Roster and Rotation Notes After a 4-2 Preseason

What did we learn from from six preseason games about the rotation roles awaiting Williams (5) and Filipowski (22)? (Darren Abate via sltrib.com)

Most NBA rosters are finalized now ahead of Tuesday’s season tip-off. The Utah Jazz made their final cuts, but it was already relatively obvious throughout their 4-2 preseason who would make the 15-man roster and three 2-way spots. It seems pretty clear who their front 10 will be when their games start on Wednesday.

Here are some notes on Utah’s rotation and roster.

Rotation hints

It looks like Keyonte George and Collin Sexton will continue to start together, alongside hybrid forwards Taylor Hendricks and Lauri Markkanen and with Walker Kessler manning the middle.

After that, there’s also been a pretty clear delineation who the next five are: Cody Williams’ and Brice Sensabaugh’s playing time seems to be a high priority, as they played significantly more preseason minutes than any other non-starters. Veterans Jordan Clarkson and John Collins both saw 16-18 minutes per game. Isaiah Collier was the backup point guard until he got hurt, after which Patty Mills stepped in.

That second unit is still really guard-heavy, which is a little problematic since that group’s center is Collins, not exactly a paint denier you might want anchoring a defense with a bunch of smalls. It probably doesn’t matter that much in a season where Utah’s not going to be super focused on the win-loss column, but you do want lineups to make sense so that the reps guys get in those contexts are developmentally meaningful. Who’s the 4 in that lineup? Williams? Sensabaugh? Maybe at some point Hendricks needs to be pulled away from Markkanen just so that rotation as a whole fits together. Or maybe Will Hardy is fine with it.

There’s also a question of whether 16-18 minutes is enough for the JC duo to feel involved — or, frankly, enough for them to reestablish some value. They might get more than that when the games count, but a lot of fans will be comforted to see they’re not getting automatically pencilled in for last year’s 28-30 minutes.

If that’s the 10-man rotation, then for now that leaves Johnny Juzang, Kyle Filipowski, Drew Eubanks, Svi Mykhailiuk and Mills outside. All those guys will get opportunities over the course of the season as guys get hurt and/or rest. Juzang in particular looks ready to help with his knockdown shooting (52.6% from deep in the preseason). He, Filipowski and Eubanks (in that order) got the most preseason minutes outside of the rotation guys.

Win math

If you’re worried about Utah again winning too many games, here’s a stat you’ll like. This year’s 18 Jazz players combined for 19.7 estimated wins last year, according to the EPM-based win metrics at dunksandthrees.com. What’s more, 15.7 of those wins came from Markkanen and Sexton, meaning the whole rest of the roster only contributed four total wins to their respective 2023-24 environs.

Remove the slightly positive Collins and Kessler, and the remaining 14 guys had a combined wins added of *negative* 0.8.

Of course, the rookies didn’t have any win math from last season, and second-year perimeter guys George (-0.8) and Sensabaugh (-1.0) might not remain in the negative as they get deeper into their NBA careers. But the point here is that the Jazz are still pretty light on players who impact winning — and that might be a good thing for whichever fans are primarily focused on draft odds. Even if Markkanen and Sexton remain roughly as good, this is not a team in serious danger of accidentally winning too many games.

Remaining tools

That said, the roster is probably not a final product. Logic says the Jazz will have their phone lines very much open this season, especially for moves that yield assets or an opportunity to take an up-close look at an interesting young guy.

The Jazz are going to have the option to get in just about any trade conversations. They have somewhere between 11 and 14 first-round picks in the next seven drafts. They have six guys still on rookie contracts, plus Filipowski and Juzang on similarly priced deals with lots of flexibility. They have a literal All-Star, and their second best player is a 25-year-old with a career average of nearly 19 points per contest. They’ve got plenty of stackable contracts to help them swing a deal. They also still hold the draft rights to recent second-rounders Gabriele Procida and Balsa Koprivica.

They had to rescind their small trade exceptions from last February’s deals in order to create cap room for Markkanen’s renegotiation. But the trade rules for teams over the cap and under the tax are pretty permissive. If Utah sends out up to $7,501,818 in salary, they can take twice as much back, plus $250K. Between roughly $7.5M and $30M, they can take back up to an additional $7,751,818. And after the $30M mark, they can take back 125% of the outgoing salary plus $250K.

The $7.983M room midlevel exception also gives them some options. It can now be used to acquire salaries that fit entirely into said amount. Alternatively, they can use it on a free agent later, including if there’s someone they want to sign in the minimum-salary range, but for more than the 2-year term allowed by the minimum exception.

Trade mechanics

Markkanen can’t be traded at all this season because of the timing of his extension signing. Eubanks, Mykhailiuk, Juzang and Mills can be traded starting December 15.

Those are the only current limitations on trades.

Options & extensions

Utah will need to officially decide by Halloween whether they’re picking up the fourth-year option on Kessler, and the third-year options on Hendricks, George and Sensabaugh. It’s highly likely they’ll pick up all four options for the 2025-26 season.

They also have to be prepared to negotiate with Kessler on a rookie scale extension starting next July, which makes this a pretty high-stakes year for the young center. Hendricks, George and Sensabaugh won’t be extension eligible until July 2026, and Williams and Collier a year after that.

Technically, Collins and Sexton are extension-eligible now, but only through Monday (unless Collins declines his 2025-26 player option in conjunction with an extension). Extending Sexton at some point is probably more likely, but there’s no rush; the Jazz are rightfully prioritizing optionality right now, so there’s no real benefit to extending either guy before the season starts.

Clarkson can next be extended next July 7, but he will already be 35 when his current contract ends. Myhkailiuk, Juzang and Filipowski can be extended in August 2026. Markkanen can next be extended on August 7, 2027. Eubanks and Mills cannot have their current contracts extended, nor can the 2-way guys. 

Roster composition

For a while after their big rebuilding moves of 2022, Utah’s roster was mostly a product of those trades. That’s not as true anymore; only four of their current players initially arrived in Utah via trade, while seven current Jazzmen made their way to the Jazz as a result of the draft.

The Jazz at this point, not surprisingly, are a team mostly built through the draft.

That’s just how they initially made it to Utah, though. Markkanen, Clarkson and Juzang are all on new contracts since their original acquisition, so here’s a look at what Utah used to sign each guy’s current deal.

Utah’s current contracts were mostly the product of draft rights or Bird rights.

Draft history

The Jazz have on their main roster four guys who were top-10 picks (Markkanen #7, Sexton #8, Hendricks #9 and Williams #10) and five who were selected with non-lottery firsts (George #16, Collins #19, Kessler #22, Sensabaugh #28 and Collier #29). Four more were second-rounders, and only Drew Eubanks and Johnny Juzang went undrafted.

Four is a pretty average amount of top-10 picks. Orlando enters the season with the most former top-10 picks (7), while Miami’s only such player is 16-year veteran Kevin Love.

From whence they came

Utah’s roster doesn’t have quite as much international representation as some recent Jazz teams, and most of what they do have in terms of overseas talent seems to be parked in the third unit for now. They’re led, of course, by Finland’s Lauri Markkanen. But after him, the other international men of mystery on the final Jazz roster are Svi Mykhailiuk (Ukraine), Patty Milles (Australia) and 2-way signee Oscar Tschiebwe (Democratic Republic of the Congo).

Of their American players, they have three Georgia-born guys (Collier, Sexton, Kessler), three Floridians by birth (Clarkson, Sensabaugh, Hendricks), and two from California (Juzang, Williams). The rest were born in New York, Mississippi, Ohio, Texas, and of course the Utah-born Collins.

Where are they now?

With 29 other rosters also finalized, we can now officially report that 20 former Jazz players will hold jobs as of opening night. Here’s what those 20 would look like on a depth chart:

• Rudy Gobert | Kelly Olynyk
• Bojan Bogdanovic | Georges Niang | Trey Lyles | Jarred Vanderbilt | Jeff Green
• Royce O’Neale | Simone Fontecchio | Joe Ingles | Ochai Agbaji
• Donovan Mitchell | Grayson Allen | Nickeil Alexander-Walker | Malik Beasley | Alec Burks
• Mike Conley | Kris Dunn | Dante Exum | Talen Horton-Tucker

That doesn’t count Jazz legend Russell Westbrook, who completed two glorious stints with the franchise at the grand total of zero minutes played. He’ll continue his Hall of Fame career in Denver.

Tony Bradley, Kenny Lofton Jr., Elijah Hughes, Kira Lewis Jr., Miye Oni and Jared Butler were cut in training camp. Wesley Matthews, Trent Forrest, Damian Jones, Jae Crowder, Danuel House Jr., David Stockton, Udoka Azubuike and Juan Toscano-Anderson were on rosters last year but did will start the year out of the league (along with Luka Samanic, Darius Bazley and Omer Yurtseven, who finished last season with Utah). Ricky Rubio and Gordon Hayward both retired.

Stars-bound

Seven guys cycled through Utah on camp contracts, only to be waived. But don’t feel too bad for them: it’s very likely they knew all along how their participation in fall training camp was going to go.

G League teams are allowed to claim the rights to players who were cut in the parent club’s training camp. NBA teams and player agents know this, so they’ll often agree to deals whereby the player gets a small “exhibit 10” bonus (that doesn’t count against the salary cap) in exchange for his willingness to be signed, waived, and ultimately routed to the parent club’s G League affiliate. This explains why the tenures of Isaiah Wong, Max Abmas, Babacar Sane and Dane Goodwin were so short. Utah was simply claiming their rights for the Stars.

The Stars already have “returning player” rights to Taevion Kinsey, Keshawn Justice and Justin Lewis. But signing them to new camp contracts got them an additional “exhibit 10” bonus to supplement to their $40,500 G League salary. Since the money is cap neutral, it’s a small price to pay for some continuity on the Stars roster.

Now let’s get down to the real business of NBA basketball.