Offseason Primer: Utah Jazz
Current Roster Outlook (*Excluding two-way contracts*)
Cap Outlook: (*All cap projections courtesy of Spotrac*)
2024-2025 NBA Salary Cap Projection: $141M
Luxury Tax Line: $171M
Luxury Tax 1st Apron Maximum: $178M
Luxury Tax 2nd Apron Maximum: $189M
Utah’s Total Cap Allocations (Active Roster Salary Commitments + Cap Holds): $151M
Practical Cap Space: $38M
Maximum Possible Cap Space (All options declined, cap holds renounced and exceptions waived): $46M
Possible Financial Avenues:
Utah is set to have close to $40M worth of cap space to work with this summer, but they may not have quite that much spending power, as they need to dedicate about $24M of that $40 to re-negotiating Lauri Markkanen’s contract in order to extend him long term.
Bottom Line:
Assuming that locking up Markkanen is at the top of their offseason priorities, Utah is likely to be working with around $15M in cap space, as well as the Room Exception, in order to fill out their roster.
Organizational Direction:
By selling rather than buying at each of the last two trade deadlines, despite being nominally in contention, Utah’s front office has made it clear that they are chasing championships rather than early playoff exits. While the Jazz likely have enough talent on their current roster to be somewhat competitive, especially if they make a few small upgrades, it appears that they are comfortable biding their time and waiting for a true pathway to contention to develop.
Between Lauri Markkanen, Keyonte George, Walker Kessler and Taylor Hendricks, Utah’s young talent is solid. More importantly, the Jazz are owed a whopping 9 first-round picks over the course of the next five drafts, giving them the asset base needed to make just about any trade they please, or simply throw a ton of darts at additional young players.
Offseason Checklist:
1) Re-Negotiate and Extend Lauri Markkanen
Lauri Markkanen was once considered nothing more than a throw-in when Utah acquired him as part of the Donovan Mitchell trade, but he has blossomed into a legitimate franchise building block with the Jazz. Due to his unprecedented rise, Markkanen is significantly underpaid in the final year of his current contract ($18M for the ‘24-25 season). As a result, the Jazz are functionally unable to extend him, as they are limited to offering him a starting salary worth 140% of that $18M ($25.2M, nowhere close to enough money for Markkanen to agree).
Thankfully, Utah’s cap space allows them to re-negotiate with Markkanen this summer. Essentially they can rip up his current deal and bump his ‘24-25 salary up to the 30% max ($42.3M). The Jazz can then extend Markkanen off of that number, giving him four additional years with 8% annual raises. That would lock him in through his age-32 season, and because Utah is doing him a favor by giving him a significant raise this year, they can probably avoid giving him a player option, and maybe even shave a little bit of guaranteed money off the full max value of the deal. While Markkanen probably isn’t the best player on a championship team, I wouldn’t have any reservations about giving him this deal, because his shooting ability and defensive versatility makes him a very fungible fit next to whomever Utah develops/trades for in the coming seasons.
2) Continue to gamble on second-chance developmental pieces
Although reworking Markkanen’s deal will sap most of Utah’s spending power, they’ll still have the Room Exception to work with, as well as plenty of draft assets and space beneath the tax to work out trades. The Jazz have had a lot of success in recent years resuscitating the careers of players who have been written off elsewhere: Beyond Markkanen, they’ve also rebuilt the value of guys like Collin Sexton, Jarred Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley and Kris Dunn. One potential fit that immediately comes to mind is Precious Achiuwa, who might get squeezed out of New York due to their financial issues following the Mikal Bridges trade, but has shown intriguing flashes as a versatile front court defender.