From Deseret News archives:
Cavaliers seem ready to move on
Open letter to Cavs fans indicates team won't match offer
On the first full day NBA free agents can formalize oral contract agreements in writing, though, it wasn't just signatures on offer sheets that were so encouraging.
Rather, it was what Cavaliers owner Gordon Gund wrote in an open letter addressed to Cavs fans that caught the attention of Jazz brass.
In it, Gund commiserated with supporters of a franchise about to lose Carlos Boozer — their blue-collar power forward — to a six-year, $68 million deal from Utah.
But it's how the letter's last paragraph began that really hit home: "We currently have no intention of matching Utah's offer to Carlos," Gund wrote.
"It's time to move on," Cavaliers coach Paul Silas told the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Wednesday.
The Cavs, it is quite clear, have no plans whatsoever to match. If they did, the NBA might look into voiding the deal anyway. Still, there were no cheers from Jazz camp. At least not yet. And that is because nothing is set in stone.
The Cavs will have up to 15 days from Wednesday to formally decide if they will match on restricted free agent Boozer, just like the Detroit Pistons will have up to 15 days to decide if they will match Utah's other big offer sheet of the day — a six-year, $50 million pact signed by big man Mehmet Okur.
The Pistons, too, have indicated they have no plans to match. Again, though, nothing's official until Detroit explicitly informs the league of its intention.
So Kevin O'Connor, the Jazz's senior vice president of basketball operations, was not about to crow before his time Wednesday.
"I have zero control over this (now)," he said. "It's like the weather. I don't know what's gonna happen with the weather; I don't know what's gonna happen with this. You just have to sit and wait."
Gund, meanwhile, sat and practically cried.
In his 995-word letter, the Cavs owner tried to explain what went wrong as Boozer — let out June 30 from his $695,000 contract for next season with the supposed idea he would orally agree to accept a six-year, $38.6 million deal from Cleveland — got away:
"Up until late last week when the trust was broken, I believed in Carlos Boozer, the player, and Carlos Boozer, the person. That is why I tried to do what he said he wanted," Gund wrote. "We tried to do right by him, by the team and by you in trusting in his repeated insistence that if we showed him respect, he would show respect to us."
Boozer accepted Utah's $68 million offer last Thursday.
