The Big If Behind Utah’s Plan to “Hunt”

Danny Ainge wants to “hunt,” but knows that plans don’t always come to perfect fruition.

The Utah Jazz’s offseason began in earnest last week with seven highly retweetable, ripe-for-aggregation words: “We’re ready to go big game hunting.”

The declaration by team exec Danny Ainge was all over social media within minutes, and became the lede and/or headline to nearly every recap of Ainge’s epic 40-minute presser. “Our objective is to find a player or two, and we’re ready to roll,” Ainge continued.

But almost in the same breath, the CEO of basketball operations expressed another thought, one that got far less viral attention because it’s harder to fit on a fortune cookie. The IF, if you will.

“That (amassing winning talent) is our only objective — until we get to July,” Ainge clarifiying. “And then, if we don’t land anything, we don’t make any deals, then our direction could change at that moment, and (we’d ) wait until the next time that we can try to build a roster.”

At multiple junctures during his epic 40-minute presser, he outlined the caveats surrounding Utah’s desire to hunt another star-level player to pair with Lauri Markkanen.

“There’s no guarantees in this business at all. That’s why you can’t just have a plan that is what you’re going to get.” He furnished multiple examples of times when other front offices he was a part of assembled contending cores almost by coincidence because there are things you can’t plan for. “Everybody wants, like, this plan… that’s not how basketball works.”

That part didn’t get blasted around the NBA online community to quite the same degree, but it’s real and it’s worth talking about. Despite all of Utah’s assets — $40 million in cap room, a dozen or more picks in the next seven drafts, young talent on stackable contracts — there is a chance Utah still comes up empty.

“The transformative players are hard to come by,” Ainge admitted.

Transformative players?

As Ainge outlined toward the end of the same presser, free agency just hasn’t been the primary means of star movement recently. More players are opting for the security of big extensions, so few players even hit the open market to begin with. Once you narrow the list down to younger players — since Ainge said the Jazz aren’t looking to add “dinosaurs” — the list gets even shorter.

Let’s assume that Utah’s ideal target isn’t older than 30. Here’s every pending unrestricted free agent (or player option) in that age range who had at least 4.0 EPM Wins Added last season.

Five potential 2024 free agents under 30 with an EPM over 4.0

That’s it. Five guys. And Isaiah Hartenstein, despite being an advanced stats darling, isn’t exactly “big game” anyway. He mostly came off the bench for the Knicks, and had 12% usage when he did play. He’s a really sound rotation big who doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. The other four are closer to what we might traditionally consider a star.

Pascal Siakam has made two All-NBA teams, but he’s exactly 30, so you probably have to feel pretty good that you can compete in the next few years with a Markkanen-Siakam tandem. D’Angelo Russell went overnight from being a career 53% true shooter to suddenly being at 60% the last two seasons. He’s also a decent playmaker, but a minus defender and a complicated personality. It’s not clear just how much he changes Utah’s reality.

OG Anunoby on the other hand would accelerate Utah’s ascent with his defense and shooting, especially if he could also regain some of his pop from the higher-usage seasons he had in Toronto. Utah could certainly offer a raise over the $19 million option he’d have to decline to enter free agency. Miles Bridges is extremely talented but comes with some pretty serious off-court considerations that not all fans will be comfortable with. His name was in the trade deadline rumor mill, despite all the baggage associated with his legal troubles.

There are considerably more options who are already under contract. In a perfect world, they’d probably prefer someone who has some years left on their deal, because a trade to rebuilding, small-market Utah might be something a player would need some time to warm up to.

The top young players under 30 who are under contract for at least three more seasons.

You can decide how realistic the 10 on the left are. These guys are probably all too good to get willingly offered up to the market, absent some uncomfortable leverage like a trade demand or a financial crunch. Ainge did say “big-game hunting” and not “medium-game hunting,” but for now it’s not clear what it would take for an all-pro guy under 30 to shake loose. (Ja Morant didn’t make this list because of the EPM cut-off, but belongs with those names; I didn’t bother with rookie contract guys because Victor Wembanyama and Amen Thompson aren’t moving anywhere.)

There are some interesting names to the right, but they’re not all “transformative” talent.

It’s kind of remarkable that Zion Williamson hasn’t made an All-NBA team yet, mostly the byproduct of rotten injury luck. It’s hard to imagine the Pelicans trading the 2-time All-Star and former No. 1 overall pick. Dejounte Murray and Darius Garland are both 1-time All-Stars. Garland is a better shooter, but Murray is longer and better defensively, at least in theory. (His defense was better in SAS, but he might have been a tad bit overrated as an on-ball stopper.)

Nobody else there has even made an All-Star game. Desmond Bane has averaged over 20 twice. Michael Porter Jr. has mostly been a third option, but could maybe do more in a different setting. Herb Jones and Jaden McDaniels are both defensive difference-makers who at 6’8″ or 6’9″ can guard almost anyone on the floor. Both are likely to make all-defense this year; Lu Dort has gotten all-defense votes in the past, but at 6’3″ is a bit more specialized as a physical ball hawk against guards.

Devin Vassell and Deni Avdija both just came off of career-best seasons as 23-year-olds. Vassell is a little closer to star level today, although Avdija averaged 19-9-4 after the trade deadline. Tyler Herro and RJ Barrett are around the same age and have each averaged 20 for three straight seasons, but it feels like if the Jazz were madly in love with either of those two, they’ve probably had some opportunities to strike already.

Those are the closest to offensive or defensive stars in that list of 20. The remaining guys are essentially really good role players. Josh Hart is a gluey, do-it-all scrapper with fire in his belly. Vince Williams Jr. and Aaron Nesmith are fun examples of guys seizing expanded opportunities. Cameron Johnson is an excellent shooter who’s toolsy and 6’8″, but he’s 28 and has never topped 16ppg in a season. Max Strus, Grayson Allen and Donte DiVincenzo are really good fourth or fifth starters (although DiVincenzo has been featured more with the Knicks’ injuries). Payton Pritchard is small and a career bench guy.

There are some interesting names there. But who’s available? And who’s truly transformative?

(Also, the criteria here is super arbitrary. If you’re OK with a 30-year-old difference-maker, is 31 that much older in the scheme of things? It’s not like 31 is a dinosaur. Also, I set my contractual cut-off at 3 years left, but the Jazz could get intel that a player with 1-2 years left might be amenable to an extension. In other words, don’t take this list too literally: it’s meant as a starting point, not a comprehensive list of the only guys the Jazz would consider.)

What it would take

So, first things first: someone here has to be available in the first place for any of this analysis to matter.

That could happen in the case of a financial crunch on one of these teams, or if someone has a disappointing postseason and decides to retool.

If someone did become gettable, Utah’s cap space and stackable contracts give them a lot of flexibility on how to construct a legal deal, but they’d certainly also be sacrificing picks for anybody above. An all-league player under 30 would almost certainly cost the value equivalent of 4-5 firsts, including a couple that are non-protected or lightly protected.

For the rest of that crowd, value becomes a little eye-of-the-beholder, but there’s nobody there who wouldn’t command a really good first (or the equivalent) at minimum. Most of those guys probably cost multiple picks given their age, long-term commitment and production.

And that’s fine. The Jazz have way more pick than they can use to actually roster players. The sticking point is is more likely to be a question of *which* picks and how protected, because Utah is totally willing to use all the surplus first-rounder that way. 

So what if…?

The point here, at least partially, is that the options aren’t, like, infinite. And with finite options, it is entirely possible the Jazz make it to July Whatever without having identified their transformational acquisition. So what then?

Ainge says they were already close at one point in this rebuild to an acquisition that “would have changed the dynamic of our team immediately, and the direction.” But when it didn’t happen the Jazz decided to keep their powder dry instead of messing around with half-measures.

“We do have assets and we do have flexibility,” Ainge continued. “We don’t want to panic. We don’t want to go from the 23rd best team in the NBA to the 18th best by giving up a bunch of things either. That’s not our objective.”

Low-cost placeholders will be a consideration, but the Jazz don’t sound interested in using a significant portion of their asset cache for players who don’t alter their reality to some very real degree. Which means if a transformative move isn’t there at some point, 2024-25 could be a season that requires more patience from the fan base. At that point, the focus would shift back to internal growth, as it did this past season when big moves weren’t on the docket.

That’s the big IF. Hunting sounds fun. But it’s worth acknowledging what’s behind door number two.