the 1, Brewer/Korver/Miles/Harpring/Almond (at the 2 and 3), Kirilenko at the 4, and Koufos/Fesenko at the 5. Certainly not a championship-caliber team, but with Williams at the helm, it is certainly one that could win a lot of games. By re-signing Jaron Collins for a couple of million per year, they have someone to sub at center and power forward (and a similar argument could be made to keep Price and/or Knight on to back up Williams at PG), without surpassing the Salary Cap.

Perhaps they are planning on trading some of their salaries after next year. Matt Harpring’s expiring $6.5 million would definitely be tradeable, but would probably involve receiving other long-term salaries in return unless they can work some deals involving draft picks (like the Nuggets did for Marcus Camby this year). A more likely scenario would be that Harpring’s salary is used to grab some good player that took the mid-level exception from a championship caliber team, but now the team wants to get involved in the Lebron/Wade/Bosh sweepstakes and has to cut salary fast.

Perhaps they think they can find a taker for Andrei Kirilenko’s whopping contract. Since they would likely have to take back contracts in return, however, that doesn’t seem like it would help the situation out unless the trade happened this year instead of next — and involved $16 million in expiring contracts. Kirilenko is a great defensive player and an energy guy that almost every team needs (but just not necessarily for the nearly $50 million and three years left on his contract).

Perhaps Larry H. Miller is willing to venture into Luxury Tax territory and re-sign most of these guys, if they are competing for championships year after year. Larry has certainly mentioned in the past that he would be willing to do that for a championship-caliber team.

Maybe the Jazz wanted C.J.’s contract to be possibly involved in a trade later on. Rather than giving him away for nothing, they can use his rather manageable contract packaged within another trade to make the numbers match, if they need to. Just because they signed him, doesn’t mean that they can never trade him. They just have to wait a period of time before his contract becomes tradeable, and that would happen sometime before the trade deadline.

In case you haven’t heard, the Utah Jazz have traded Jason Hart to the Clippers for veteran point guard Brevin Knight, much to the delight of many Jazz fans. (Well, the Jason Hart leaving, at any rate. Most Jazz fans don’t know much about Brevin Knight unless they play Fantasy Basketball.)

With three point guards, the third point guard doesn’t usually get much playing time unless they can play some at the 2 or unless one of the other two point guards get injured. In some ways, a third point guard is more of a luxury item than a need — an insurance policy against something bad rather than a real asset to a team.

Jason Hart’s numbers are likely to improve dramatically in a move back to the Clippers. Ronnie Price was picked by Sloan to back up the little time that Deron Williams left for the the other point guards, and Jason Hart wasn’t likely going to crack that lineup.

In Brevin Knight, the Utah Jazz get one of the best deals for Fantasy players that you can get.

Um, er…

Actually, they get a nice steady backup who never turns the ball over while still getting a very high level of assists, usually in the top 10 in the league even though sometimes he doesn’t get much time. He is good enough that he frequently replaces slumping starting point guards because he just doesn’t make mistakes — ever.

In fact, year after year as Brevin Knight became a free agent and the Jazz did NOT pick him up, I had to question the Jazz brass. He is the PERFECT backup point guard, and he usually comes at a very reasonable price.

The Jazz aren’t necessarily looking to get older, so I’m not sure where Brevin figures in the Jazz’s long-term plans, but I think this is the perfect trade. I just wish the Jazz had pulled it off a few years earlier.

Perhaps they want a guy who can run an offense very effectively just in case Deron Williams comes back from the Olympics and ends up not being able to play the full season (as many guys who play professionally in the off-season do more often than not).

In Brevin Knight, they get just that.