Offseason Q&A Volume 2: Jazz Targets, Positional Priorities & Cap Tools

Jazz fans have Brogdon (and other targets) on their mind. (Gary Dineen via Bucks.com)

Our first call for readers to submit offseason questions was met with such fervor that there were way too many questions to answer all at once. I already posted Volume 1, with questions and answers about current Jazzmen and their respective futures. Here comes the second big wave of answers, on topics such as salary cap exceptions, offseason targets and positional needs. Dig in!

Cap & roster construction

How much cap room is available if (the Jazz) keep Derrick Favors and let Ricky Rubio, Thabo Sefolosha, Kyle Korver, and Ekpe Udoh go? What are the different scenarios for Korver (retirement, trade, waive, stretch)? -@blainefarr

You can tinker with the cap tool, but the quick answer (assuming they keep everybody not mentioned above) is that they’d have roughly $22M if they traded Korver, $19M if they kept his cap hit all on this year’s salary sheet, or $21M if they stretch his remaining guaranteed salary over three seasons. 

If the Jazz waive any of their non-guaranteed contracts, they’re barred from re-signing those players, right? Whereas if they turned down a TO, they’d still have the potential option of re-signing the player? -@KantsImperative

No, there’s nothing that bars you from re-signing a guy you have waived. With two big buts:

1. First he’d need to clear waivers. Someone like Royce O’Neale would 100% be scooped up in the waiver claim process. Georges Niang probably would, too, and I even think Favors likely would given the number of teams with cap space, as I explained above.
2. Even if he cleared waivers, the Jazz would then not have any Bird, early Bird or non-Bird free agent rights to the guy in question, so they could only re-sign him using salary cap space or an available exception.

Can you use the MLE along with regular salary cap money to sign a player or does it have to be strictly MLE if signing be those means? Maybe just explain about the different exceptions (MLE, biannual, trade) and how they can be used? -@Dialed_in4

Broadly speaking salary cap exceptions only exist for teams who are operating over the cap, so a team would never have the MLE *and* cap space. It is possible for a team to have cap space and the “Room MLE” described above, but they cannot be combined together. Exceptions are never combined, so a player’s first-year salary has to fit entirely into either your remaining cap space or a solitary exception.

A quick crash course on the most common exceptions:

• The “full” (or non-taxpayer) MLE will be about $9.2M this year, and can be used to sign a player to a contract for up to four seasons. It is only available to teams who are over the cap (or who are close enough to the cap that their exceptions would push them over), and to teams that will not exceed the luxury tax by more than about $7 million (the “apron”). Once a team uses the full MLE, they are not allowed to go over the apron for any reason.
• The taxpayer MLE (sometimes referred to as the “mini-MLE”) is a smaller version that’s available to teams that are over the luxury tax threshold, or who don’t want to be hard-capped at the apron by using the full MLE. It will be around $5.7M and can be used to sign a contract for up to three seasons.
• The biannual exception is a smaller exception (~$3.6M) that teams can only use every other year. It is also only meant for teams who are above the cap but below the apron, and teams who use it are also hard-capped for the season. It can be used to sign one- or two-year deals.
• The room MLE is available to teams that rescind all their other exceptions to get under the cap, but then spend their cap room and still want to sign somebody. It’s only around $4.7M, and can only be used to sign one- or two-year deals.
• Minimum salary exceptions can always be used to sign additional players (unless a team is hard-capped). Deals signed using the minimum exception can only be for one or two seasons, but teams will often get around this by using a portion of their MLE to sign a player to a minimum-salary deal that can exceed two seasons. That’s how Utah was able to sign O’Neale to a 3-year deal at the minimum salary, and as a result they’ll now have his full Bird rights when his deal expires next summer.

Those are the basic exceptions. Teams also have the ability to re-sign their own free agents, but only if they reserve a portion of team salary on their cap sheet (known as a free agent amount or “cap hold”) to preserve that right.

The trade question is tricky and multi-layered. Basically, teams under the cap can bring back players in a trade as long as their post-trade team salary won’t exceed the cap by more than $100,000. To bring back more salary than that, you have to operate within the trade rules, which vary depending on the amount of salary you’re sending out and how far over the cap you are.

Offseason targets

Do you think the Jazz get Durant and Kawhi or just Durant? @jstuart_

Why stop there? They can also schedule a meeting with Captain America, Thor, Oprah and the Dalai Lama. And then petition the NBA for a rule change so they can sign Air Bud.

Which top free agents do we have a chance at? What players were we rumored to get at the deadline? -@LilBax

What level (tier) of players will the Jazz realistically target in FA this off-season? -@AustinJazzHoops

Everything I’ve heard is that the Jazz sound confident. As in, the type of confidence that you really only have when you know that there are some people out there impressed with what you’re building. As JStuart’s jokey question above suggests, I don’t think they’ll sign an existing All-NBA stud like KD or Kawhi, but they seem to think they’ll get a meeting with some borderline All-Star caliber guys.

As far as trade deadline buzz, from what I gather, the Otto Porter interest was real, but Washington just had different objectives. The Mike Conley talks were obviously real, but that was built around expirings, which can’t be used in summer trades, so that one would be tough to revisit. I know the Jazz have been interested in Tobias Harris, but there’s a little bit of a concern in that guys as good as him don’t usually see five teams in their first seven years. 

If you were designing a third core player that best complements Rudy’s and Donovan’s skills and fits with the team, what would that player look like? What reasonably-available player(s) most closely resembles that ideal fit? -@tomcat340

Assuming it’s not feasible to upgrade both the point guard and power forward positions in free agency, which one change would yield the best results on the court? -@joel_hiller

Who do you see the jazz targeting in free agency? Any chance any of the current jazz free agents come back? @newbymiles89

They need another guy who can manufacture his own bucket, generate offense for himself and others, and defend. I don’t think position matters as much, but if you get a really small guard next to Donovan, you’re going to have a small backcourt, and that could be a problem defensively in an increasingly long, positionless NBA. That’s why I think a scoring wing who can guard multiple position makes the most sense, or a skilled four who can bend the defense in ways Favors and Jae Crowder just don’t. That’s why names like Khris Middleton, Harris and Bojan Bogdanovic keep coming up, but who knows how available they are? I have no idea if Khris is gettable, but he remains for me the ideal on-paper fit because of his defense, his multi-positional profile, and his résumé as a proven number-two scorer who is a threat both with and without the ball.

Malcolm Brogdon is not an iso scorer by any means, but he’s another facilitator and he can reasonably play either guard spot. Lowry or Kemba Walker are bucket-getters, but they might be small next to Mitchell, and there’s some valid concern about diminishing returns, since part of what makes those guys special is how much time they spend with the ball in their hands, something that would definitely change if they played next to Mitchell. Kemba can’t execute 50 pick-and-rolls per game and still have Donovan do what Donovan does, so by pairing those types of guys, you’re asking someone to be less/different than what they are today, so you have to forecast how those situations will fit. Same goes for D’Angelo Russell, an All-Star whose skill set overlaps with Mitchell’s to some degree.

Utah could also consider the next tier down, guys who are solid system fits even though they’re not necessarily shot creators in the purest sense: Danny Green, Al-Farouq Aminu, Thad Young, Pat Beverley, Darren Collison, Cory Joseph, Trevor Ariza… and probably others, although after that group it starts to drop off in terms of value above replacement.

(Miles, see yesterday’s part 1 for the answer to that last part of your question.)

Who do the Jazz have a better shot at getting a meeting with in free agency, Harris or Kemba? Not signing just a meeting. -@GaretDuckworth

Harris. I think it’s a pretty safe bet that Utah will get in front of Harris at some point, if only because there is known interest and it helps his agent to play that up. They could also get a meeting with Walker, but I think Harris is a safer bet.

Any word on if Jrue Holiday has been made available for trades? Wondering if things have changed with a new GM running the show. @GaretDuckworth

I wouldn’t hold your breath. Even if David Griffin decides to fully tear things down in New Orleans, the objective in a hypothetical Jrue trade would be to score rebuilding assets, and that’s something the Jazz are actually kind of light on. They don’t have great first-round picks, and their only starter-level talent on a rookie deal is Mitchell, who is basically untouchable.

I am really high on Brogdon, I think he would change everything for the Jazz, but I can’t imagine losing Favors and having a hole at backup C. Is it possible to get Brogdon and keep Favs? Is Brogdon going to get the max this offseason? -@Jeffersoniandoc

Can the Jazz make enough cap space for both Brogdon and Harris? I know that’s hard to know because no one knows what it will take to pry Brogdon away from MIL. -@CHALVIN2018

Does Brogdon fit a need as the third main piece or is he more of the Ingles glue guy? -@gubihero

Do you think that is best done by bringing in a PG like Brogdon or a stretch 4 like Mirotic? Which is a better fit for the Jazz considering the likely trade-off with playmaking (PG) or rebounding (PF)? -@Camber

Wowza, a lot of Brogdon interest. I’ll tackle this one in parts so I can try to answer all of these versions of the question.

• First of all, I don’t think Brogdon is quite the “shot creator” we’ve been talking about. He’s really good. But he’s still closer to a system player than he is to a guy who you can just give the ball and point to the bucket. The Jazz may think he has another level or two, though. As of today, I think he’s still more complementary than a bona fide third star.
• No, I don’t think Brogdon will get the max, but the market is going to smile on guys like that who are clearly better than MLE players, because the number of teams with cap space is going to bid up the price on guys in that tier. So while someone like Brogdon might regularly track to a contract in the teens, it’s not crazy to think that some team will throw a bigger salary at him, especially since Milwaukee has matching rights that they would surely exercise on a low-dollar deal.
• Signing both Brogdon and Harris is almost a complete dream, for cap reasons. Harris will make the max, and Brogdon will have to get a hefty number to pry him away from Milwaukee. Opening up enough room for both would require cutting ties with all the free agents and Favors, plus dumping a couple of large salaries (Korver & Crowder?) and some smaller ones as well (Neto, Bradley, etc.).
• A Brogdon-Fav combo is more likely cap-wise, since Favors’ cost is fixed at $16.9M.
• I spoke a little bit about the positional thing above. I don’t think it really matters if the Jazz can get a true third stud. If they can get that type of guy at any position, then they’ll simply retain/sign guys around them that fill the remaining needs. 
• That said, Mirotic is probably not “third star” material, and I think the Jazz likely have some very real concerns about how he’d fit defensively… especially given how they’ve gone right at him every time they’ve faced him.

In your opinion is there any free agents this year that given more time or different situation turn into better players than now, hopefully stars? (ie deangelo russel, harden in OKC, oladipo in OKC) -@Dialed_in4

Honestly, I think that would be the hope with Brogdon. He’s not currently quite on the quasi-star tier, but if the Jazz made a run at him, it would signal their belief that he’s still getting better. He’s 26, so he probably doesn’t have a ton of ceiling left in terms of raw ability, but you could argue that he’s never really been in a system that featured him. He was the least efficient of Milwaukee’s volume P&R handlers in terms of the plays he personally finished, and he’s not really an isolation guy.

Bogdanovic is another guy like that. Nobody really thought of him as a primary offensive weapon until he took over more of the generation duties after Victor Oladipo got injured. He’s skilled and versatile, and we might have just gotten a first glimpse of the type of weapon he could be. 

I’ve said this before, but I also wonder if Justise Winslow might finally be good. Miami started putting the ball in his hands more, and suddenly he looks like someone with creation skills worthy of his top-10 pick. He just turned 23 and put together his best season yet. He’s under contract, though.

Stanley Johnson? Bobby Portis? There are other guys who have shown flashes, but I don’t know that any of them are necessarily on a star path. I absolutely love Caris Levert, but the Nets aren’t going to let go of him.

That does it for this installment. We’ll keep doing this throughout the offseason, and of course in the meantime you can mess around with the salary cap tool to figure out how the Jazz can keep the players you like while create cap room to chase a star.