Jazz Take Aim at Contention by Acquiring Mike Conley

Conley average 26 points against the Jazz last season; now, he’ll be working for them. (Rick Bowmer via grizzlies.com)

The Jazz didn’t wait until July’s free agency period to make their attempt at vaulting up the ladder in a suddenly wide-open Western Conference. After months of flirting with the idea, the Utah Jazz have added star guard Mike Conley to their roster, in a major offseason trade that they hope will elevate them to contender status.

In the deal, Utah will send this year’s No. 23 draft pick, along with a future conditional first-rounder, 2018 draftee Grayson Allen, and forward Jae Crowder and Kyle Korver. Because Utah needs to use its 2019-20 cap space to complete the deal, it cannot be officially announced until July 6, when the annual moratorium on transactions is lifted.

The Athletic’s Tony Jones first reported on Utah’s interest in the then-Grizzly back before the February trade deadline. The hangup at that point was Utah’s reluctance to meet Memphis’ trade demands by including a second future-focused asset, such as reserve guard Dante Exum or a second first-rounder. However, as the 2019 NBA Draft approached, Memphis and Utah were ultimately able to find middle ground: Utah added a protected pick to their offer, but was able to structure the deal without Exum and without needing to waive starting forward Derrick Favors.

Here’s a comprehensive look at what the Jazz got in Mike Conley, what the costs entail, and what is still available to them as they shape their 2019-20 roster.

What the Jazz got

Conley is a superb basketball player, a smart floor general, and a stellar character guy.

The 6-foot-1 point guard is a career 15-ppg scorer, and is coming off a career-high 21.1 last season. He’s a savvy playmaker who can read coverages in pick-and-roll situations and also be successful off the ball. He’s a solid 3-point shooter, and he’s never played next to anybody with Donovan Mitchell’s ability to score with the ball.

Last season, his Wins Above Replacement figure¹ was higher than 93% of the league, including five of the 24 players selected for the 2019 All-Star game. In other words, he is a top-30 player in terms of on-court impact, and he joins All-NBA center Rudy Gobert and a rising Mitchell at the new core of the Utah Jazz.

Conley will ostensibly replace Ricky Rubio as the player primarily responsible for marshaling Utah’s offense, which finished at a ho-hum 14th ranking last season. Often, Utah faced defenses that had 10 human feet touching the painted area, the byproduct of having too few shooting threats that opponents had to respect. The Jazz found ways to counter teams who ignored Rubio coming off of screens, but it required a lot of trickery and layered actions. The idea here is that with Conley’s pull-up ability in the pick-and-roll and his ability to punish teams as a shooter opposite Mitchell’s drives, Utah can force defenses into tough choices more often and improve their offensive rating without a major defensive cost.

Conley is also equipped on that end. His Grizzlies personified the idea of hard-nosed basketball, with their “Grit’n’Grind” mantra and several years as one of the NBA’s elite defenses. Despite his stature, Conley contributed to that defense. He also knows what it’s like to play in a defense anchored by a paint-protecting big man; both Gobert and Conley’s past teammate Marc Gasol have held the honor of being the league’s best defender².

This is a major talent upgrade for Utah, which now boasts three players who are arguably top-50 producers, including a burgeoning Mitchell who figures to get better.

As perennial Western Conference contenders like Golden State and Houston face long-term injury woes and questions about chemistry among their stars, the top of the conference is suddenly there for the taking. The acquisition of Conley puts the Jazz right in the middle of that discussion. 

Conley will turn 32 before the season begins, and it’s fair to wonder how long he’ll be able to sustain his current level. The Jazz making a win-now move should be an exciting development for their fans, though. After years of rebuilding, retooling and waiting in the wings, Utah at last pushed their chips in and went for it, assembling a core of players who should be able to challenge anybody in the West immediately.

The future Jazz fans have been talking about it here. Now we’ll all find out together how high a Mitchell-Gobert-Conley core can take the Jazz.

What they gave up

The direct cost for Conley included two picks, two rotation players and a recent draftee. You don’t get value without giving up value, but it’s impressive that the Jazz were able to complete this deal without giving up Exum or Favors.

Crowder will be missed. Despite shaky shooting throughout the season, Crowder was part of some very successful lineups, including literally the best 5-man unit in the league with a minimum of 400 minutes. He is a high-energy, high-character and high-variance player who gave the Jazz a lot of positional “optionality”³.

Still, Crowder never quite got back to unlocking his Boston-era levels of performance. In his last two Beantown seasons, he averaged 14 points on 37% shooting from deep, and Jazz fans kept waiting for him to return to those levels, but instead found a player who plateaued just shy of 12 points and 32%. What’s more, those numbers dialed back further in the postseason. He made just nine of 30 shots against Houston this spring.

Those are the reasons why Utah was ultimately okay putting Crowder in the deal, but his absence gives them a big hole at that stretch four position. We’ll talk about that more shortly.

Korver is still mulling retirement, but even if the 38-year-old does come back to play in 2019-20, there was never any guarantee it would be for the Jazz. He started looking more worn-down as the season progressed, making just 30% of his 3-point shots over the final month of the regular season⁴. That said, his gravity had an undeniable effect on the offense as a whole, and Utah was 19-2 in games where Korver sank at least three triples.

The real cost of this trade over time will be the future-focused assets: Allen and the two picks. Allen hasn’t yet cracked the regular rotation, but showed flashes of how his shooting and athleticism could help over time, including with a 40-point outburst in the season finale. And the No. 23 pick in Thursday’s draft was long thought to be on the table as Utah pursued a talent upgrade. The Jazz were not impressed with the available talent at that selection, and preferred to use the market value of the pick instead to land a difference-maker.

If there’s any aspect of this trade that could haunt the Jazz down the line, it’s the protection structure on that second first-rounder, as reported by Memphis writer Chris Herrington. The pick will only convey in 2020 or 2021 if the Jazz fall in the back half of the draft lottery, which is extremely unlikely given their new core. Then the protections become extremely loose: top six in 2022, top three in 2023, and only protected for the No. 1 overall pick in 2024 before it converts to second-rounders. Those loose projections coincide with what COULD (but probably won’t) be Gobert’s final season in Utah, so if things play out in the exact wrong way, that could be a bitter pill to swallow down the line. 

But you have to give up value to get value, and Utah got a top-30 player. It makes sense that they had to give way in negotiating the protections there, and now it’s on them to protect the pick themselves via their on-court production; as long as they’re still good in the 2021-22 season, then the pick will convey then as a late 1st. That’s the goal.

In terms of indirect cost, Utah will also have to give up their rights to free agents Rubio, Thabo Sefolosha and Ekpe Udoh. Depending on where the cap comes in, they may also have to waive the non-guaranteed salary attached to Raul Neto. They could potentially look to bring back any of those players if they’re willing to take a minimum-salary or Room Mid-Level deal, although that certainly wouldn’t be an option for Rubio.

Rubio’s legacy is complicated as he leaves Utah. His offensive liabilities clearly kept Utah from playing the way they wanted to, and yet Utah was a far better team over the last two years whenever Rubio was playing well. On top of that he was a high-character guy, well-like in the locker room and around the valley. Ultimately, though, it had been feeling for some time as though all parties recognized it was time to move on. Rubio is rumored to have some suitors around the league, including in Indiana.

And finally the opportunity cost: because of how the Jazz structured the deal, they won’t be able to pursue other top free agents or even use the full $9.2 million Mid-Level Exception. More on that in a second.

What they didn’t give up

It’s just as impressive that the Jazz were able to swing this June blockbuster without surrendering either of Favors or Exum, although even that came with a cost. Because of how they built the deal, they will not have the full $9.2 million MLE available.

There were several ways the Jazz could construct this, but all of them would have have cost Utah at least one of the Favors/Exum/MLE trio⁵. In order to do the trade with over-the-cap rules to preserve the MLE, they would have had to include one of Favors or Exum, and by keeping them out and using cap space to close the salary gap, they will have to relinquish the MLE. There was no way to keep all three.

Ultimately, I’m sure it came down to bird-in-the-hand logic for the Jazz. And those are pretty good birds. Favors was arguably Utah’s third best player over the course of last season. And Exum’s exclusion is another sign that the Jazz still believe in his future as a meaningful piece on a contending team. While injuries keep interrupting his progress, players who have two elite skill sets — in Exum’s case, the speed to break down the defense with or without a pick and great on-ball defense — usually have a pretty safe floor in the NBA.

Of course, either or both could be used for talent upgrades later on, but for now, Utah kept these two in Salt Lake City even as they landed a top-30 star. That’s big.

What’s next?

There’s a good chance that the Jazz are done making big moves. Because they need every bit of cap space to complete the deal, they are out of avenues to add another star player. For folks still holding out hope that they could still bring someone like Tobias Harris, it doesn’t look likely.

In theory, they could acquire Harris (or Khris Middleton) via sign-and-trade, but only if Philadelphia (or Milwaukee) wanted Favors and Exum back in a trade, and then the Jazz would be hard-capped. And there’s no realistic path to space for a max signing after the Conley deal; even if they waive Favors and Neto and trade Exum into somebody’s cap room, that would only create about $26 million, which isn’t enough for D’Angelo Russell, let alone Harris. That kind of money could get you someone like Harrison Barnes, but then you have to ask: would you rather have Barnes than Favors, Exum AND Neto? It’s a thought exercise at least, but it’s not very likely to come to fruition.

That said, they do have to fill out the roster. Currently, they’re looking at a starting five of Conley-Mitchell-Ingles-Favors-Gobert, and reserves Exum, Royce O’Neale, Georges Niang and Tony Bradley. They certainly need to add some depth, especially up front where Crowder’s departure leaves them thin.

Because Favors’ salary doesn’t become fully guaranteed until July 7, they could monitor free agency and see if the market squeezes any good players down into a price range where they could waive Favors’ and use the resulting cap space to sign somebody. The best forward options — guys like Bojan Bogdanovic or Julius Randle⁶ probably won’t be available at that price point. Someone like Nikola Mirotic, Thaddeus Young or Marcus Morris will probably be available at that kind of dollar figure, but most of those guys feel like overall downgrades from Favors, even though they do certain things better.

They could also dangle Exum on the trade market to upgrade the rotation, but then that costs them guard depth. Or they could wait for Favors’ salary to guarantee and include him in trades — something like Favors for Danilo Gallinari works straight across. That said, I’ve been insisting for some time now that I don’t believe the Jazz are interested in Gallo. Aaron Gordon and Myles Turner likely aren’t available in that type of deal, and Kelly Olynyk and Nikola Vucevic are really more centers than power forwards. The best available options on that type of deal might be someone like Marvin Williams, Gorgui Dieng or James Johnson. But again — all of those players feel like downgrades from Favors.

So it’s more likely that Utah will use their newfound status as a projected Western Conference power to attract some cheap help.

While they won’t have the full MLE, they’ll have the $4.76 million “Room MLE” available to teams who were under the cap, and they can fill out the rest of the roster with minimum-salary players.

That $4.8M slot isn’t a lot, but the position of greatest need — a backup stretch four option — might need to the priority there. With over 100 NBA free agents this summer, eventually the cap space and larger exceptions will dry up, and there will be some decent players left to fight over these smaller slots. That said, it likely won’t be anybody of Crowder’s impact level. Here are a few ideas:

• They could see if the value of Dewayne Dedmon (more of a center) or Taj Gibson (not really stretchy) slips into the Room MLE price range. DeMarre Carroll is another guy whose price might slip depending on how free agency shakes out.
• Luke Kornet, Jordan Bell and Maxi Kleiber are restricted, but the Jazz could take a swing there. Same with Frank Kaminsky, who has been in and out of the rotation. 
• That’s probably the price range for the likes of Mike Muscala, Mike Scott, Dante Cunningham.
• Jonas Jerebko makes some sense, but he left Utah a little salty after his first stint.
• They could take a total flier on someone like Noah Vonleh, Bruno Caboclo or Willy Hernangomez, all first-round or early second-round picks who just haven’t panned out yet.
• Or they could approach Thabo about coming back for the minimum or a chunk of the Room MLE. The more I sift through the other unspectacular names, that could be a real option.

They’ll also have Niang to absorb some of those minutes up front, and the former Cyclone has a lot of fans in the Jazz brain trust. His skills and smarts might put him in position to play a bigger role — but regardless, the Jazz need more depth, and they’re primarily going to find it by picking up guys who will play on cheap deals.

Add it all up…

There are certainly questions about how Utah will fill out its roster around their new impressive starting five and their 2-3 promising youngsters on the bench. There are also legitimate concerns about how the draft cost might play out over time, and how long Conley will sustain his current level of impact to winning basketball.

But by and large, this deal has a good chance to go down as a historic moment in Jazz history. The path to the mountaintop is suddenly clear while Golden State tends to its wounded, Houston snipes and the Lakers wait for assets to put give the LeBron-AD duo help. Utah got aggressive and moved itself toward the front of a crowded field looking to assume the Warriors’ throne.