The Utah Jazz’s PERFECT Offseason! Realistic Trade & Draft Ideas For The 2025 NBA Offseason

The Utah Jazz’s PERFECT Offseason! Realistic Trade & Draft Ideas For The 2025 NBA Offseason

What’s going on y’all? Welcome back to basketball and more importantly, welcome back to Ideal Off season. This is the series where I put the GM cap on for a little bit and help a team navigate through their off season. We try to keep this series as realistic as possible, meaning we really try to take a look at every single NBA team for where they really are in regards to the rest of the association right now. So, if you’re the Washington Wizards, it wasn’t a great season this last year. You got some young guys in the team that you’re trying to develop, we’re trying to help kind of point you guys in a better direction going forward. But if you’re the Lakers, you got Luca and LeBron, you’re trying to win a championship, so we’re going to try to help you get there. And today, we’ve got the Utah Jazz. Um, not going to lie, I’ve been pre-recording a lot of content as I’m out most of the week. Uh, I don’t actually even know what day you guys are seeing this at this point, but um, this is postdraft lottery. Um, I’m recording this very shortly after the draft lottery, so just know that that’s kind of the context for everything. But, it’s been a it’s been a rough roll of the dice for the Jazz post the draft lottery. So, we’re going to be trying to help them out in this video here. But hey, before we do that, make sure you guys like, subscribe, and comment. I’ve responded to every single comment to my YouTube channel up to this point, and I intend to keep on doing so. Hey, Ideal Offseason is back. Go give those videos a watch. It’s by far and away the most popular series on my channel. You’re already watching one now, so you might as well go watch the rest of them. They’re a fun time. And then go watch my do they fit in the NBA videos right here. Um, they’re another really popular series on my channel, but they almost always get demonetized, so I try to do a little extra advertising for them because, you know what, YouTube just keeps liking to take my stuff down. So, you know, is what it is. But anyway, let’s talk about the jazz. All righty. So, that brings us to the ideal offseason spreadsheet. For those of you that aren’t aware, basically, I build a lot of spreadsheets on my channel to kind of help articulate and visualize different things that I’m talking about. And this is the ideal offseason spreadsheet. It does a bunch of different things like talk about um salary cap figures, years remaining, options, talk about EPM numbers for people, salary cap situation, uh what kind of draft picks they got, all all those fun things. You can actually get access to all of that. Um it’s really really easy. Um if you want this sheet, all you have to do is go down in the description. There’s a link to go join my Discord on there. If you hop on the Discord and you go to the announcements channel, it’s the first link there. It’s a free download. Go post the things that you make on there. It should be a lot of fun. Um, but anyway, in this video, got to talk about the Utah Jazz. We’re going to be making some trades, do some mock drafts, do free agents, all sorts of realistic numbers, you guys know the drill at this point. Ideal offseason, fun stuff. Um, let’s talk about the lottery. It did not go according to plan. If you are a Utah Jazz fan, uh, coach, an executive, no, no, no, no, no. Um, the Jazz were really bad this year. They were the worst team in the NBA, and it was pretty intentional that they were trying to do that. But um the Utah Jazz is one of the what I will call smarter organizations in the NBA. They don’t tend to stay down for very long and they’re very aware of their um environment and their situation. They know they’re Utah, right? They’re not going to get big free agents ever. They know that they have to have strong culture, like strong training systems, like they need to scout and draft well if they want to be good, right? Cuz really the draft is the only way this team gets any better. And so past couple drafts maybe not as good. And so they were kind of like, “Oh, okay.” You know, we’re just kind of waiting for that 1A guy to come around. And they see Cooper Flag. They see Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey, VJ Edgecomb, and they go, “All right, this is it right here. This is our time to strike. We see dudes to go get right there that we think are going to be studs. We’re going to tank.” And they do. And they tank and they tank and they tank. They do everything that they’re supposed to do, right? Including keep some pretty good players on the basketball team because they uh were pretty clear about, hey, like we we’re cool to keep these guys on the team. we don’t need to trade him because we don’t want Cooper Flag to come to this team and just have nobody on his team day one. We want him to have a comfy landing pad. Um and then the lottery happened and the lottery absolutely shafted them. Uh they ended up with the fifth pick and the Mavericks got rewarded for their season and they got the first pick and that’s statistics, right? Um, you know, I always find it really funny the people that like actually believe the lottery is rigged. Like, um, you can actually get a tour of like how the lottery system works and it’s like extremely in-depth and like you might just say, “Well, EVC, that’s on for show. Like, that’s the lotteryy’s rigged. How dare this happen?” Um, you’re you clearly don’t understand how statistics work is what I will tell you. Like, it’s just so funny. Like the lottery every single year is an opportunity for [ __ ] to raise their hand and say, “I don’t actually understand math.” And they’ll shout it really, really loud into the void and we all get to kind of stare back at them. But anyway, the Jazz, you did everything you were supposed to do. You got the fifth pick and it sucks. It really, really sucks. And um we’re we’re going to talk about where where we go from here cuz this is a complicated one. This could have been a really easy video, but instead this is going to be actually one of the more complicated videos. So you guys are going to have to stay tuned. So, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to talk about the roster that they have right now, cuz they actually have 15 guys on the roster currently. There’s no open roster spots. That’s not necessarily what we want. We’ll talk about the cap numbers, the assets that we have to work with, and we’re going to go from there. But anyway, let’s start breaking down the roster. Uh, for any of you that are new, what are these numbers right here? These are EPM numbers, estimated plus minus. Basically, it’s a way of giving a 0 to 100 rating as to how good somebody is at offense, defense, and then overall as a basketball player. I will always tell you statistics do not tell the entire story. It’s never perfect. All right, but EPM probably the best statistic that we have as in as far as rating these things. So, just kind of take that as you will, right? Um it’s a pretty pretty cool thing. It’s a really robust statistic and we just kind of have them on screen to kind of help tell the story of these guys from this last year. Uh first guy on the team, Lowry Markin, our best player. I’ I’ve got him right here right now with the small four. Like, play him at the power forward at the center. I don’t I don’t really care. We’re I’m just trying to display the kind of lineups that we’re working with right now. Uh his new contract is kicking in and it’s rolling, right? Larry Markin, they did not play him very many minutes this last year because they’re like, “Look, this is great that you want to be here, Lowry. Lowry said he likes playing in Utah. This is where he wants to be. Uh the front office loves him there. They gave him the contract. They’re like, “Look, man, we’re probably not going to play you a ton of minutes this year. We’re trying to get you some help in Cooper Flag or something this year.” Offensively, he was still awesome. Defensively, he’s kind of meh. Uh you’ll notice defensively this was just not a thing for this team at all this year. Atrocious on that end of the court. Um Larry Markin kind of just doing his thing out there this year. Still an awesome awesome player. Borderline all-star every year. Not much that this guy can’t do. Uh would have been a really nice piece to have around some stud guy. But uh Larry Markin is here and um we’ll we’ll see how much longer that is. Right. Uh John Collins is on the team. Quietly been just a really nice NBA player for a while now. He does have a player option and that’s going to be an interesting thing for us to kind of uh watch for right here because John Collins has been really awesome offensively for us. Defensively, he’s been above average. He’s one of the top 20 percentile players in the NBA. Pretty damn good player since he got to Utah, right? Just kind of quietly doing his thing out there. He’s got a player option and he’s underpaid. He just is. So, what I imagine is going to happen is he is going to opt out of this contract. And so I think John Collins is gone. I’m down to bring Jon Collins back. I also don’t think we necessarily need to. Uh here’s the thing. Nobody else can really give him the money that he’s looking for unless we execute some sort of signin trade. So maybe we’ll try to explore that this year, but for the time being, this is um this is what we got. So we’ll we’ll we’ll keep John Collins in perspective here. Um but we’ll we’ll we’ll come back to it later. Uh Colin Ston, awesome offensive basketball player, right? Uh Colin Ston gets buckets defensively. Ass, right? Uh the effort’s always good. He just never knows where to be on the basketball court. So that’s a little bit unfortunate, but really really good player. One year left on the deal. Uh probably underpaid as well. Well, maybe not. Like that’s that’s about starter level quality nowadays. It’s kind of crazy to think about, but there he is. Jordan Clarkson. Another good six-man type guy. He’s got one year left on the deal. Not the biggest deal um if we keep him at this point. I mean, he’s been in trade rumors for forever. It’s one year. I don’t know how much people care about Jordan Clarkson at this point, but again, it’s one year left on the deal. Uh KJ Martin, we got him in a trade. Philadelphia did a really smart thing giving him this money at first and then their season went like really poorly. Basically, they paid him like $8 million to use him as a trade asset to try to manipulate the cap and then they ended up having to pay us to take him. Um, so good for us, I guess. But KJ Martin’s contract is non-g guaranteed and uh he’s just not the best basketball player. So, I’m just going to get rid of him. Great athlete. I think he can help somebody out as a reserve, but we don’t need to pay him $8 million. Uh Taylor Hendris, a guy that uh we took in the lottery a couple years ago. Did not play much basketball last year. Don’t even look at these numbers. These numbers mean nothing. Uh he got hurt super early on. We’re hoping that he’s going to come back and be an okay guy for us. We just haven’t seen him play much basketball. We’re accepting his team option. Move on. Cody Williams. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. So, I was I was very like on the fence with Cody Williams going into the draft last year, I was like, “Yeah, I see the potential. Like, I can see how this is going to be a process.” And the more I got into like the draft process last year, I was like, “Oh, yeah, no, this is going to take a little bit longer than I thought.” And you probably saw him slide down my um my board little by little with things. I had him up much higher and then I kind of started moving him down and I was like, “Okay, no, it’s going to take this guy a while. He’s going to be a bit of a project. He’s not a great draft class anyway, so like who cares? Like, just take this guy. you’re shooting for next year’s draft class. Anyway, uh Utah took him and he was statistically the worst NBA player last year. Zero. He was the zero percentile. And uh if you were a Utah Jazz fan, you saw it. It was rough, man. He did not look comfortable out there at all. Um he was a rookie. We knew he was going to be a project, so we’re not tripping about it too much. Let’s hope he comes back and has a better season. Uh Walker Kesler, uh really good basketball season defensively, one of the highest field goal percentage guys out there. good young center that every Lakers fan thinks that they can just steal from the Jazz for whatever reason. We’re not trading Walker Kesler to the Lakers in this video, so chill the [ __ ] out if you think that that’s going to happen. Like here, here’s my thing. Why do the Jazz want to trade him? Good young basketball player. That’s what we want on this team. So, we’re keeping Walker Kesler. Um defensive monster. Uh just good finisher around the rim. Uh Keonte George, such an interesting player. Uh offensively, better than you would think. Kind of this combo guard guy that can shoot a little bit. He can pass a little bit. Like he’s a good athlete. worst defender in the NBA this year. Zero percentile. We’ve already got two guys at zero percentiles in different things on this team. That’s why we’re the worst team in basketball. 17th percentile overall because the defense was so bad. He’s got a team option though and he’s a young guy that you know what? Um why not, right? Like why not why not let it fly with him. So we’re we’re going to be uh we’re going to be bringing back Keonte George cuz again, why not? Uh Safhim Kyuk his contract is nonGaranteed. Um, but good wing that again, not a great defender, but he can space a little bit. He’s got some decent size. I’m just going to guarantee his contract because we could use him in different trades this year anyway. A guy that’s $3 million that can play the wing and shoot a little bit. Somebody’s going to want him in a three-team trade at some point and we can get something for him. So, holding on to him. Kyle Filipowski, another rookie from this last year. Um, offensively, good season. Defensively, he’s not that good. He’s a big man that can’t really rebound right now. Not really a rim defender, by the way. He’s a rookie. We’re not just settling on that, right? We’re we’re hoping he’s going to get better. We’re going to keep developing him, things like that, right? I’m just telling you where he’s at right now. Uh, nobody guarded him this whole season. Dude just got open shot on open shot, and that was definitely to his benefit. He took advantage. One interesting thing, dude likes to run with the ball in transition. He’s actually kind of good at it. So, kind of a surprising thing there. Um, but yeah, he’s on the team and he’s showing a little bit of offense, so let’s just keep running it back with him and see what happens. Um, uh, the Johnny Juang, let’s just keep saying it, can play pretty solid offense, horrendous on defense, 0.5 percentile, horrendous defensively. And yeah, I would agree after watching him, it is rough. Like, uh, same with Colin Ston, right, and Cody Williams and all these other guys, they are not very good at playing defense. Um, and don’t worry, it it it doesn’t get much better either. But I don’t I don’t know why we would need to keep Juen on the team, but I don’t know. He’s there. He doesn’t cost much money anyway. So there he is. Bryce sends a young forward that is showing some cool uh offensive stuff, right? He’s a decent sized wing that’s shooting the three ball. Well, cool. First percentile defensively. Yikes. We got nobody that can play any defense. He’s got a team option though and like we’re not good anyway, so we’re keeping him on the team. Uh then we got Isaiah Kier, one of the more interesting rookies from this last season. Um these numbers look scary. I know it looks like he’s really bad. And at the beginning of the year, he was potentially the worst NBA player in uh before uh even before Cody Williams, but then uh he start they just started throwing him out there because they’re like, “Okay, you know what? We’re trying to lose games anyway, so Isaiah Kier, go out there and do what you got to do.” And he would put up the craziest stat lines. He’d walk away with like 16 points and like 12 assists and like nine turnovers. Like dude is a turnover machine still. He’s such an interesting athlete. I just don’t think his basketball IQ is high at all. like he has such a long way to go in that realm. Like the assists and turnovers just like they’re all really gross. The way he plays is rough for me to watch personally as well, but he’s young and we’re going to try to develop him, right? Cuz he is such an interesting strong and like quick athlete. So, I want to try and see more of it. And again, uh fourth percentile defensively and that’s after a little bit of a jump at the later part of the season. Uh then we got Jaden Springer. He’s here. Um cool, I guess. I look, only 400k is guaranteed here. So, what I’m going to do, honestly, is I’m just going to uh move this over here as uh some money um that we’re just going to keep on our books, and I’m just going to let him go otherwise. I just I just don’t think that there’s really a point uh to keeping him on the roster. I’d rather just have the open roster spots. So, there you go. uh a couple guys technically off the roster already, but um we’re going to we’re going to try to work with that just a little bit more. So, moving over to our salary cap situation now. We’re one of the few teams that actually have cap space to work with. It’s just not a common thing that happens at this point in the NBA. Um if you’re curious about how the cap levels work, you can go watch my Phoenix Suns video. It’s the first video in the series. I explain it in much more depth, but basically four levels to the NBA salary cap. First one, the cap itself. When this number, this 38 million hits zero, you can only resign your own guys for anything more than the minimum contract. We’ve got 38 million to work with, so we can we can do stuff if we want to, right? But that’s um that’s where we’re at right now with things. Um as far as luxury tax base, the next one once this 71 million would hit zero, um basically your team gets a lot more expensive and every single year you’re in, it actually compounds. So kind of scary stuff that the Celtics are going to have to deal with this year. Uh then we have the aprons. These were put in place recently by the NBA to try to stop star players from being traded so much. Um, and it’s it it is kind of working. Like, it is kind of working and it’s balancing out the NBA uh pretty heavily right now, which is kind of cool to see. But basically, once you enter these aprons, it gets way harder to make trades or just make any sort of strategic moves uh across the NBA. And eventually, once you’re in the second apron, basically you better love that team and it better be a contender because you’re not making any moves that aren’t backwards, right? So, kind of a cool thing that the NBA does there. But anyway, we’ve got cap space to work with. That’s not a problem of ours. We’re also not a very good team. Draft pick-wise, we have a couple draft picks this year. The fifth pick, which [ __ ] that sucks, but it is what it is. We got the 21st pick from the Timberwolves. We got a couple of seconds, and we’ve got picks going forward. We got some swap best with Cleveland. We got a couple first round picks in 2031. We’ve got we’ve got assets in the treasure trove. The problem is now um well we’re the Jazz and we don’t exactly have a young guy that we’re trying to build around. You look at some of our young guys here. Cody Williams was just the worst player in basketball. Taylor Hendricks hasn’t shown us much and he’s been injured. Walker Kesler’s cool. He’s not going to be an NBA superstar most likely. Kante George, right? Like all these young guys that we have on the team, we don’t have that stud worth building around yet. And as I mentioned earlier, the only way that this team gets better is going into the draft and finding one, right? And that was supposed to be this year, but it didn’t happen. So, what do we do now is the question. And that’s where it gets complicated, right? Your in my instincts tell me what needs to happen here is we need to kind of do a little bit of a sale again. Like, we don’t have like it’s it’s not worth holding on to Colin Ston at this point. Like, he can’t be a landing pad anymore. Jordan Clarkson can’t be a landing pad anymore. Uh Larry Markin, we’re not going to win any games um anyway, so it’s maybe not worth trading him, but we’ll we’ll explore it at least a little bit. I I don’t really have a feel the need to. We’re going to let the young guys probably play a bunch and we’re going to have to be a bad team again next year. We’re just going to So the goal is going to be try to find some young players, right? Try to accumulate more draft picks again because look, that’s the only way this team goes anywhere. And that sucks that we have to go back to the lottery to try to make it happen. But that’s kind of what we got to do right here. So, there’s going to be some trades that need to happen here and we’re going to try to we’re going to try to figure it out. So, let’s let’s move on to the trades portion of the video. All righty. That brings us back to Fanspo for those of you unfamiliar. Fanso, really cool website where you can do trades, mock drafts, all these other fun things with it. It’s got a whole bunch of tools for you to play with. Um, and by the way, if you skip to this part of the video, you little you little [ __ ] go back and watch the rest. I I look at the analytics. I see that like 65% of you skipped to this part of the video just so you can see the trades. Oh, I’m on TikTok all day ABC and I’ve got no attention span. Just go back. There’s so much context you missed here. And yes, I’m going to be this condescending with it for some reason, even though I’m just sitting alone in a room talking to myself right now. But um here’s here’s what we need to do first. How many roster spots are we actually working with right now? Right. Um, I’m just going to keep this um this 400,000 like right here for the time being so I can put other players here. If we go over to free agency, like obviously we saw we we didn’t have many guys hitting free agency. It’s just Michael Potter who was a two-way guy and then John Collins. Like I’m cool with bringing back Jon Collins, but I want to do it in more so of a signing trade, right? John Collins, good basketball player. Like, and he probably wants his money. Somebody else would like to have John Collins, too. And I just I just don’t need him, right? Like I don’t need to sign him to a four-year deal. That does not make sense for me right now. I have Larry Markin who does everything John Collins does but a little bit better. Right? So I would much rather execute a signing trade for him because somebody will want his talent and I am willing to make it happen. Right? I can take on salary. I can do whatever. I’m down to help mother [ __ ] right? I’m working the streets right now. I I need to help myself. So where can I trade John Collins? Well, one thing we talked about um for uh this video was Walker Kesler. So, we’re not trading him to the Lakers, right? But I can trade John Collins to the Lakers, can’t I? Because John Collins gives a really interesting option. Right now, he’s a power forward, right? And now, some of you struggle to understand that John Collins can also play center if he needs to. 69, 610. Uh, he can rebound a little bit. Um, not a great rebounder. He’s not a great rim protector necessarily, but he can rebound block some shots. Um, catch lob threats or he’s a lob threat. He can also step out and shoot a little bit, which is kind of cool. It’s a little bit of a dynamic thing right there. So, one thing I wouldn’t mind exploring is sending John Collins there, but we’re we’re going to take a look at some other things as well to see where else we can’t send Jon Collins, but let’s just let’s just start off with him as a sign and trade here, right? Um, what could we possibly want from the Lakers to execute a John Collins deal? Well, we said we want young players. Dalton Connect, I see you over here. That could be I I could be down for Dalton Connect. Look, we don’t really have much else going on at the forward position right now. We know Daltton Connect can play offense and he can’t play defense, so he’s going to fit right in on our squad, but I I want to I want to take a look at that. Plus, white guy on the Jazz. We We always take as many white guys as we can on the Jazz. That’s just like a prerequisite for playing here. Um I’m gonna I’m gonna make sure that joke just keeps going. Right. So, we can we can help the Lakers out here, right? Because they’ve got draft picks that they would like to get rid of, right? And they’ve got salary that they’ve like that they would like to shed. Well, I can help you with that cuz I can have bad players this year. I’m not trying to be good this year. So, I feel like Lakers, you and I could help each other out a little bit. So, where do I want to go with this is the question. How do I actually do a signin trade here? Do I have to like release him first? I don’t think I’ve actually done like a signin trade on here. So, let’s uh sign new contract. Contract type. Okay, let me let me figure this out quick. Okay, so let’s just say dude’s getting like 32 million a year. That’s kind of what you go for a player like this at this point. Like 18 points. Maybe maybe we can lower this just a little bit, right, to like a 28 or something cuz he’s not as good as like a Jaylen Johnson and that’s someone he would be compared to. So maybe we say like 27. That that might be the better like number for this cuz again he’s a good basketball player. But someone might say, “Oh, stats are a little bit inflated, right? Like got to prove it on a winning team. He’s not as good as like a Jaylen Johnson and like he makes about 30 million.” So maybe maybe that’s where we throw him more. So So let’s send let’s send him over to the Lakers right here. Uh the first person I would like is Daltton Connect back. Give me back this young guy, right? Give me this young guy. And after that, I really don’t need any more talent, per se. Uh, let’s let’s dump some salary because what I really want are your first round picks right here. I would like your first round picks. Uh, just looking ahead right here. Um, we could take a 2030. We could take a 2030 first round pick or something. So, can I can I even trade this pick? Let me just let me just make sure the rules like apply for this. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Stipen consecutive draft picks would be missing. So, it it has to be the 2031 pick then. Okay, that’s not a big deal. I’ll take it. like I can I can use that for something else. So, we’ll trade that over here. Um I’m down for that. Give me this first round pick. And I know you’re sending DK and him. And uh Lakers fans, yes, you could maybe find a better center in this and maybe we can turn this into a three-teamer somehow, but I basically want to relieve you of some salary so that you can go make some other moves. And maybe already this isn’t the move that you want to make because it’s not a true center, right? Maybe you want someone that’s an actual rim protector because defensively, you know what, they they do struggle a lot, so maybe this isn’t what they want to do. Let me let me talk myself out of this really quick. I I try to make it realistic. I really do. Uh John Collins, who else could use a Jon Collins is the question. That’s that’s something I’d like to know. Do we help like a Boston Celtics like relieve some salary cap space or something? Cuz they’re going to need to do something like that this year. um that’s not going to be a big enough difference them to take on like a John Collins or something, but we should probably revisit this in case we want to take on one of these guys or something. So, we’ll come back to that. Who could use John Collins? Like the Bucks, the Pistons would be kind of an interesting fit there. I don’t think they want to sign someone that long-term to it. Orlando doesn’t really need that, although I would love to see him next to Paulo and Fron. I think that’d be a cool option for them to have. The Hawks don’t need it. The Bulls, Cleveland. No. Like, what good team could use John Collins? I don’t I don’t know. Like, is there a way that we do this with Denver without breaking up these guys? I don’t think so. I can’t imagine that it is. So, I don’t think we can do something like that. And the reason I’m kind of taking my time walking you guys through this is to kind of see the the thought process behind it. All the Timberwolves aren’t going to need it. The Warriors. Warriors could use a little bit of size right here. Are we able to help them out by taking some of their draft picks? Thank you very much. John Collins would be a cool fit in here because he does have some size. They’ve needed a lob threat for forever cuz like Curry and Butler are really good at playing with that. So is Draymond. So I’d be I’d be kind of interested in a Moses Moody a little bit. Do we go after a Jonathan Kaminga? Is that something that we do just to try to bring in some young talent and just take a shot at it? That’s that’s probably what we need to do. Honestly, that’s probably exactly what we need to do. So, okay, let me take a look at this quick. Okay, so I do think we’re going to want to try to do some sort of signin trade here. So, we’re going to give him a standard deal. He’s going to get a 4year. What is he going to get from us? Like 25. Probably 25 right here. $100 million. Like Kaminga, I know he played well at the end there. uh he’s probably going to want a decent amount and you know what? Why the [ __ ] not, right? Like he’s not going to help us win many basketball games anyway, but let’s at least see if he can turn into something. So, uh cuz the potential’s there. The potential’s there and we’re a better developmental team than the Warriors anyway. So, 1 2 3 1 2 3 um give him 25 million. There you go. I think that that’s um more than fine. So, we save that. Okay. Close. What happens now? So, we trade him to the Jazz and assign and trade. You guys get John Collins back in this. And then just Where are we at right now? Where are we at? So, it’s failed. Yep. You have to cut another 7 million. Cool. I’m down to take it. I am down to take it. Um, we’ll just take Moses Moody from you cuz he doesn’t really want to be there anyway. He’s a young guy. Play the guard for us. Who cares? He He’s been wanting to get out of here as well so he can have a chance to develop. We can give you some playing time, my boy. Here you go. Come on over here. Um, and in this case here, am I really getting a draft pick for John Collins? Probably not. Probably not. Where does this How does this help them out salary capwise? Um, it obviously adds money to them because they brought in John Collins, but at least it’s a successful trade. So, I don’t even know if I need to get draft picks for it. I think I’m just fine with having Jonathan Kaminga. That’s better than any draft pick that I could probably get anyway. So, I’m cool with this. I’m cool with this being the first trade right here. And we have the roster space to do it anyway. So, John Collins is now uh Mr. Jonathan Kaminga making 25 1 2 3 1 2 3 million four-year contract cuz why the hell not? And you know what? I’m just going to throw Larry Markin in here. We’re going to let Kaminga play more of a wing position because I just can’t be asked to think of something else for him to do. Um, and then we’re just going to move Juang down here for a Mr. Moses Moody, who I need to add right here. So, let’s add Moses Moody to the team. Cool. He’s now here on the depth chart. We have one roster spot left, but I would like to get rid of some more people, please and thank you. So, let’s try and trade Colin Ston next. I think that that’s the next one to go and do. So, by the way, these are separate trades, but this is the only way that Fan Spell really shows things. Where are we sending Colin Sexton to? We’re sending him to the Magic. They need someone that can go get some buckets and dribble a basketball. So, we’re sending him there because this trade’s been mocked out a thousand times. Send him here. Who do I want back? Um, who do I want back out of curiosity? Like, cuz how much how much do we need to even take on in this? Um, I would like uh Cole Anthony most likely. Uh, do I want Cole Anthony or do I want these other guys to be able to play some point guard? I don’t I don’t know. Do I want to just roll Keonte George out there? I guess Cole Anthony probably just to make the money work if nothing else. How does this work financially in and of itself? It fails cuz you need to cut another 6 million from them. That’s that’s totally fine. I’m not tripping about that whatsoever. Um we’ll just take Gary Harris over here as well. And um yeah, we can we can afford to pay him. It’s not a huge deal. So that works. But can you just take another player back so that um um I don’t have a full roster by the way. We are we are waving him for nothing. So we don’t have KJ Martin on the team anymore. Was there anybody else on here that I needed to uh get rid of? Uh Jaden Springer I can modify. Wave him for a specific amount. There you go. His contract wasn’t guarant Well, actually it was 400k. Um so let’s just fix that really quick. So, we’re going to say um what is it? It’s one year here. Uh wave for remaining amount. So, um I don’t actually know how this works. This is weird. Oh, it’s a little slider right here. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, 400k right there. Cool. Um he’s gone, but 400k is still kind of on there. Um who else do you want? Do you guys want Jordan Clarkson? Are you guys able to even take on Jordan Clarkson? I highly doubt that financially, just doing the math in my head. No. And it’s 12 million still. So, yeah. But I I would have given them to you. I really would have. I promise. Who else can you guys take? You want to take for me or Juang? He can shoot the basketball. There you go. You get Johnny back. So, you get a cheaper Gary Harris. And that still fails. 1.4 million. Okay. Is there somebody cheaper than him that I can give you that I just I just don’t want him on the team. Ah, this that’s annoying. That’s annoying. That’s annoying. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I don’t want to have to sell players necessarily. So, what are we doing with Colin Ston then? I don’t I don’t want to take on this many more players cuz you like have to accept the team option to take Gary Harris on, don’t you? Um, so I just have to take somebody on with more money. That doesn’t really like I don’t need Goabat or Wendell Carter. So, maybe I have to explore something else. I suppose I can send Colin Sex into the Heat. They could use a point guard and I could take back Terry Rosir in some sort of pick. It’s not the worst thing in the world. I guess that’s not a bad way to do it. So, let’s let’s do something like this. So, Colin Saxon goes over the Heat. They get a point guard that they can use for a little bit. It’s maybe not their best option possible, but maybe the other ones didn’t work out. Um, you send Terry Rosir over here because we can afford it. And then what? We get like a second round pick or something. I think that that’s probably fair. Give us this 2031 second round pick over to the Jazz. This should financially work. And it does. Cool. I’m I’m fine with that. I’ll take on a little bit of money and get rid of Colin Sex. And it’s a one-year deal as well. They need him. I get another draft pick. Cool. Um, what other picks? So, I need to add this 2020 or 2031 pick. It’s a swap. So, we now have another 2031 second round pick. Colin Ston is now Terry Rosir, which like whatever. I don’t really care that much. We throw Moses Moody right here and do something like this. Johnny Juang is still on the team. whatever. Um, oh, I didn’t put Jordan Clarkson on here either. Okay, so this is now Jordan Clarkson and then Juang goes here and then screw it. We’re going to throw Terry Rosier as backup point guard. I’m going to let Keonte George kind of run the show first. Okay, so that’s fine and dandy. I’m getting more expensive, obviously. So, I’m over the cap now. As long as I don’t go into luxury tax, that’s all I care about. Who else do we want to get rid of on this team? I don’t really care about having uh Jordan Clarkson on the team. We added Kaminga and Moody, which is cool. We got some young guys. Is there anyone else we wouldn’t mind getting rid of? Well, we have to move some of these picks. Uh who could use some second round picks right now? So, here’s what I want to do. Let me duplicate this tab right here. Let’s go to draft order. Like, who’s a a team that needs like cheap ways to fill out uh the back half of their roster? I think like the Denver Nuggets, right? like they’re in a rough uh situation there. Can we take on some salary from them uh in in exchange for something else? Cuz like what do the Nuggets have in terms of picks? Do the Nuggets have any picks whatsoever? Um I don’t see a first round pick and then do they not have a second round pick either? Is that real? Have I Have I just like not noticed that the Nuggets have nothing this year? So, let me take a look at this. That’s not what I want to see. I want to see the draft. They’ve got no picks this year. Okay, Denver, we’re getting you guys on the phone next cuz you guys would love to have some draft picks. Um, so I need to sell these and I’d like something in the future from you in order to uh kind of make this happen. What could we give Denver to help them? Jordan Clarkson potentially. Um, but do they have something that we could give? I’m trying to think. What could we give them that’s going to be beneficial to them? Like I I immediately look at like Zeke Naji, right? Like we could take we could save them from Zeke Naji because we’re trying to suck right now anyway and we just we don’t care. And I want that first round pick. Uh they might say that first round pick um is too valuable. We got to get like a stud for it or something. Well, what they really need to do is relieve themselves of some salary cap space right here and get under these um get under these aprons. Um, do we really have something that we could give them though? That’s the question. Cuz like Simma Kyug, not necessarily, right? Um, what do these picks look like? They’re not giving us anything for these second round picks right here. There’s just there’s no point. They can’t give us anything back that we would want necessarily. So maybe Denver isn’t the option. What’s another like team that could use some second round picks? What is Phoenix working with in terms of picks? They’ve got the 52nd. Obviously, they need cheap people on their roster. We need to look at better teams, right? Like Cleveland, how many picks do they have this year? They’ve got one that they can use. The Celtics, no. The Knicks, no. They’ve got enough young guys on the team. The Pacers, uh, what are the Pacers working with draft pick-wise? They’ve got one. This is This is where it gets complicated, right? The Bucks even have one. H, this is hard. I really want this like Denver Nuggets one to work. I’m just I’m trying to legitimately think about how we could do this cuz I just don’t know. I’m trying to find another team that needs our second round picks, too, because like we just we don’t need it. We’ve got one roster spot left. I’d like to use these first round picks that we have here for something else, but I just I don’t know what it is. And that’s that’s what I’m struggling so hard to figure out right now. Like the Clippers don’t have really any draft picks. They’ve got even they’ve got a couple. It’s um this is such an interesting predicament I found myself in. And this is kind of the the thing that we talk about in the videos sometimes where having too many picks is actually a problem because they actually you lose a little bit of value in them because people know that you have to get rid of them at a certain point because you can’t roster everybody with them, right? So there’s part of me that’s like, are we facilitating a Giannis deal somehow in this? But what would we want out of a Giannis deal, right? Like let’s just say he was going to the Spurs or something like that. Um, the third team getting involved would almost certainly be like the Pelicans instead of us because they can give them their draft picks back. But how do how do I want to go about this is the question. I don’t know. I don’t know. I need I I almost need this to be a live stream or something so that uh you guys can help me out with this or something and uh uh just hypothesize with me. Um like again, Orlando does not need the picks. They have too many themselves. Cleveland. Um I just I don’t know. I really don’t know cuz like Cleveland needs to get cheaper, but they already have two second round picks. Like I I want to take some salary from them in some capacity. I just um I don’t understand how I’m going to do that necessarily cuz like I wouldn’t mind taking an Isaac Aoro and just kind of taking a a chance on him or something, right? Uh maybe they don’t want to pay Max Strus anymore. Like I don’t really care if I have Max Strus on the team. Like I guess what about like the Heat? I mean Heat are obviously already trying to win all the time. They don’t have any second round picks. Is there another way that I could save them some salary or something? And what what else do they what else could they give me? Okay, maybe the Heat is the answer. Maybe I don’t need another team here. Maybe there’s more to this Colin Ston deal that I haven’t thought about. So what if I send you over the second round pick? So we’re giving you quite a bit of uh stuff right now. And what else? They gave me this 2031 round two swap. Give us a first round pick almost now. And we’ll take another bad contract from you maybe. Can we take Duncan Robinson as well? Where are we at salary capwise? 27 million. We can get them uh below a certain threshold, can’t we? Or would we rather take on like a Kyle Anderson or something? We’ll take on maybe Kyle Anderson. Duncan Robinson’s at least somewhat useful to you. So trade Kyle Anderson over here. And that saves you quite a bit of money. Let me just try this trade really quick. Okay, that saves them $16 million. And where does that put them now? They now have tax space. Wow. Okay, they’ve got 26 million before the tax even. So that frees them up to make some other type of move potentially. Okay, that’s that’s not the worst thing in the world. That is not the worst thing in the world for this group. Is that enough for them to give us like a protected first round pick or something? Because we gave them some seconds this year, too, that they can use on the back half of their stuff to help fill out their roster potentially. Right. Potentially. So, they’ve got this 20th overall pick here. We’ve got the 21st. Okay. So, maybe what we do is we take this protected like 2029 pick or something. I don’t know cuz like Colin Saxon is not exactly a huge answer to them. Is it? I don’t I don’t necessarily feel like it. I don’t want to record this video forever, but this is a tough one. This is a tough one for sure. For sure. Um, I’ll think it through. All righty, y’all. I think I figured out what I want to do. I know I’ve gone back and forth a lot, but I want to show the complexity of all this stuff right here. Uh, so I called up the Dallas Mavericks because I realized and where did I send Oh, I sent the picks to the wrong place. That’s my bad. That’s my bad. That’s my bad. Everybody calm calm the f down. Calm the f down. Let’s do this really quick. So, what did I do? Mavericks only had one pick. They’ve got expensive guys on the team. They’re going to try to make more moves. They’re going to try to be good this year, right? They’re going to get Cooper Flag this year. They had no second round picks. You can go get some cheap guys with these picks right here to fill out your roster. Um, give me something interesting back in Max Christie. I’m down for that. Uh, and you save some money in this move, which again gives you more flexibility to go add another good player that you want to your roster. I think that this works out for everybody, right? They just don’t need Max Christie at this point. They’ve got plenty of other people at positions like that. So, give me Max Christie. Uh, give me these young guys to try to mess around with. He showed some interesting stuff this last year. So, I got Juang off the roster, which is what I wanted to do. Uh, so now I have Max Christy, which cost me a little bit more money, but not the biggest deal in the world. And he’s going to be my new starting shooting guard. And I don’t have a picture for him at all because why would I? All righty, that issue has been resolved. So, we no longer have those pics. We went and got Max Christie. Cool. This basketball team is not really winning basketball games this year, right? I think we’ve kind of determined that, but we’ve got at least some pieces that we’re trying out while we’re tanking, right? And I think that that’s kind of the stage that we want to be at right now. Uh so we still only have one roster spot available. Uh Simma Kyug’s contract wasn’t guaranteed. So guess what? He’s gone now. I don’t actually end up needing Kyug. He’s gone. We move these guys up and this sets us up for the draft, y’all. We got two roster spots left. Looks like we’re not going to be doing much in free agency in this one, but um yeah, let’s um let’s let’s move on to the draft. Alrighty, so fano mock draft. Obviously, it’s going to run the whole thing for us, and we’ve now got the fifth pick. And this is this is interesting, right? Um I didn’t talk about this in the trade part of the video, and I wanted to save it for now. The fifth pick, this is a complicated thing, right? Because we wanted it to be a top four. or ABC. Why didn’t she try to trade into the top four? I just I don’t think it’s going to happen, right? I I really don’t think it’s going to happen. So, just looking at it, Dallas is taking Cooper, right? That’s that’s pretty clear and evident. The Spurs, if they are going to trade the pick, they’re going to want an absolute stud for it, like a Giannis or something. Otherwise, I think they take an Ace Bailey or Dylan Harper. I don’t know how Dylan Harper went fourth in this one, but you know, whatever. Um, so I I just think that this is how um I I just think that’s how the Spurs would operate. the Sixers. This is a perfect opportunity for them to add an elite talent for cheap because they have an expensive team right now and the Hornets need young talent, so they’re not trading. So, we’re stuck. Otherwise, I would have just I would have shelled out whatever to get a top four pick this year. Otherwise, like if the Spurs want to take my call on Lowry Markin for the second overall pick, like I’m I’m down to have that talk. Like, I really really am. And maybe that is something that they’re interested in, but I just have to imagine they’re going for something more. Like I I just I really really do. So that leaves us here with the fifth pick. And who do we who the hell do we want is the question. Who the hell do we want? Well, um I’m looking at the roster right now and I see a couple options, right? And it’s these three guys right here. Uh Trey Johnson, elite elite score. Doesn’t do much else on the basketball court right now, but interesting upside as an elite level score. Come on. Malawatch could be an awesome defensive center for a long time. going to take a little while to develop. We’ve got time to develop them. And then Kasparus Yakonis here, probably the best playmaker in this draft. Probably a a day one starter in the NBA. Extremely good passing vision. Uh pretty good at getting himself some separation. Good three-point shooter. To me, I look at the roster and I say we’ve got defensive young center already. I’m I’m cool with keeping him around. Uh we’ve got Lowry Markin, a guy that can go get buckets. Jonathan Kaminga is going to be wanting to go get buckets and do some things. Max Christie, I’m honestly hoping can go get some buckets. And Keonte George, I wouldn’t mind just having him play a different position or something. We’ve got scorers on this team or guys that are going to try to score the basketball right here. In my mind, let’s go get a guy in Yakonis who maybe he won’t be an elite scorer in the NBA right away, but he should be a good playmaker. And guess what? We’re going to have guys for him to pass to day one. And we’re we’re hoping for a lottery luck next year. Maybe we get one of those guys. It’s like Darren Peterson and AJ Debansza Debotanza. I don’t know how the hell to say his name. um we’re going for one of those guys next year and somebody’s going to need to feed them the basketball, right? So, in my mind, we take Yakonis with um the the fifth pick in um this draft. We added a white boy to the Utah Jazz. A tale as old as time. Okay, so there there’s Yakonas. We got our white boy after all. Great, great, great, great, great. Um so, we got a playmaker. Hopefully, our point guard for the future. I think he starts day one. Like, I really do. I think he’s that good of a player. Uh no, nothing against uh Trey Johnson and Malawatch. I think they’re good options, too. But um that’s what we got. As far as uh the next pick that we have, which is pick uh 21 here, best available, man. We’re just going for best available talent at this point cuz uh we’re we’re swinging for upside, right? We’re swinging for upside. So, who is here? And obviously probably not a point guard cuz we just took a point guard. Um I see Nick Clifford. I see Ben Sif. Will Riley Boogie Fland just pulled himself out of the draft. Uh, Janai Broom, Noah Penda. I actually find Noah Penda to be extremely intriguing. Um, I don’t know if his video is out at the time I’m releasing this. Again, I’m pre-recording so much of this stuff right now. So, I I don’t know where my videos are at at this point. I’ll figure out the logic of them later, but I think I want to swing for upside again. And honestly, I think I’m going to take his teammate and Will Riley here. Really good athlete. He’s able to handle the ball a little bit, right? Uh we kind of well we potentially potentially swung and missed on uh Cody Williams this last year. We’re not so sure. We don’t we’re not so sure about Bryce Senza or Cody Williams. Um and look like we’ve got other guys that’ll be able to play the wing as well and Williams and Kaminga and stuff or the forward spots as needed here. But I think I just want to go for like upside and talent here. And this is a 68 guy with good athleticism that can shoot a little bit and put the ball on the floor a little bit. We’ve got a good developmental program. So, I think I just want to take Will Riley here and go home with two Illinois boys in my pocket. So, we’re adding Will Riley here, who will be making this much money. Uh, he’s the fourth pick and he slides in uh as this backup guy right here probably right away. So, there we go. Um, yeah, that’s the draft right here. We added two Illinois guys. Um, there’s there’s not going to be a free agency part of this video, which is okay because we took forever on the trade part of the video. I’m not really tripping about that. Um, so already this is your 2025 2026 Utah Jazz. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. So, let’s let’s talk about what we what we did here because we did a lot of different things here. A lot. First things first, we didn’t really give up anything major in terms of draft capital, which is good. This team is going to stink again next year, and it has to because that’s the only way we’re getting talent. But what we did do is we got rid of some unnecessary vets at this point. Um, and we added some young talent that we’re just we’re going to try, right? We’re going to give them the chance to explode, right? Some of all these guys that we’ve kind of added, they’ve been waiting for a chance. And so, this is their chance in the NBA. Um, Kante George and stuff is still going to get a chance. I Terry Rosier, we might just buy him out at a certain point of the year, right? Like I that that totally could happen here. Like we’re probably just going to tell him, “Hey, you’re not playing.” So, yeah, you tell us what you want to do, right? Maybe he gets bought out. Uh, Max Christie, we’re giving you a chance to be great. Kaminga, we’re gonna give you a chance to be great, right? Like Taylor Hendricks, you’re gonna get your minutes. Hopefully, you’re healthy this year. Moody, you get a chance to be great. Jordan Clarkson, you might not even really get to play this year either. We might buy your ass out, too. Not so sure. Uh Will Riley, Cody Williams, Senzos, show us why you’re the guy of the future, right? You get your chance. Yakonas, you got guys to pass to right away. You got lob threats, you got bouncy dudes, guys that can shoot potentially. Cool. You got some options for us. Kante George, become a better uh defensive player. Isaiah Kier, just stop being so damn goofy out there and figure it out. But no, he’s a young player. We’re we’re giving him the exception. So, we’re just we’re trying things, right? Because we didn’t get what we wanted this year. We know we have to wait longer. So, let’s just start trying some things now. Maybe we get lucky and we get the first overall pick. We get Deanza or however the hell you say his name. AJ, the BYU kid, and he’s already got an elite playmaker helping him out day one. So, we got a guy like that. We’ve got someone in Will Riley we’re developing. Walker Kesler’s still a good young player that we’re working with. And we’ve got Lowry marketing to take the scoring pressure off of people this year. And um he gets to make his money and live in Utah cuz that’s what he wants to do, which good for him, man. We’re not in the luxury tax, which is perfect. Um a lot of long-term money is going to come off as soon as like this next year, which is perfect cuz we want to probably keep Walker Kesler around as long as we can. And we didn’t commit to anything too crazy, man. If Kaminga doesn’t get good, we’re not going to be good most like we’re not going to be title contenders in the next four years anyway. So, who the hell cares, right? Um, but yeah, this is what we got right now. And I’m I’m okay with this, man. I really am. I wish it was better. I wish this was one where we were taking Cooper Flag. And we’re like, okay, like, let’s just let’s get the landing pad ready. Year one Cooper Flag. We’re off to greatness now. But we’re not. And this is this is kind of where we’re at for the time being. And um that’s going to have to be what it’s going to be. But seriously, I appreciate you guys as always for watching. Uh let’s move on to the comment of the video. All righty. comment to the video is coming from the uh postNBA lottery mock draft right here. As always, go watch the rest of the ideal offseason videos and the um the do they fit in the NBA series. They’re a lot of fun. But um I found a comment that I thought was super fitting for this video right here. Where did it go? Here we go. Uh from Ryan G850, he he’s I guess a Jazz fan or something. He said, “I think the Jazz have to take Yakonis. Check.” And more or less swing for the fences. Check. Uh, let him be your primary ball handler. Let Keante George be your two. Did you spell his name wrong? I don’t even know. Um, but yeah, we could very well let that happen and see if you might be able to build something out of those two. Markin and Collins, for the time being, we were able to move him on. And Kesler trade ston for the love of God. Done. Check mark. In a perfect world, Cody Williams becomes an efficient 3D small for. But I don’t see that happening. Maybe not me either. We’re not going to give up on him though. Um, I just don’t think they have another option that raises their ceiling as much as Yakonis could potentially. I don’t see this core being contenders at any point, but it could at least make them relevant again. Well said. First of all, I appreciate when you guys actually comment something and put some real thought behind it. So, thank you very much for doing that. It’s rarer than you might actually believe it is. But I love comments like this. Like, I really do like I I love the discussion that we can have here. And uh really like get your thoughts out there, talk about it, learn from each other, right? Like share opinions. That’s that’s what all this is about. So, I’m glad that we uh that we got the chance to do that with this. So, thank you very much. Uh just a quick reminder, uh go join the Discord down below. That’s how you can get the ideal offseason spreadsheet. Join it here and then go to the announcements channel and you can download the sheet for free there. It’s really, really cool. And then, as always, leave me a comment. I respond to every single one. Um and maybe you’ll be coming to the video. But anyway, your boy’s got to keep getting recordings done cuz he’s got to get some traveling done. So, I appreciate you guys as always. Talk later. Bye. Heat. Heat. [Music]

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————————————————Video Contents————————————————
00:00 – Intro
01:35 – Team Breakdown
17:12 – Trades
39:58 – Draft
47:47 – Comment Of The Video