Dear Jazz Fans,

Living in Utah and being a regular local sports talk radio listener, I have to make the following comment to all of you collectively: The old days are over. Get over it. Boozer, Memo, Kirelenko, DWill, and Co. are modern players. They know that the NBA and their career are a business. The decisions they have to make are ones that will best benefit their business…themselves.

Recently all of the talk has been about Boozer and his contract. Boozer is not a bad guy, he is a businessman. He is going to make the decision that is best for his business. The local fan base is stuck on the old days of Stockton and Malone. Those days are over. Players no longer play their entire careers for one team. They don’t sign smaller contracts so that the team can sign new rookies and make new free agent acquisitions.

When Boozer opts out of his contract, don’t be too upset. It’s actually a good thing. He’s making max money this year and the Jazz can’t afford to keep paying him and still be able to re-sign some of the other free agents. Let Boozer go chase his money, it’s best that way. As a matter of fact, let’s gamble a little this year. Shop Kiralenko, re-sign Memo and Korver. Let Millsap walk too, unless you can match a contract for under $4 million a year, if not, let him go and head to the free agent market. You can also push the draft and trade up to pick up a nice big man. Defensive big men in the NBA are expensive, it’s best to go get one in the draft.

Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod) just can’t catch a break. First it was the steroid use report that was plastered all over sports news for weeks and weeks. Just when you thought that he bit the bullet, accepted his responsibility in what he had done, another bomb. Pitch tipping. I mean, seriously A-Rod…you’re the best in the game, or at least one of the best in the game, what’s going on?

A Sports Illustrated article (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/mlb/04/30/roberts.qa/index.html?eref=T1) has come out with the evidence of A-Rod’s pitch tipping debaucle during his time as a player for the Texas Rangers. What a shame, really. I hope that this is the last of it, or if there’s more, that Alex will just come out and lay it all out for us. No more secrets, please. Each time something like this happens, it makes it more difficult to trust you as a player and most fans will have a harder time accepting you again. Just lay it all out…gambling, cheating, drugs, steroids, whatever. Out with it already.

Forbes recently came out with an article stating the best and worst drafting teams in the NFL. According to the article, the best drafting team is…..<DRUM-ROLL>…..the Houston Texans (2-14 in 2008). The worst team, the article goes on to state, the New England Patriots (11-5 in 2008, even after losing Tom Brady in the first game of the season). Just goes to show what happens when you let financial magazines write about sports.

I have wondered if the guy who wrote the article even knows what football is or how the game is played. The article is basing “draft success” on the percentage of players still on the team after three years. Are you kidding me? Obviously no one at Forbes knows about free agency and how player typically don’t spend their entire careers with one team. I think that when the guys at Forbes ran the numbers and saw the results they should have thought, “wow, we’ve just wasted our time running these numbers. An article stating how the Texans are a great draft team and the Patriots are a bad draft team is ludicris. The first editor the article was sent to should have though, “Wow, if we print this we are going to go out of business. Football fans will be at our doors with pitch forks and torches,” and then should have immediately tossed the article in the garbage.

Obviously they decided to go through with the article. Maybe they’re going for publicity and not factual, accurate, interesting content? Is it the “any publicity, is good publicity” mentality? I certainly hope so, that way I could be at ease knowing that we don’t have people who actually believe this refuse.

For the Forbes people, I’ll keep it short. You don’t determine draft success with numbers of playes kept over the year. Success is determine by how your players drafter turn out in your organization. The Patriots have been geniuses in being able to draft high-quality, pro-bowl, and all-pro players for bargain-basement prices (see http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/draft08/columns/story?columnist=clayton_john&id=3252721). Players drafter in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and later rounds don’t get max contracts for decades to come. They get short contracts in which time the team can accurately evaluate the player’s skills and talent.

It’s like a gold mining. Two individuals mine for gold. One gets 7 pieces at 14 karats, the other 5 pieces at 24 karats. Who would you say was the most successful? Remember, it’s all about value, not just volume.

Here are the report cards for the Patriots in the last 5 years.

Report Cards:

• 2009: A- (http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/30413106/?pg=13#spt_nfl_draft_reportcard2009)
• 2008: B (http://www.nfl-draft-site.com/2008/05/2008-nfl-draft-gradesthe-afc.html)
• 2007: B- (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/231912/2007_nfl_draft_report_cards.html?cat=14)
• 2006: A- (http://www.sportznutz.com/nfl/draft/2006/draft_recaps/new_england_patriots.htm)
• 2005: A (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/31869-grading-the-2005-nfl-draft-afc-east)

Doesn’t seem like a draft loser does it? I bet the 2-14 Texans would just salivate at the chance to get guys like: Jerod Mayo, Laurence Maroney, Chad Jackson, Logan Mankins, Nick Kaczur, Ellis Hobbs, Matt Cassel, and Vince Wilfork.