Winning in the regular season isn't good enough, especially considering we weren't even winning much more in the past four years anyway. Barely creeping into the playoffs is the equivalent of NBA purgatory. After all, isn't it rather pathetic to root for a team who wins enough to get an 7-8 seed every year, then gets clobbered in the postseason? Can that really be called "winning"?

Secondly, you are confused about the 9 year number I gave. This number does not guarantee that players won't want to leave via a trade, that could certainly happen (and can happen with any player). But it does mean, if the Jazz were to draft a superstar, unless the Jazz were to do something to really tick off said superstar, it would be in the best interests of both parties to extend contracts for 9 years (and technically, the Jazz could theoretically FORCE a player to stay for nine years, if the player wasn't willing to take the qualifying offer).

So 9 years wasn't something I just pulled out of my butt, under the new CBA in particular, superstars are extremely likely to stick around for at least their initial rookie contract plus max extension. If a team can't convince a player to take a max extension (putting aside the fact that, as a RFA, he's unable to set his own contract; if he didn't want the max extension, he'd be bound to the whims of the market to decide how much and long he gets paid on a new contract), that's an incredible failure of management. If a player is turning down tens of millions of dollars just to leave a franchise, something has gone horribly wrong.

Also, I'd like to point out that Manu is not a superstar, Parker would not have stuck around, or won anything, if not for Duncan (which kind of reinforces my point), and Nash never won anything of consequence in the postseason. I do have to admit that Dirk is the one exception, a superstar who was drafted in the middle of the first and won a ring, but that was a large market team (who needed to go way over the cap to acquire said ring). Financially, the Jazz could not have built that team. And regardless, a mid-round superstar is even more exceptionally rare than a early first round counterpart. To consign ourselves to NBA purgatory, winning games but never those that matter, all the while continually praying that somehow the stars align and the the Jazz draft a superstar in the mid first, would be the true epitome of naivety.

Finally, I can explain very succinctly why the Jazz are in the best position of the last four years: they have a real, though slight, chance of acquiring a transcendental player. Which is much better than the mediocre teams of the last four years. If you have a different measure of success (attendance, regular season wins and awards, etc) that's fine, if misguided. But I fail to see a more realistic way to build a championship team than through the draft. If you'd like to provide an alternative, I'm waiting with bated breath.