NBA Free Agency: Jazz are dead? Not really.

It would seem easy to assume that after the Jazz lost Carlos Boozer to the Chicago Bulls, the Jazz would probably start their spiral down out of the playoffs in the West. Boozer, with his impressive 19.5 points and 11.2 rebounds per game, seemed to be the key of Utah's success since Deron Williams' assists needed someone to score. Then he left, after a less than impressive playoff run with the Jazz in 2010. And then Kyle Korver left, who led the NBA in 3-point percentage and considered one of the league's best shooters.

However, could this be the key to actually lift up the Jazz from being a lowly playoff team? Could it actually lead them to beating the Lakers and even, dare I say it, to win a championship? The Utah Jazz suffer from what our Portland Trail Blazers suffer a lot from: Love. The Utah Jazz love their team to the point that they would be willing to take a bullet to save one of their players. And because of that, the management office was unwilling to make any huge changes in the line up to change the team since everyone literally loved anyone and no one wanted anyone to leave.

However, this move by Carlos Boozer and Kyle Korver to leave for the Bulls might be one of the greatest things to happen to the Jazz franchise in the 2000's. Not only does it force the team to get used to the fact that the players will leave, it also forces the management to look for players that could be better and stronger than the players that they replaced. The first move of such was to sign Al Jefferson from the Timberwolves. You are adding a guy who averages 17.1 points and 9.2 rebounds per game, a slight down grade from Boozer, but keep in mind that in the previous 2 seasons, he averaged a 22.1 points and 11 rebounds (combined last 2 seasons). He can post up, face up, defend (1.3 blocks in his career) and the guy is just a huge presence in anybody's game. He can play the 5 and 4, being too quick for most centers and too strong for the power forwards. He is 6-10 and 265 pounds, plus he can run the court, set good screens, run the pick-and-roll, hit that short jumper, and run isolation plays for your team. To me, I think that this guy will bring a newly motivated personality to the Jazz and be a really big steal in the Free Agency class, bring the Jazz up and running for the 2010-2011 season.

The we move onto Kyle Korver. This guy shot 53.6 percent from 3 point range in the 2009-2010 season along with 87.9 percent from the free throw line for his career. If you don't know much about basketball, let me tell you that that is really REALLY impressive. Personally, I would have wished that the Blazers would have gone for this guy instead of Wes Matthews. So how to you replace this guy if you're the Jazz? You don't. This is one of the only places where if you're the Jazz, you try to hang onto him desperately because besides Ray Allen, you really won't find a better shooter than Kyle Korver. It's a sad loss for the Jazz, and a long look in the free agency class to find someone who could even slightly replace his abilities.

If the Jazz don't add anyone else to their roster, my prediction is that they will finish the same as they did this year: 54-28. Al Jefferson will prove very quickly that he is much better than Boozer, and plus it will also leave more room for Paul Millsap to develop, who I believe is one of the league's more underrated power forwards. Don't expect Utah to die this year. Expect them to be reborn.