The Utah Jazz have a PROBLEM

The Utah Jazz have a PROBLEM

All right, guys. The Utah Jazz have a problem. They got to figure it out. Let’s talk about it. It’s the Hoops Nerd Show. [Music] All right, guys. Before we get into this, make sure you like the video, subscribe to the channel. Okay, so as of doing this video, it is 10:48 Mountain time as I just hit record and we do not have a John Collins trade. We do know that John Collins is being shopped around. The latest from Jake Fiser is that the Miami Heat are the most likely team and that makes sense. So, we’ll see if that actually happens. But there’s a problem and it portends other problems for the Utah Jazz. Basically, the $26.6 million that John Collins is going to make this upcoming season makes it extremely hard to trade that contract. The new CBA, the new contracts, it is extremely restrictive. The NBA is becoming more and more and more like the NFL where teams have to be extremely smart with their contracts. It’ll be interesting to see how these the CBA evolves in the future. Do they do things like like a franchise tag and things like that? I don’t know. But it’s really tough to make trades right now. Really tough. That’s why Utah waved Jordan Clarkson. And it’s why the return they got for Colin Ston was not as much as as you think. And when you consider how hard it is to make these trades, the fact that the Jazz got a a expiring contract in exchange for Colin Ston was massive. Massive. And honestly, you could argue that Charlotte did not have the center depth to make that move, which is probably why they required at least something in that trade. So, you know, not very likely we’re going to see something with John Collins. We could look at contracts for Miami and you can let me know in the comments what you think. You know, something like Terry Roier I saw from the video before from people and something else. But then you may be bringing on contracts, you know, that last after next season. And we know that the number one goal for Utah this upcoming season is to play the youth. That is it. To play their core players. The question is who is a part of that? Clearly John Collins, Colin Ston, and Jordan Clarkson are not part of the future. That’s why they’re trading them. My prediction is that they will just end up buying out John Collins and he may go somewhere for like the MLE. But Utah doesn’t have to do that. They may just say go home. Like maybe Utah doesn’t want to help out the Lakers, right? If John, we know that the Lakers have had interest in John Collins and Danny A and Austin A and Xanic and Smith and everyone might be saying, you know what, we’re not just going to do this and do a favor for the Lakers. Maybe they hold on to John Collins until uh trade deadline and make a move then. In all likelihood, that’s what we see uh with any trades with this Jazz team. they do want to trade Markin or Kesler. I’m not sure. But that brings us to the problem that I’ve been worried about and we saw the problem already manifest itself with Larry Markin. But these contracts are lower for these players. what we’re seeing with the, you know, we’re seeing big time like massive contracts for say Shay Gilis Alexander, but for the nons superstars, the middle class of the NBA, much like America, is shrinking. It is shrinking. You’re seeing smaller contracts, surprisingly small. Teams don’t have cap space. They can’t just go over the cap. They can’t just make moves either. like teams that are competing that are over the tax limit, they can only do things like trade one for one. And so it makes it extremely hard for some of these competing teams when they can’t even compile contracts together to make a trade. It just makes it extremely difficult. And so it’s why this free agency period, the biggest move is probably the Milwaukee Bucks signing Miles Turner. Like is that probably the most surprising move? Maybe besides Utah trading Colin Ston for and giving a pick to move it at least it wasn’t a first like you know Derek Favers which makes that Derek Favorvers trade look even worse now to be honest but uh yeah Utah needs to be very careful because you give these middle class like honestly you’ve got your rich contracts and the rich contract for Utah is Lowry market and good luck trading it because what’s going to happen is these bigger big-time contracts for the stars are going to be huge. And then you’re going to have a lot of contracts that are extremely careful how they keep their cap flat because it’s a weird situation, guys, with the money because the the the m the TV money came in, the salary cap is going to rise. So, that is definitely something that’s going to happen. But it is so restrictive once those contracts are out. It’s tough to make it work. And if you give a bad contract, you are punished even more now. And I’m sure Utah’s trying to figure out a way to take advantage of a team in that situation. But we already saw that one team out there made a change based off of a a decision that didn’t work out. The Milwaukee Bucks, they waved and extended Damen Lillard to give themselves the space for Miles Turner, but they’re kind of done now. That’s it. So, you know, Utah is going to have to find a partner out there. The type of team that probably wants Jon Collins is a team that’s in that’s competitive, but then a lot of those teams that are competitive for playoffs and beyond don’t have contracts to just kind of make it work. It’s kind of like player for player. And Utah is not looking to get back another guy. Like if you go make a trade with, you know, the Minnesota Timberwolves, if you’re making a move with them, you’re bringing back a player that has multiple years on their deal, that’s going to take minutes from Utah’s young players. So, they’re not going to want to do that. They want to develop their youth. Utah wants to keep their pick. The bottom eight protection on it is incredibly uh important to watch this season. Utah is going to do two things. They’re playing to win, like they said, not tanking, but they’re playing to win. But one way, it’s clear what they’re doing right now. They’re going to do that with their young core. And I, you know, I need to talk about that in another video. But Utah is going to have, you know, their best player will likely be Lowry Markin if he’s on the team. You could argue possibly Walker Kesler. And then they’ve got a lot of youth on this team that they’re going to want to play. and a lot of young players is great for development. It does not lead to a lot of wins. It’s clear that’s what Utah wants to do. And then as they get better and better, then they’ll start to improve and improve. And who knows, maybe Ace Bailey has a rookie of the year campaign this year. We’ll see. Hopefully, cuz you want him to be a star, but it’s going to be difficult, guys. And that’s the other problem. And the other issue is that you’re looking at what’s happened with Larry Markin that makes him extremely difficult to trade. I mean, the rumor out there is San Antonio, and I’ve heard people on different places mention maybe Indiana. We’ll see. Although Indiana did not want to resign Miles Turner. They are as cheap as they come. So, we’ll see. Maybe Indiana puts some contracts together and finds a way to maybe trade for John Collins. Uh, I could see that happening actually with that Miles Turner money gone. The word on the street is that he was offered three years 60 million for Turner. That’s why he went to Milwaukee. So maybe they can figure something out to get John Collins. But if Utah actually wants to trade Lowry Markin and you know, which in a lot of ways makes sense, Utah keeps their top eight pick if they do that pretty assuredly. And it also clears room for someone like Taylor Hendrickx. You know, Taylor Hendricks this upcoming season, if Lowry Markin’s on the team, is likely coming off the bench. Um, but if you trade Lowry Markin, then you’re probably giving starting minutes to Taylor Hendricks at the four and probably, you know, Utah can keep or trade Walker Kesler, but if Kesler is playing, he’s obviously going to start and then that puts Ace Bailey at the three. Clear runway to to minutes. So, what we’re learning with both the John Collins contract, the Lowry Marketing contract is these are just so much harder to trade now. So much harder to trade. My prediction is the Jazz are likely going to buy out John Collins, but they, you know, they’ve got some decisions to make here with Walker Kesler. I think they’re going to probably eventually buy him out. The fact that nothing’s happened yet, though, makes me think that there might be some things out there teams are trying to figure out. We’re in the latter stages now of free agency. A lot of teams have spent their wad and there may be teams trying to figure something else out. What we’re learning, yeah, like I said, the Lowry marketing contract 46 million extremely even more difficult than John Collins to trade. Utah trades uh Lowry Markin. You know, I was looking at it like a San Antonio trade is like you’re probably bringing back. Sorry guys, they’re not getting Dylan Harper. I know some people talked to me about that on on socials. Sorry, they’re not trading uh Dylan Harper. I personally think it would be a dream if the Jazz could somehow get Stfan Castle and you know, but then you’ve got to bring back someone like Harrison Barnes and Harrison Barnes, if the Jazz get him, he’s going to play. Now he’s 33 and maybe Utah can find a way to move him to someone else. I don’t know. But that’s difficult because Lowry Markinham makes $46 million. And I tell you what, I was nervous about that contract be before. It didn’t make sense to me before because they didn’t hardly play him last year. And now they’re trying to clear the deck. Austin A is coming in and he is doing the right thing finally and that’s play the youth. Go with the youth and just build through the draft, which is what the Jazz need to do. Especially when you consider this CBA and how tough the contracts are. you need to build through the draft because guess what? When you’re in the draft and playing players through the draft, you’re getting rookie scale contracts that make it much easier to to have that middle class of players. But once that rookie hits that long-term scale, it’s a problem. It’s a lot. And that’s what’s coming up with Walker Kesler. as of today, July 1, the Utah Jazz, it’s today, can give an extension to Walker Kesler, unless I’m reading everything wrong. I was looking through everything. They haven’t done it. Kind of an interesting sign. Haven’t, you know, with Lowry Markin, they bragged and they bragged last season like, “Oh, it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen. All these people talking about rumors unless they give us a crazy offer.” Well, I tell you what, right now, and Tim McMahon talked about this, the Jazz probably regret it. It we were those who were like protrading marketing were right. It did not make sense. And Utah is now paying for it. You cannot just give these contracts willy-nilly. I know some people are very pro- giving Walker Kesler money, and you just saw, you know, Miles Turner made like 30 million a year or something like that with the with the Bucks. you the money that was given to Hardenstein in Oklahoma City like 25 to 30 million and I know the cap is rising but you’re going to give $30 million to a center who is good Kesler is a starting caliber center no question he’s not an all-star though he is a starting caliber center very good defensive player rim protector he also shoots 50% from the free throw line so you cannot not trust him to end games. It will be Hacka Kesler. He is not a spread big. His offensive game game is rolling to the basket and doing offensive and getting offensive rebounds. That’s that’s his offensive game. And I mean, he has better hands than Rudy Gobear. He can do a little bit, but it’s not it’s not like extensively better. You know, we saw some pretty rough moments last year. you know, all you hoops nerds were watching. It got a little ugly at times with him trying to score around the basket. It was not the most fluid thing. So, that’s a lot of money for Walker Kesler. He may be worth it. He may be worth it. But then you’re looking at 46 million for Lowry Markin. That’s like 30 something million for Walker Kesler. And that would start I I don’t know enough about the contracts, but that would be kind of after the next season. Utah made it very clear when they let go of Jordan Clarkson and Colin Ston, those were expiring contracts. The reason that waving Jordan Clarkson is not a bad move is it was expiring. They don’t have anyone come on their books. Utah was not going to trade Jordan Clarkson, his value was purely in that he was an expiring contract. The only reason any team would trade for Jordan Clarkson is to offload a bad one. you know, some bad contract out there that a team regrets. Like, are you really gonna want to bring on Bradley Beal? No, you are not. And that’s just dead money on your cap. Very NFL. You just have dead money. The difference between the NFL and the NBA is in the NBA, you can’t just cut a player. In the NFL, they have, you know, guaranteed contracts and a hard cap, but you can just wave guys. Everything is guaranteed money and non-g guaranteed money. Uh, you know what I mean? And you always find out, well, what’s the guaranteed money when they sign a new player? For the NBA, sorry, I gota sneeze. I I don’t even know if I’m going to edit that out. But in the NBA, it’s different. It’s all guaranteed, right? I mean, there’s sometimes in contracts they do non-g guaranteed and you’ll have like the final year be like team option and things like that, but it’s not like the NFL where it’s just cutthroat and if a player, you know, has a season ending industry in injury, they’ll just cut you. The NBA is not as as uh cutthroat. It’s just you have a player for four years, you have a player for four years. And now with the hard cap, it’s difficult. It is unforgiving. So, if you’re giving $30 million to a player, and that’s not max money, but that’s your middle class money, and it’s kind of something that people are going to be talking about more and more. I think middle class money in the NBA is valuable. And I guess, you know, maybe you can talk yourself into like Walker Kesler is kind of that middle class. And when I say middle class, that’s like starting caliber player, right? They’re not your main guy. They’re not your superstar, but they are one of your core starters. And so I guess you could look at that. But the question is, you know, here’s the thing. And back to my point before, I wanted to sneeze. I don’t sneeze. Uh Utah made it very clear they want cap space after next year. It’s pretty clear that Utah is going to go for it after next season. So Utah is going to get a bottom eight pick this year. They’re going to go for it. And please, I tell you what, guys, some of the stats for Darren Peterson are just, he’s unreal. He is unreal. You’re talking about a guy that’s like 70% true shooting percentage. Like his numbers at the rim are bonkers and then he’s a 40 plus% three-point shooter. And his handle and size, it it’s very SGA like it’s pretty incredible. He is like a for sure star. And then you look at AJ Debonsa who you know he’s playing pretty well with the9s maybe struggling a tiny bit but then there’s other guys like Camboozer too like Camboozer’s shooting 40 plus% from three. He is crushing it at the rim. He’s just an absolute beast. And then the def the defensive stuff from Camboozer is like I mean there’s a reason why people are kind of saying like modernday Tim Duncan with you know three-point it’s crazy. It’s such a good draft. You can’t go wrong. And so Utah’s going to be in on that. They want that. It’s why they’re going to wave Jordan Clarkson. If they don’t find a trade partner, just book it. Let’s hope they find a trade partner, but it has to work with Utah training, like playing their youth, training the youth, developing the youth, whatever you want to call it, next season. And so, yeah, I just Utah is going to after next season, let’s say they win the lottery and we’re lucky this time and they get like surprisingly Debonsa’s there and Boozer’s there and they pick Darren Peterson. I don’t know, who knows? Or Boozer or Donsa or maybe Mikuel Brown’s looking just pretty remarkable right now. Whatever. They pick one of these guys and guess what? They have cap space. And teams with cap space right now to me there are so many poorly teams so poorly run. Utah has to be careful if they have cap space you might be able to get someone surprising. You know I know the history of the Utah Jazz like what’s their best free agent signing like like Boon Bdanovic Bogey probably. I guess you could argue it was Carlos Boozer or whatever. I believe he was a free agency site. I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure it’s like Carlos Boozer. Let me know in the comments if I’m wrong. You might get someone surprisingly good like because no other teams can actually do it cuz Utah has cap space and can say, “Hey, Ace Bailey turned out like what if Ace Bailey’s rookie of the year and Utah wins the lottery and then has cap space?” I mean, things get pretty crazy pretty fast. Now, that’s like a lot of like pie in the sky. Let’s hope so. But if Ace Bailey is great, if uh Walt Clayton is really good and you have cap space after next season, let’s say you win the lottery, you got like Camboozer on your team and he’s just an absolute beast next to Ace Bailey and you’ve got your two superstars. you’ve got your two big-time money guys and you need to build out a middle class and you can go out and get like, you know, there might be someone I I’m telling you guys, there might be someone on the market that you’d be surprised like give restrictive money. I don’t know. It’s pretty impressive stuff. And then the other thing is that you can just do trades and create trade exceptions and things like that. So, you could bring on guys with bad contracts that are like good players, but other teams can’t afford it and they don’t want to pay the luxury. You know what I mean? There might be rookies that the Jazz really like that are too expensive. Like the guy I love is Jarus Walker on Indiana. I would love to get him on the Utah Jazz somehow, you know? And can you give a crazy offer that someone like Indiana’s not going to pay? Maybe. You know what I mean? So, it’s pretty impressive stuff. You know, the biggest acquisition was like Miles Turner and he’s a good starting center that can stretch the floor. Something that Utah would, I bet, would really love to do, you know. So, it’s something to think about. Utah has to be extremely careful. You can’t It’s not like the former CBA where you could just like make a a signing and say, “We’ll figure it out later.” Not a lot of figuring it out later. It’s like you are stuck. You made your bed. You got to sleep in it. And Utah has to be careful. All right, guys. Like and subscribe to the channel. Thank you so so much to the the members of the channel, especially the allstars guys. But I will talk to you tomorrow doing videos every

NBA Free Agency is moving along and we’re still waiting for a John Collins trade but nothing has happened. We’ll see if they end up doing a contract buyout for Collins like they did with Jordan Clarkson.

That said, the Utah Jazz have some things they’ve learned with Lauri Markkanen and Walker Kessler. Are they walking into a terrible decision?

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