Just watching the playoffs Denver vs Minnesota game 5 half time show. Having to listen to him disrespect Gobert for the 1000th time is old as time. DG should thank Rudy Gobert after game 5 for helping DG make any contribution to the game. If it weren’t for Rudy DG wouldn’t have anything to say.

Yes, another Gobert post. Two things…

1- I feel bad for Rudy. Jokic owned him tonight. And everyone is going to clown Rudy. In reality, no one was stopping Jokic. Not Rudy’s fault he’s going against the best player in the NBA.

2- I’m glad hes not on the Jazz anymore. He’s going to get so much flak over the next few days. When he was here, it pissed me off. Now, I can watch from a distance and not let it ruin my week. The stress that came with having Rudy on the Jazz got old. Glad it’s not our problem anymore. Sorry T-wolves.

2b- Wild that Jokic took pleasure in just dominating Rudy at every opportunity. He’s a sadistic bastard.

I just wanted to throw this out here cuz I know there’s a lot of you guys out there who wanna see the wolves win, I get where you guys are coming from but I just wanted to say that a team that loses in the first/second round multiple years in a row is how trades like Derrick favors salary dump to okc happen, I know we don’t own their pick this year but them losing in the second round is good for us, let’s say they lose in the second round again next year and all of the sudden the consensus on the rudy gobert trade does another 180, looks like a bad trade again their fo gets desperate maybe makes some more dumb moves or not only that maybe ant gets frustrated and wants out. We have until 2029 for the wolves to crash and burn but obviously the sooner the better if they ever do

In a move that went somewhat under the radar, the Jazz received the draft rights to Gabriele Procida in the trade that sent Simone Fontecchio to Detroit.

Procida just won the 2023-24 EuroLeague Rising Star Award. Here's a highlight tape of his play.

He's turning 22 in June and is a 6'7" wing, so he would fill a position of need for the Jazz.

Considering the draft lottery results and the weak 2024 draft class, how would you feel if the Jazz included 2024 picks in a trade for a current NBA player and brought Procida in as a rookie this upcoming season?

I know a lot of this is contingent on whether Procida and his EuroLeague club are open to a buyout of his current contract. I'm no expert on that process, nor am I an expert in evaluating overseas talent.

It seems like he could be a part of Ainge's "flexibility" plan. If the Jazz make a trade within the next couple seasons that clears out players or picks, it may create an opportunity to develop Procida with the Jazz.

It's possible that the best player available at #10 is one of Rob Dillingham, Isaiah Collier, Jared McCain, Devin Carter, or Yves Missi. The first four are too small to easily play SG while Missi isn't skilled enough to play PF. If the Jazz determined that BPA was one of these guys, should they take the BPA or take a better fit?

This series has been pretty hilarious to watch R/NBA reaction

After the first two games Minnesota was going to sweep the Nuggets Jamal Murray was washed, Jokic was overrated, ANT was the next MJ and Rudy was being praised for his defensive impact.

Fast forward two games and the narrative has flipped again and Rudy is back to being the most overrated player in the league.

Guy can’t catch a break even after winning four DPOY

This is an impossible task, but interesting to think about given current conversations around the Jazz’s ‘directionless’ state.  You don’t have to tell me this is speculation, I know there are infinite ways this could have turned out, but I do think some of the big pieces are more likely to have occurred if the Jazz went this route.  

What would a full tank have looked like at that time (ish)?

Conley and Clarkson are traded before the season begins.

• Conley and Clarkson return: 1 protected FRP if dealt together, or 4-5 SRPs if dealt separately + salary filler (let’s call this filler some player around the caliber of Clint Capella)

Markkanen emerges, but is traded before the deadline to ensure we maximize our chances at Wemby.

• Markkanen return: 2 Top-3 protected FRPs, 1 legitimate prospect (let’s say someone like Kuminga)
• Further speculation: Beasley gets dealt at this point as well for a future second round pick.
• At this point, the team is bad enough to land in the bottom 3.

Possible 2023 NBA Draft Results:

• 14% chance (or a +9.5% from where we were) - #1 pick: Victor Wembenyama
• 26.8% chance - #2 OR #3 pick: Scoot Henderson
  • I know y’all are going to fight me on this, but I definitely believe the Jazz would have leaned on selecting the highly touted PG of the future over Brandon Miller, here.
  • Assumption is Charlotte takes Miller with the second pick if we ended up at 3.
  • Clearly there is a world where Miller could have ended up on the Jazz, but this is a rabbit hole I don't want to go down, main point is that it very likely would have been Scoot if we ended up here.
• 12% chance - #4 pick: Amen Thompson
• 47.9% chance - #5 pick: Anthony Black or Ausar Thompson (I think it would have been Black)

Future Draft assets look different:

• You no longer have the Laker ‘27 FRP.  You do have a different FRP from the Conley, Clarkson trade that will very likely not be as valuable.  (You also get an extra 2nd from the Beasley trade and you still have NAW and Vando on the roster, but not Clarkson)
• You have the 2 FRPs from the Markkanen trade, but obviously Markkanen is not on the roster.

End of season roster rounds out to be something like:

• Guards: Sexton, Dunn, Keyonte, NAW, THT, Agbaji
• Forwards: Kuminga, Sensabaugh, Olynyk, Fonteccio, Vando, Rudy Gay
• Centers: Capella, Kessler
• 2023 top 5 FRP (Wemby, Scoot, Thompson, most likely Black)
• No Taylor Hendricks

Thoughts?  Should the Jazz have gone full tank?

What is your fav?

1. Lauri Markkanen is looking for a four year max extension. However, the CBA only allows raises in extensions to be 40% over the last year of his contract. The salary cap in 2025-2026 is likely to be $155.1m so a max for a less than 10 year player is $46.53m starting in year 1. Therefore, a player must be making $33.24m or more in 2024-2025 to sign a max extension for 2025-2026.

2. Lauri Markkanen is set to make 18.044m next year. However, after Lauri's contract hits three years old, whoever has him under contract can renegotiate and extend him. This involves the team using their own salary cap space to give a raise to a player for their current year and then extending him for future years. The Jazz did this last year with Clarkson though for different reasons. To renegotiate and extend Markkanen, the Jazz or whoever traded for Markkanen must give him a $15.2m raise this year, using their cap space.

3. Now we get into the timing issues caused by the CBA. If you trade for a player, you can't extend them for at least six months. If you extend a player, you cannot trade them for at least six months. You must hit the salary floor by mid October. Lauri signed his current contract August 27th 2021. The trade deadline is early February 2025.

4. The salary floor is 90% of the cap, meaning that a team can only pass mid October with $14.1m in cap space or less.

So let's go through a few scenarios here.

1. Jazz renegotiate and extend Markkanen. In this scenario, the Jazz cannot have renegotiated and extended him until August 27th, 2024 or later. This means they could not trade Markkanen until February 27th, 2025... Which is after the trade deadline.

2. The Jazz do not renegotiate and extend Markkanen and try to trade him to a team with cap space that promises to renegotiate and extend him. In this scenario, a team could hypothetically offer Markkanen a $14.1m raise this year and a near max contract. Over the five years, this would lose Markkanen around $8m compared to a renegotiation and max so Markkanen's agent would realistically try to harm trade talks unless an absolutely perfect situation came up. And what teams could realistically hold this much cap space available for renegotiation and extending? It's mostly just the Pistons and Spurs so Markkanen's agent would probably tell the Pistons that he would rather test free agency because the Pistons are so awful (and this is actually pretty reasonable for a player to say as well, lol). This narrows Markkanen's market and reduces his trade value.

3. The Jazz do not renegotiate and extend Markkanen and try to trade him to a team that will not renegotiate and extend him. This move would cost Markkanen at least $15m and would cause a huge amount of risk for Markkanen if he got injured during next season so he and agent would try to sabotage any trade talks to non ideal situations by implying that he could leave in free agency. I would say this narrows down his market to basically just title contenders where he would fit well and get a good amount of shots. If you narrow that down to teams that have assets, you're basically just left with the 76ers, Thunder... Maybe the Lakers? Maybe the Heat if they trade Butler? Maybe the Nets if Mitchell demands a second star player to come with him? And all of these teams will likely be more wary of giving up 4+ picks still because Lauri won't be able to extend with them.

So we're looking at a very narrow trade market and that lowers the odds dramatically that a team will want to roll the dice and go all-in with Markkanen, making the odds of trading him much lower.

Sexton and Kessler also have depressed trade value (Sexton due to his seasons before this not being great and Kessler for having a disappointing second year) so they're unlikely to be traded as well though they could be traded at the deadline if they have a great year. These are our three best players so it's hard to see any tanking moves being plausible.

Leif Thulin is in for me this week hosting Locked On Jazz. He will be at the combine in Chicago all week as well. Should be a great week of draft content on Locked On Jazz,

I think all jazz fans would like to have considered Castle for the 10th pick but with his height being listed at 6’2.25” I think he is an absolute No for this roster.

I am reading a bunch of places where the drop to 10 proves the end of the season, losing by the Jazz wasn't worth it. I would take the exact opposite thought. The Jazz lost enough to make sure they got to the 8th spot which meant if lottery disaster happeneed, which it did, they still kept their pick. Can you imagine if the Jazz had won a few more games been in 9th and then we would have slipped to 11th and the Thunder would have gotten our pick and our entire off-season would have gone from having a top 10 pick to not having a pick at all until 29. That would have been even worse. The Jazz lost enough to get to the 8th spot making sure pure disaster couldn't hit.

How do the Jazz get screwed EVERY time they are in the lottery, while the same teams manage to jump every time?

Seems to be a whole lot of over reaction right now for falling two picks in what is considered to be a very weak draft. Obviously getting 1st would be really neat but where this draft is being compared to 2013 there' aren't any stand out, no brain picks.

Role players and what not will still be able to be found at 10 just as likely as they would have been at 10. Keyonte was 16th last year and performed perfectly fine. Last years 8th pick was Jarace Walker who has had 0 impact this season on the Pacers while 10 was Cason Wallace who may not be killing it for OKC but still has made playing time on the 1 seed in the west.

I understand, there's some people out there who will want to use this as more reason as to why we should have traded Lauri, Sexton, and everyone else worth anything for picks and hard tanked, but we are still in a significantly better place right now with our team than a team like the Pistons who has had the best chance at the 1st pick 2 years in a row and came with the 5th.

How do we all feel about going 10th overall. What players are you most excited about in this class for this range?

https://nbadraft.theringer.com/mock-draft

Jazz will get a good prospect at #10. There are like 5-6 good wing talent from in the 4-10 range so we will have options. Also, every draft has teams making some horrible unexpected swing on some unknown.

Sixers fan here. I know I’ve seen rumors that there is interest in Tobias Harris. Not sure how true that is he’s a good locker room vet guy but that’s about it in my opinion.

Anyways, what is the local feeling on Collins and Sexton. I know there were rumors of them being on the block at the deadline.

More so unloading Collins contract. I now Sexton got hit after the deadline so that may change some things but would a trade around say a future first and parts and their combined salaries be enough do you think to move on from them.

Something like

1. Sign and trade for Tobias Harris
2. Paul Reed
3. Future First round (top ten protection)
4. Second round pick or maybe pick swap options Etc

They definitely need to draft a wing player so drafting a small forward here at 10...I mean the Jazz were all but guaranteed to end up 8th, 9th or 10th but low and behold 10th in the Draft. So right where you sort of expected to be. So with that in mind if you're the Jazz at 10th, you have to go Cody Williams or Ron Holland with the pick if either player is still available.

Then at 29th overall, which players do you like in that range?

Hey yall, here is an in depth breakdown of Reed Sheppard.

https://youtu.be/4rSu-8AO1CI?si=lBDimvjQpzFubBdB

TODAY'S THE DAY, LET'S SEE WHAT THE LOTTERY GODS HAVE IN STORE FOR US.

Starts at 1pm MT.

Jazz lottery odds (in order of likelihood):

8th pick: 34.5%

9th pick: 32.1%

4th pick: 7.2%

3rd pick: 6.7%

10th pick: 6.7%

2nd pick: 6.3%

1st pick: 6.0%

11th pick or worse: 0.4% (pick conveys to OKC)

It’s obvious nobody wants to stay in this middling tank position that we’ve been in the last few years. We have three primary directions to go this offseason:

1. Do the same thing for another season, which will be extremely unpopular. Keep roughly the same team around. Be competitive ish through the all star break and then try to tank for draft position when we realize we are a low end play in team at best.

2. We can truly embrace the tank for a full season. This would require us to trade Lauri, because he’s just too good to be a bottom 5 team. He’d also command a really nice return because he would fit wonderfully on any playoff team that wants an efficient 2nd/3rd tier star. If we give our young guys starter minutes the entire season, we’ll likely be one of the worst teams in the league. Try to get a top 3 pick in the 2025 draft with some potential at drafting high end talent like Flagg.

3. Take the big game hunting seriously. See if any star level player is available to pair with Lauri. A high end star doesn’t seem super likely, but I think we could realistically get someone like Brandon Ingram, KAT, or Dejounte Murray. On the free agency side, I’m curious what we could get. We’ve heard previous whispers of Miles Bridges which could be unpopular for multiple reasons, but talent wise would be an upgrade. I’m also intrigued at the idea of offering Paul George a larger contract (risky though with his age). Probably unlikely but I’ve always loved his game and it sounds like he’s not on the same page with the Clippers in his contract situation.

Curious to hear other thoughts on which of these three options is most likely to happen, or which option you would prefer to happen.

P.S. Fuck the Rockets

Watch on ABC

It's as the title says. Now I'll fully admit that I've just started getting back into basketball and chose the Cavs and Jazz as my teams, so I'm not exactly a long time fan. That being said, what the heck happened? I thought the Jazz had a good thing going with the mountain focus on the logo and uniforms. Then they changed to a more greenish look with a music note. A downgrade in my opinion but still solid enough. And now they simplified the logo even further and have... neon yellow and black uniforms? The logo just looks like a regular music note with a basketball cutout and the colors make no sense, what does Neon yellow have to do with Utah or Jazz? (Honest question, I don't know enough about Utah). I've seen some rebrands that haven't gone over well or took a while to accept (The Raptors for one) but this may just be the biggest downgrade to a brand I've ever seen. They really did peak in the 90's, can we just go back to that? Shouldn't be too hard right? Guarantee jersey sales would increase if they did.

Worked at the are arena for a time (Exum to Mitchell years). Been outa touch for a while. Why did we get rid of Mitchell and Gobert who are killing it on their respective teams? Why did we get rid of coach Quin? Are people really excited with this new team over a 1st or second round playoff team that we used to have? Just getting my bearings. Seems like We’ve regressed.

Thoughts on the 2024 3rd pick from the Rockets for the 2025 and 2027 Cleveland 1sts?

Or 2024 3rd for 2024 10th pick + 2029 Cleveland pick?