Rainn Wilson + Dwight Howard = Awesome

NBA season just weeks away? Color me excited.

In other news, the Jazz played the Derrick Rose-less Chicago Bulls in London yesterday. I caught most of the game. Here's how it went.

1. The Jazz hang tough early.

2. The Bulls take a lead into halftime.

3. The lead is around 10-15 points in the third quarter.

4. The Jazz mount a furious rally to actually take the lead near the end and

5. Ultimately fall short.

I've seen that show before. Boozer and Okur still do stuff that make me shake my head in sadness. If this team doesn't make a major change or two soon, I may be done with this team. Deron Williams and Paul Millsap are my only reasons for watching the Jazz for now.

Here is an interesting trade idea from one of my favorite NBA posters on cougarboard.com:

Utah trades Carlos Boozer, $2 M

Sacramento trades Kevin Martin

Why Sacramento makes the trade

For some reason, they're ready to turn the offense over to Tyreke Evans, so Martin's importance to them went way down when Evans was drafted. A 20/10 forward is a far better pairing with Evans than a 20 ppg SG. They've mentioned actually playing Jason Thompson at C, and he makes an almost perfect compliment to Boozer at PF. He's a good fit there, so they likely try to re-sign Boozer. If he walks, they're okay with that because it'd put them way under the cap in a huge free agency year. They won't make the playoffs again, so they will also be adding another lottery pick to the team. The $2M is to make up for the difference between the salaries, which still fall within acceptable trade allowances.

Why Utah makes the trade

Martin is a piece the Jazz have missed, well, forever. He's increased his ppg every year he's been in the league. His 3pt% has gone up each year he's been in the league. Two years in a row he's hit 40% of his 3's, he hits 85% of his FT's, and maybe most important he gets to the line a lot. He doesn't cure all the ills of the team, but he fills two hugely important holes: more outside shooting and a guy that can create opportunities to get to the line outside of the offense. Put Martin in the Jazz scheme with Williams at PG, and I think, even if his production doesn't go up, his offensive efficiency will. Having Okur, Martin, and Williams on the court at the same time also adds significant value to Brewer, Millsap, and AK, allowing what they do well to become more available. The $2 M spent would have gone to Boozer anyway, but they end up saving $2 M in luxury tax because of Martin's lower cap figure.

Get rid of Booz, add a high scoring SG, the fanbase gets energized, the advertisers get motivated, and hopefully the team creates more post season revenue. The team lets Korver and Price's contract expire. Then say the Knicks pick is top #7, and the Jazz potentially land someone like Greg Monroe out of Georgetown or Ed Davis out of Carolina. The future would look like this:

C - Okur, Koufos, Tomic
PF - Millsap, Monroe
SF - Brewer, AK
SG - Martin, Miles
PG - Williams, Maynor

Not bad. As he mentioned, the trade doesn't do much to address our interior defensive woes, but it'd get me watching. Kevin Martin would fill a need the Jazz have had since Jeff Hornacek retired.

But I get the feeling the Jazz will end up doing nothing and then lose Boozer at the end of the season without getting anything in return for him.

Prove me wrong, guys.