Jazz/Blazers tonight.

Didn't we just do this?

Lightning never strikes the same place twice, except for in Portland, where Blazer management forced lightning’s hand and made it strike twice, right smack dab in the middle of their franchise. It is the Michael Jordan/Kevin Durant “what coulda been” regret fest that any die-hard Blazer fan that is truthful with themselves will admit to. It is considered in Portland a damn shame of the worst kind. It is considered by the rest of the league as a total “what the blankety-blank were you thinking?!!” scenario, and to this day, I don’t think any of us, Blazers fans or anybody else, knows what Portland’s front office was thinking when they selected Greg Oden over Kevin Durant in the 2007 NBA draft-especially since they have been there before. I guess they just didn’t learn their lesson.

Take it back to 1984. Jazz fans remember this year fondly; it was the year Utah picked John Stockton 16^th overall in the NBA draft. It is also the year the Blazers made the worst decision in NBA history. Portland owned the number two pick in the draft, and management was set on drafting a center. The Houston Rockets had the number one pick that year, and decided to draft Hakeem Olajuwon, so Portland felt their next best option was Sam Bowie. Not Michael Jordan, Sam Bowie. Say it with me now: Sam Bowie. The Blazers opted to take Bowie to fill a need, and passed on Jordan who obviously had a lot more talent. Bowie was drafted out of Kentucky where he had missed the better part of two full seasons with a shinbone injury, and only averaged 10 ppg and 9 rpg his senior year. The pick had “bust” written all over it, but Bowie was hyped as being one of centers of the future, and Portland took the bait. Well, Bowie went on to have an injury-plagued career that never amounted to much more than an average supporting role player at best. Michael Jordan went on to be the best player to ever play the game. Sports Illustrated later went on to say that Portland’s decision to pass up Jordan’s obvious talent in favor of an injury-prone, unproven, rail-thin center was the worst draft decision in NBA history.

So Portland learned their lesson, went on to draft Kevin Durant, the best player in college basketball at only 18, when they were faced with a similar situation 23 years later, and now Portland is the odds on favorite to win NBA championships for the next ten years…except their not. In 2007, Portland held the number one pick in the draft. Kevin Durant averaged just under 26 ppg and 11 rpg his Freshman year at Texas. Mind you, he was only 17 when the season began, but his huge wingspan, speed, high basketball IQ, and athleticism quickly propelled him into the role of best college player in the country (he had twenty 30 point games that year). He won every national player of the year award, and most every national expert said he was the most talented player in the draft.

Greg Oden, on the other hand, was hyped up as more than he will ever become from a very young age. When he was a senior in high school, he was one of the most (if not, the most) recruited players in the country, despite a wrist injury that would keep him on the bench for the first part of his freshman year at Ohio State. He was a defensive monster, and showed flashes of brilliance on the offensive end as well, but he never dominated the way Durant did. In addition, he quickly was gaining a reputation of being injury-prone.

Portland once again needed a center; so once again, they chose what they viewed as potential over proven talent. Oden went to Portland, and Durant went to Seattle. Now, two-and-a-half short years later, Oden has sustained a barrage of serious injuries that have severely limited the amount of playing time he has had. Durant, on the other hand, is an MVP candidate, and is making a push for his first all-star game. He is only 21 years old, and is putting up Lebron James-type numbers.

I’m not saying that Durant is the next Michael Jordan, or that he will even match half of MJ’s many accomplishments. What I am saying is that the moment Portland picked Oden, I knew they had made a huge mistake. Can you imagine how unstoppable that team would be if KD was playing at the 3 with Aldridge at the four and BRoy on the wing? Unreal.

You wouldn’t think Portland would make the same mistake twice after the disaster that was Sam Bowie (If Oden can ever stay healthy, he should have a better career than Bowie, but that’s a big IF), but as a Jazz fan, I’m sure glad they did. It’s amazing how those two little decisions could have impacted their franchise in such a great way. Maybe they’ll get it right next time. Maybe-unless there is an unproven, over-hyped, seven-footer coming out that year, because if that’s the case, we all know what they will do.

Mehmet Okur tends to get a pass from most Jazz fans on the defensive end. For one, he is a likeable guy. He never says anything critical of his teammates, and he seems to know his role on the team. More importantly though, I think Jazz fans like him because he never says anything that could be misconstrued as critical about Utah, and he has repeatedly said he wants to end his career here, even if that means less money in his wallet. I think there is still a predominant feeling among Jazz fans that Utah is somehow perceived as the ugly step child of the NBA…the white elephant in the middle of the room that just keeps getting whiter. A place where an outsider can’t relate, and where alcohol is scarce and the nightlife is scarcer. In other words, Utahn’s are insecure about their state, so when a guy says that he loves it here and wants to retire here, they eat it up.

Of course, a lot of the perceived notions some Utahn’s have about their state are completely false, but that doesn’t stop insecurities from running wild. Our fans, way more it seems than most other fans, take it personally when a player alludes to the fact that they might not want to be here-even if it has nothing to do with the state or its nightlife and has everything to do with getting a raise. Utah is a great place to live. It has been one of the fastest growing states in the nation for over a decade, and Salt Lake City in particular has a decent nightlife scene, is one of the safest cities in the nation, and has become vastly more culturally diverse over the last twenty years. SLC is not a small, rural farming town in the middle of nowhere, and most NBA players that play here end up really liking it.

So why do our fans have such an insecurity complex when a guy like Carlos Boozer says that he wants a raise? When CBooz made that comment, blogs all over the state went rampant with posts and comments that Boozer wanted out of Utah. Some of our fans took it personal, as they almost always tend to do. Consider the case of Karl Malone; Karl loved Utah, and still seems to get somewhat emotional when he talks about the time he spent here. But when he had contract disputes with Larry Miller, Jazz fans turned on him in a very personal way. Many thought that he should be traded. “We don’t need him anyway” was a common response, when in all actuality, we did need him. It wasn’t that Karl hated Utah; it had everything to do with Karl feeling like Jazz management appreciated him. When the Mailman left to LA, it seemed a lot of our fans acted like their wife had just left them. Again, it wasn’t that Karl hated Utah-he gave 18 years of his life to us. It had more to do with the fact that he knew he was at the end of his career, and he wanted one last shot at a ring, something he knew he could not have in Utah as the Jazz were entering a rebuilding stage. When he came back to SLC, he was booed and treated like a traitor. In contrast, when Patrick Ewing went back to Madison Square Garden as a member of the Sonics after 15 seasons as a Knick, they gave him a standing ovation. The Derek Fisher situation is another example. Our fans assume someone doesn’t want to be here, when, in fact, other factors besides SLC’s nightlife come into play in making the best overall decision.

Utah has some of the best fans in the world, but we also tend to be a bit irrational at times. In the case of Memo, he is worse statistically than Carlos Boozer on the defensive end, and not nearly as good as Boozer on the offensive end, but you rarely hear Jazz fans calling for him to be traded. What if the Jazz did trade Memo for a big defensive stopper in the post…wouldn’t that solve a lot of their defensive problems in the paint? What if they resigned Boozer, and took some of the defensive pressure off of him with a big shot blocker right behind him roaming the paint? Would the Jazz win more games?

As a fan, I want the Jazz to win, and I think it is important to realize that the defensive problems in the paint are not solely Carlos Boozer’s fault. If the Jazz are going to make changes, I would rather them make changes that make us a better all-around team. In my opinion, they need to explore all options, even that of keeping Carlos beyond this season. Boozer loves it in Salt Lake, and does not want to go anywhere else. The problem is our interior defense is weak, and Carlos shoulders the blame from our fans, partly because he isn’t as likeable as Memo. Do you solve or D problem by trading arguably your best offensive player so that you can fortify the paint, or do you look at trading other pieces so that you can do the same thing? In my opinion, you keep your best pieces, and you tweak the rest where needed.

My point is, you don’t have to like Carlos Boozer, but you don’t have to hate him either. All personal feelings aside, he is a very important part of this team, and when he is gone, the Jazz will feel it on the offensive end. Why not try and resign him and address our defensive issues another way? Boozer has kind of become the defensive scapegoat, but Memo is just as much, if not more to blame, and I think it is crucial to understand that if you are going to make the best all-around decisions for this team.