Jazz Roster Remodel Continues With Bogey-Olynyk Swap

Bojan Bogdanovic has been a revlation for the 6-3 Jazz. (via espn.com)

Prior to Thursday, the Utah Jazz had traded 60% of their starters for eight future picks, two recently selected first-rounders, three pick swaps and a collection of young players headlined by scoring guard Collin Sexton and EuroBasket star Lauri Markkanen.

So fans were a little confused and underwhelmed when Bojan Bogdanovic, after averaging 18.4 points across three Jazz seasons, netted the rebuilding club Kelly Olynyk, Saben Lee and no draft compensation.

The disappointment is fair. Bogdanovic was likely the team’s best remaining veteran asset in terms of trade value, with a manageable, expiring contract and size and scoring that should appeal to virtually any contender. In an ideal world, the Jazz likely would have preferred to get another first or at least a young player they like. Instead, they got a 31-year-old in Olynyk who is unlikely to be part of the rebuild in any long-term sense, and a replacement-level guard in Lee.

So yeah: on the surface, this isn’t the return many fans had hoped for.

The Jazz certainly could have pulled in a first for Bogey. The problem is that only a real contender would be willing to surrender draft capital for a 1-year rental on the 33-year-old forward. And contenders are, almost by definition, capped out. They have to send out matching salary, and since contenders don’t generally like to give up useful players, the dudes coming back to the Jazz in those scenarios were mostly not players that meant anything significant to the Jazz in the short or long term.

One contender offered three uninspiring vet salaries in addition to a recently-selected kiddo. Another was OK sending the Jazz a heavily protected pick with three “meh” expiring veterans, but they also wanted the Jazz to include another young player. Multiple outlets reported Miami’s interest in sending a late pick for the Croatian forward, but good luck constructing a legal trade without including Duncan Robinson, whose $64 million guaranteed salary remaining might have been a turn-off for Utah.

And then there was L.A. It’s widely known that the Jazz and Lakers engaged on a construct where the Jazz would get some draft compensation in exchange for Bogey, at least two other vets, and absorbing Russel Westbrook’s $47 million salary. But the sides couldn’t close the gap on a deal. Utah, it would appear, felt that was a lot to give up for a single pick. Team Tinseltown conversely didn’t want to include its last tradeable draft asset and then be stuck without a means to improve. It makes total sense why L.A. didn’t want to be in that position, but on the other hand, SCH alum Ben Dowsett was right when he cheekily pointed out that the Lakers made a huge mistake by sacrificing their depth for the right to pay $47 million to a bad basketball fit, and now they expect a team to fix that for them AND replenish their rotation for a single pick.

The teams could also never align on which specific other salaries would accompany Bogdanovic in the deal. The Lakers, it’s been widely reported, can create something like $35 million in 2023 cap space if they don’t accept new salary commitments. So they were most interested in players like Bogey (expiring), Malik Beasley (team option) and Jordan Clarkson (he has a player option next year, but even if he opts in, he’s cheap and very movable). The Jazz likely felt like they could get stuff for those players elsewhere. Utah might have preferred to include players whose market value is closer to neutral, but in most cases those names represented salary commitments beyond this season.

If the Laker’s best offer was — speaking hypothetically here — a single unprotected pick for the Bogey-Beasley-Clarkson trio and a $47 million dollar favor, it makes sense why the Jazz balked. They’re betting that they can ultimately turn Beasley and Clarkson (and now Olynyk) into stuff that winds up being better than a single shot at a pick from a team that rarely bottoms out.

They’re also betting on the deals they might be able to make with flexibility they wouldn’t have had with Westbrook’s massive dollar figure sitting atop their cap sheet.

The main reasons the Jazz did this Olynyk deal instead — aside from the realities above about the pick offers all being encumbered with undesirable stuff — can be found on the roster and the salary spreadsheet.

First, the roster. The Jazz have a huge abyss on their depth chart where an all-league center used to soak up 36 nightly minutes. Walker Kessler and Udoka Azubuike will get some chances, and Jarred Vanderbilt (and even Markkanen) can play in some smallball configurations. But to truly balance the roster, the Jazz needed a real screening big man with some NBA know-how. Even if you’re not trying to win games, having an actual center option allows the team to create a more authentic development environment for the guards and wings. At bare minimum, Olynyk knows where to be and the offense can function in an organized way, which is better for everybody’s growth and understanding than if the Jazz played 48 minutes with a rookie (Kessler), a virtual rookie (Dok) or a non-center.

Second, the salary math. Before this deal the Jazz were less than $2 million from the tax line — and only $118K below if they chose to keep camp signee Cody Zeller as their screen-setting big and eat guaranteed salary elsewhere. That’s close enough that if Sexton or Vanderbilt hit one of their incentive marks, the Jazz could accidentally wind up a tax team. It makes absolutely no sense for the Jazz to cross the tax threshold at a point in time when they’re not competitive. It would complicate future decisions when the Jazz are (ostensibly) good again, and it would keep them from getting what could be a $10 to 15 million tax distribution. It’s just not strategically smart to do that as a non-contender. And conducting their business with just thousands to maneuver under the tax line was going to be really difficult. Other vet trades would have had to be essentially dollar-for-dollar to keep the Jazz out.

Now, they have some room to breathe. They probably feel less pressure to keep Zeller now, but even if they do, they now have about a $5M cushion below the tax. That might enable them to more easily make deals involving Clarkson, Beasley, Mike Conley and other veterans.

If they do wind up finding an asset-producing trade that increases salary slightly between now and the trade deadline, that’s at least in part because of the $5M salary difference in this trade. That quite literally becomes part of the return — IF it happens.

Incidentally, Lee landed in Detroit via the second-round pick Utah used to dump Tony Bradley’s contract back in 2020. He likely was in this deal purely for financial reasons; Detroit was about $1.2M shy of being able to complete the deal with their remaining cap space, and Lee makes $1.7M. It’s unlikely the Jazz view him as any kind of compensation/sweetener as he has mostly offered sub-replacement level value so far. He might get a chance to fight for a roster spot in the training camp, or he might not — the Jazz, after all, have to cut someone just to execute the announced signings of Zeller and two-way big man Micah Potter.

In all, it’s easy to understand why Jazz fans felt underwhelmed by the return. Olynyk is a macro downgrade, and I do think the Jazz could have easily asked for *some* asset in return for making that downgrade. If nothing else, the Pistons have nine second-rounders in the next seven drafts. It’s not crazy to think the Jazz could have gotten something additional.

But it may be helpful to view the trade through the lens of roster balance, loosening things up for future deals, and the hard reality that the pick offers all had unattractive elements.

Whatever they do (or don’t do) next may help bring into focus the reasons they did this deal, and effectively add to the “return” for the outgoing Bogdanovic.