Offseason Q&A: Gobert Extension, Prioritizing Exceptions, the Favors Option & More

Gobert has an elite impact, but should he get the supermax? (Cameron Browne via utahjazz.com)

The coming Utah Jazz offseason might be a more straightforward one than last summer, due to a more restrictive set of resources. But as the sheer volume of reader questions indicates, that doesn’t mean there aren’t tough issues to sort through.

Let’s get right to your questions, which this week include queries on Rudy Gobert’s extension range, Utah’s medium-term future, and how they’ll prioritize their free agent assets.

Do the Jazz give the supermax to Gobert? Does he re-sign for less than that? @rbaptista08

There’s a really complex set of questions behind this seemingly innocuous query, because that whole set of cap provisions was put in place precisely to protect teams from losing a top-15 level player. And Gobert is, empirically speaking, a top-15 level player. That said, it gets tough, because we usually reserve the megastar label for guys who are game-changing forces on the offensive end.

But should we? Why does controlling a game on defense matter less than controlling a game on offense? Saving two points with a clutch defensive play is worth exactly the same to your team as scoring two points on a clutch basket, right? And Gobert is a +20 player in the clutch. PLUS-20!! It seems like that kind of impact should be worth a lot of money. Also, it’s not like Gobert is strictly a rim protector. He’s elite at guarding in space, too, and he’s pretty damn important on offense, commanding a ton of gravity as one of the league’s best roll finishers.

That said, forking over the supermax (a contract starting at 35% of the team salary cap) for someone who’s not a perennial MVP candidate can be pretty limiting. So what does Utah do with all of that? I have no clue. I wouldn’t fault them for erring on the side of rewarding their player. I also wouldn’t fault them if they were able to give him a little less without making him feel unappreciated. It doesn’t sound as though Gobert himself is obsessed with the supermax as a validation of his worth.

Either way, it’s a fascinating Pandora’s box of questions about what matters in basketball. 

I saw a guy suggest that Rudy and 3 firsts could get Giannis (if he wanted out of Milwaukee). So, just for fun, who would the Jazz target if they were to trade Gobert? @shumekot

First of all, said guy is bonkers. The Bucks aren’t letting go of Giannis Antetokounmpo unless he absolutely forces them to, and in that case there would be a fierce bidding war with offers involving multiple stars and/or blue-chip draft assets. 

Nothing the Jazz would get in exchange for Rudy would delivery anywhere near the overall value he does. Having a top-15 player is worth more to a team’s contention hopes than having, say, three top-50 players or a bunch of draft assets that have a miniscule percentage chance of ever turning into anything remotely as valuable as Gobert. So unless their hand is forced, they will simply not entertain the idea. 

With max extension reportedly in place to keep Donoval Mitchell here for the next six seasons, what do the next six seasons look like big picture for the Jazz? Rudy could keep up same production for next three years. Bojan Bogdanovic also contracted to be here next three years, but then would be 34. @Caleb_D_Wilkes

We still don’t know the terms of Mitchell’s extension, including contract term and any option years. But yes, it appears that the Jazz will be Mitchell’s team fof the next half decade or so.

I don’t necessarily grant the premise that there’s any predetermined period during which Gobert will keep his production/impact at his current level, but it will be interesting to see how the big man’s game continues to evolve as he ages. He has already expanded his game a ton since he first rose to stardom, including by improving his defense away from the paint and expanding his repertoire of finesse finishes and one-dribble moves. I don’t like putting arbitrary limits on how good a guy can get, especially when we’ve only seen him get better to date.  

So to answer your broader question here: I quite like Utah’s core. They are entering a period where they’ll be capped out for the foreseeable future and their only way to get better will be smart upgrades on the margins. That’s difficult, but every team deals with that as they rise to contender status, because great players get paid. They’re in good shape, but nailing those complementary roster moves is going to become increasingly important. Hopefully the Jazz can become a destination for useful veterans, the way other small markets like Milwaukee and San Antonio did once they became elite.

How does the ratio of available money in free agency compare to the quality and quantity of free agents? In other words, is this an offseason of quality players stuck on budget deals, or one where teams have to overpay for mediocre talent? @GwillUte

This will be a buyer’s market. Even aside from cap math, team governors may simply feel uncomfortable spending up to the cap in the context of an overall shaky economy. What we do know is that the best case scenario for next year’s team salary cap is that the league and players’ union agree to keep it flat at the 2019-20 level, just a hair over $109 million.

If that’s the case, very few teams will have meaningful cap space. Atlanta, Sacramento and Detroit should have room. Charlotte, Miami, Minnesota, Phoenix and Toronto could create moderate amounts of cap room, but it would require cutting ties to most free agents and clearing non-guaranteed salary. New Orleans’ theoretical cap room is going to be tied up by Brandon Ingram. The Lakers have significant space only if Anthony Davis opts out, whereas the Knicks hold team options on most of their roster, so they can create room if they have a reason to.

So barring trades, you’re really talking about three to nine teams with spending ability past the Mid-Level Exception (MLE), and that’s only if ownership groups don’t tighten the purse strings internally.

That said, this also isn’t a very starry free agent class unless a bunch of guys opt out. Ingram’s restricted. Davis, DeMar DeRozan, Andre Drummond and Gordon Hayward should all opt in. So the best remaining free agents are… Danilo Gallinari? Fred VanVleet? Goran Dragic? Bogdan Bogdanovic? It wouldn’t be suprising to see second-tier stars like those get their price inflated because no bona fide superstars are in front of them. But after that crowd, it’s going to be easy for a host of really good role players to get squeezed by a tight market.

What teams should the Jazz keep an eye on that may be wiling to deal because of their cap situation or desire to make a splash in free agency? @joel_hiller

This will sound like I’m punting the question, but really: everybody. Team execs aren’t sure if they’ll be permitted to spend like they did in a pre-pandemic world, and even if owners don’t put the clamps on, most teams will have only exceptions to work with. There is analysis out there — including from unnamed executives — that suggests trades will be really importan this offseason. 

It’s way too early to tell who the buyers and sellers are in the trade market. For example, some people are sure that the Clippers are going to retool after their playoff letdown, but if calmer heads prevail as time passes, they could easily get back to shopping for complementary pieces by the time the offseason starts in earnest. Milwaukee brass just promised Antetokounmpo that they’d be aggressive in adding talent (i.e. buyers), but to do that they might need to offload some decent players (i.e. sellers). So it’s tough to know the frame of mind of 30 GMs. It’s a very unique set of circumstances.

What are the odds that the Jazz overthink the Derrick Favors opportunity (like many fans currently are) and miss out on him? I see him on the pick-and-roll with Ingles and anchoring the bench defense and start drooling. @miller_tom

I hear you. I am pro-Favors, too, and the possibility of him returning is real. That said, if Gobert gets anything close to the supermax and Favors gets the full MLE, then you’re spending $45 million on the center position. So I get why it’s worth thinking about how that move fits in the broader prioritization of things. Really what it comes down to is this: the Jazz have a couple different needs to address and a finite number of tools they can use to address them. Favors at the full MLE might wind up being the right answer, but it depends on how the market plays out relative to their other needs. Which leads right into the next couple of questions…

If you had to guess based off of team needs, will the MLE be used on a Favors type backup center/forward? Or would they try the Bi-Annual Exception (BAE) for that and use the MLE on a larger wing defender? @gubihero

If you had to guess, do you think the jazz would prioritize a big man or a defensive wing with the MLE? Also, which of those two do you think is more vital to raising the overall ceiling of this team? @StutzyWutzy

I wrote about this at the end of last week’s piece on wings. Basically, there are three ways to play this:

1. Use the MLE on a big, which might get you into the Favors/Mason Plumlee tier, but then be stuck shopping for a bargain wing, like the aging Courtney Lee (who played with Mike Conley in Memphis), the shooting-challenged Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, or an unproven young guy.
2. Use the MLE on a better wing, like Justin Holiday, but then be stuck looking for a bargain big, like Alex Len or Ian Mahhinmi.
3. Split the MLE to get a decent big (Aron Baynes? Nerlens Noel?) and a rotation-quality wing (Wesley Matthews, or use the MLE to get a better shot at pulling a young restricted free agent away from his incumbent team).

The things the Jazz need from a backup big are a little harder to find out in the market. They need someone who is a good interior defender so that the defensive system can stay roughly the same when Gobert sits. But it also needs to be someone who can finish P&Rs or else the second-unit offense will devolve into innefficient, iso-happy anarchy. There aren’t that many guys who do both of those things at a very high level. On the other hand, there are plenty of wings who are solid team defenders and can hit open jumpers.

That said, the best outcome might still be that Favors (or Plumlee) is willing to take a little less than the full MLE so that they set aside $2-3. The BAE and minimum salary exception only allow for a 2-year contracts, and particularly if they’re going to target a young RFA, they probably will need to be able to put together a longer offer sheet.

I love Favors but is the goal to bring him back with an understanding that he’s not playing starting PF minutes? Because with him and Gobert, I think I’ve seen that film before, and I didn’t like the ending. @BOGO4Corduroy

They’d probably need to buy Favors 3-4 minutes per half alongside Gobert, just to get his minute total to a range where he’d be satisfied. But it certainly wouldn’t need to be during the opening minutes of halves. A few nightly minutes at power forward would bring Favors’ average to 20-22 (more if Gobert misses any time), and that’s probably appropriate.

And really, the Gobert-Favors pairing was actually fine when they played with floor-spacing guards. It didn’t really work when Ricky Rubio was on the court, but aren’t you a little curious to see them operate next to Conley? Bojan Bogdanovic? A more confident and polished Mitchell? I am. (For the record, the Gobert-Rubio pairing and the Favors-Rubio duo also worked fine; it was just the three of them on the court together that didn’t always yield positive results.)

What will Jazz do with Ed Davis. And their backup center situation? @newbymiles89

We’ve been talking for a bit now about the center position as a whole — they will likely spend the biggest chunk of free agent money on someone like Favors, Plumlee, Baynes or Noel.

As for Davis, he just didn’t work out, and I don’t think he has a future role with the Jazz. If they can’t move him, they’ll just eat his remaining $5 million and either let him hang at the end of the bench or let him walk. They’ll try to move off that $5 million, but if they’re able to move him, it will probably be for someone else’s distressed asset. For example, Toronto isn’t really using Stanley Johnson, a big wing who hasn’t lived up to his defensive reputation and who doesn’t shoot well. If Johnson opts into his $3.8 million next season (which he almost surely will), the Raptors might want to move him. And who knows, maybe they’d prefer a deep bench center at $5M over a deep bench wing at nearly $4M. It’s hard to say. But that’s the best case scenario in a Davis trade: swapping Utah’s non-rotation veteran for somebody else’s non-rotation veteran. 

I know Jazz like to avoid the RFA game. That said, any RFA targets you think they may take a rare chance on going after? @drawing_defense

Yeah, I think they’d go after someone if they had an indication that a team might not match. That’s why I’ve been looking around for young wings with defensive tools and a decent jump shot whose recent roles might suggest they’re not central to their teams’ plans. The three I like the most are Wesley Iwundu, Shaq Harrison and Sterling Brown. Iwundu is the biggest, at 6’7″ with a 7’1″ wingspan. He was out of the rotation for part of the year, and a starter for part of the year, which probably makes him less gettable. But all three of those guys are plus defenders, decent spot-up shooters, and young enough that they can get better. If Utah could set a couple million aside from their MLE to put together a 4-year, $10 million offer, that might be enough to dissaude a team from matching on a guy who was on the edge of their rotation. (The player in question would probably want the fourth year to be a PO, in case he popped.)

Is there a bigger chance Miye Oni, Rayjon Tucker, or Jarrell Brantley make the rotation than is currently being talked about? Sounds like close to zero from what I’ve heard. @drawing_defense

What’s Brantley’s contract situation? As a two-way player, is he now an unrestricted FA? @doogen0012

The Jazz certainly signed those end-of-bench rookies with the hope that at least of them would turn into a rotation player over time, but I’d probably suggest more patience here. Going from a 15th-man type role to being in the rotation is a big jump. If they felt like any of those guys was close to helping a contender, then at least one of them would have hit 200 minutes at some point. None did, even with extra minutes as Utah began resting rotation players down the stretch. (In Brantley’s case, he didn’t even reach 100 season minutes.)

Brantley will become a RFA if the Jazz first offer him a second two-way contract with $50,000 guaranteed salary. Then, he can either accept that contract offer and return on a two-way, or enter free agency and see if he can get an offer from someone for a standard NBA deal that the Jazz could decide whether to match. Oni and Tucker are both under contract for next season, but without full guarantees. Oni is reportedly fully non-guaranteed, while $340,000 of Tucker’s salary is already locked in.

How are you currently feeling about Royce O’Neale contract extension and Joe Ingles’ 1-year contract extension? @Caleb_D_Wilkes

Both are good deals on the macro. Like it or not, that high 7-figure / low 8-figure range is what low end “starter money” looks like in the NBA now, and both those guys are firmly starter-quality players. The timing of the Ingles extension was a little weird, because they certainly had the option of a wait-and-see approach with the soon-to-be 33 year old. But both guys are paid pretty appropriately for what they are, and both play vital roles.

What’s the likelihood of keeping Jordan Clarkson? My understanding is the MLE and/or BAE hard caps the team at the apron. If the cap is held the same, the current roster plus the salaries for guys signed at the MLE, BAE and 23rd pick come to $135M, leaving ~$3.9M below the apron. So need to ditch non-guaranteed guys, Davis, or not use full exceptions? @jimmybuchs

Do the Jazz have any contract advantages to keep Clarkson? @BOGO4Corduroy

The Jazz will have Clarkson’s full “Bird” rights, meaning they can sign him to any amount without using a salary cap exception. But they will not have matching rights, which are tied only to players early in their careers.

Yeah, if the Jazz can’t move Davis, then at some point they have to make some decisions about which spending tools to use. Because you’re right: as soon as they use the full MLE or the BAE, they are hard-capped for the year at somewhere around $139M. I do think they’ll cut loose some of the non-guaranteed guys, but it still gets tight, depending on where Clarkson’s market value lands.

There’s a real possibility that Clarkson simply prices himself out of Utah’s range. If everybody’s healthy, Clarkson is a fourth ball-handling guard (Mitchell, Conley, Ingles) and that’s without considering that Bogdanovic will handle a lot from the forward spot. At some point, the Jazz have to decide what a fifth creator is worth, especially since Clarkson is more of a self-creator and not really someone who sets the table for others or runs a lot of pick-and-roll offense.

He’s been helpful, and in a vacuum I’m sure they’d love to keep him. But if they acquire a P&R big for the bench, then the second unit won’t need as much iso stuff from Clarkson, and it’s not terribly hard to find somone more affordable to man the fourth guard spot in your rotation. 

What are some possible targets for a S&T with Clarkson? Could the Jazz do something like a 1-for-2 (I’m thinking maybe something like Clarkson for Favors and Josh Hart)? @shumekot

Do any teams come to mind that need Clarkson and could be a sign-and-trade partner? @zarinf

They can certainly try to use Clarkson’s Bird rights that way, although as @jimmybuchs points out above, they still have the hard cap to contend with, so they can’t bring back an unlimited amount in a sign-and-trade.

Generally you don’t bring back a ton of value in a S&T, but if a team wants to sign Clarkson and doesn’t want to (or can’t) use the full MLE on him, then sure, the Jazz could see what they have that they might part with. For example, would Orlando consider moving Al-Farouq Aminu ($9.7M)? Or Khem Birch ($3M) and a signed-and-traded Iwundu? Would Philly move Mike Scott ($5M). Would Phoenix (bottom-4 in bench scoring) surrender Frank Kaminsky ($5M)? Would Sacramento give up Richaun Holmes ($5M)? Would the Jazz want any of those players?

So yeah, the Jazz could try to address one of their needs via a Clarkson S&T, but those transactions are by nature harder to put together because more parties have to be satisfied with the terms than in a simple free agent signing.

Is there a universe where we can trade Conley for Paul George. I heard they need a point guard; we need length and a side piece for Donovan to run the point @BabyILo11827969

Not a realistic one, no. 

Remember what the Clippers gave up for PG-13: a borderline star in Gallinari, an improving starter on a rookie contract in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, three unprotected picks, two protected picks, and swap rights in two other drafts. Given all of that, there is close to zero chance they would flip him for a one-year rental on a 32-year-old non All-Star.

If you could teleport one previous non All-Star Jazz man from before 2010 onto this team, who would it be and why? @jarommoore

The stipulations here make it tough. Pre-2010 means I can’t just take the easy route and say Favors. Non All-Star excludes a lot of very good players who made a single All-Star game, like Jeff Hornacek, Andrei Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur. Wesley Matthews technically debuted for the Jazz in 2009, but I might actually prefer to sign current-day Matthews and save the Time Machine Exception for someone else. (The 23-year-old version was way better than an undrafted rookie had any business being, but present-day Wesley has spent 11 seasons learning how to guard the league’s best players.)

So let’s say Thurl Bailey. Other guys might fill a more specific need, but at Bailey’s peak he was a better overall player than anybody else who fits the criteria, a 19-ppg scorer with 6-foot-11 size and small forward mobility. Or if I can take a player at his peak and not just whenever he was with Utah, Danny Manning and Tom Chambers were All-Stars before they played for the Jazz.

I’m wondering what might happen for a backup/3rd string PG if mudiay leaves? Would the jazz look at someone like Shaquille Harrison, who looks like he would benefit from a larger role? @gubihero

I love Harrison (as stated above), but I think of him more as a wing. If we’re talking about the third string, cheap backup point guard options are relatively easy to come by. D.J. Agustin, E’Twaun Moore, Yogi Ferrell, Shabazz Napier, or frankly even Raul Neto. Or yeah, to your point, they could use the 11th through 15th man spots on some young guys who have potential, so that if one of them hits they might get a future rotation player out of it. That’s how Utah has been using its deep bench roles recently.

Who are the best overseas players the Jazz could target with minimums or the BAE? @shumekot

I have no idea on these guys’ contract statuses or desire to jump the pond, but Tornike Shengelia, Axel Bouteille, Dario Brizuela and Jarrell Eddie are a few 20-something wings with size who are coming off good seasons in the ACB. Sergio Llull is widely considered the best basektball player not in the NBA, but I believe his rights are still held by Houston. (There are other leagues to consider, too, but the ACB is the best pro league outside the U.S.) Ultimately, I think the Jazz will look for proven NBA contributors to round out their rotation. 

That was a lot of questions! We’ll do this again as the offseason rolls on.