And here's a thought...

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with Brandon on his idea. Trade Boozer for who? If he's truly as terrible as he sounds, we're sure not going to get anything good in return...

Last night after the game, the frustrations with the Jazz's performance in the last two games led to a discussion between my JazzHype co-contributor and me. He (quite legitimately) very frustrated with Carlos Boozer, and venting those frustrations in a very direct manner. That got me to thinking, how much is Carlos to blame, and where is this slump coming from? The guy was an All-Star and average 21 and 10, so I personally haven't been sick of him all year. He's not the guy who is going to take over and carry the team on his back when they're in absolute need of it though... That's not Carlos, and I don't think anyone expects that to be Carlos, that duty belongs to Deron Williams. Which is why the person who I've been most disappointed with so far this post season is DWill.

Sure Carlos has struggled a great deal more, but I think you can see a more definitive reason why. He had a handful of the toughest defensive big men in the entire league plastered to him for the entire Houston series in Landry, Hayes and Mutombo. They out defensed his offense and how hard he took it was well documented. Now he's playing within himself in the Lakers series, and has drawn Lamar Odom defensively, a guy who plays far too well off the dribble for Carlos, as his early foul trouble has shown. Should he be bigger and better than this? Of course, but am I surprised? Not really...

Maybe it's just a case of me having low expectations for Carlos and astronomically high expectations for Deron this post season, but when I see what Chris Paul has been doing to Jason Kidd and Tony Parker, I wonder what happened to the Deron Williams we saw in last year's playoffs. This year, while Deron has certainly had his moments, I haven't seen him put together a sustained "I'm taking over this game, now" moment with the exception of a quarter of game 6 in Houston (when I thought he'd finally broken out) and when it was a little too late in last night's game. It does seem quite obvious now that the Paul Williams comparisons are a little unfair, but as I mentioned, Paul has dominated some of the best point guards in the league; Williams has faced Bobby Jackson/Rafer Alston, and has seemed tentative against his former backup Derek Fisher.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not putting all blame on Deron and giving Carlos a free pass here. Both players were scoreless in the first quarter yesterday, and that's simply unacceptable... I'm just saying I expected more out of Deron.

With this being said, I'm a fan, and as such I have blind hope and devotion that come game 3 Deron will come out with full intensity, and start to realize he can take it to Derek Fisher anytime, anywhere. I don't expect Booze to come out and take over the game, but I do hope he can stay out of early foul trouble this time and put up decent numbers.

The Jazz are up against the best team in the West, and it's showing. I'm not ready to push the panic button and blow up the team quite yet though. If come next season Carlos is as absent as this post season, then we might be looking at a different situation.