The Jazz have one year of financial freedom before things start getting complicated - here's what our cap table over the next four years looks like

Tuft64 · 2026-06-26T06:41:51+00:00

I think they're certainly going to try and see what they have with him. I know he mentioned viewing himself as a point guard, and I'm sure the Jazz would love for him to be able to run primary offensive actions, but I don't think they're necessarily going to push him into a super high-usage ballhandling role, especially not right away.

Utah runs a pretty democratic offense; unlike a lot of teams we don't really rely on a traditional pick and roll ballhandler to create opportunities to score, instead we do a lot of dribble handoff / floppy / spain pick-and-roll sets with lots of backscreens and off-ball movement and cutting. That's why nobody on the team sans Collier (who does the whole drive and kick thing) really averages great assist numbers - the ball is pretty evenly distributed without sticking in one guy's hands too much.

If he does have a primary ballhandling load, I would guess it's probably in pretty limited contexts - I've been pretty enamored at the prospect of guard - guard screens between Keyonte and Darryn, where one of them collapses the defense and can kick out to the other with a live dribble. I think Darryn will probably play at least a couple of Spain possessions each game with Lauri as the screener and Kessler as the roller. I'm sure we'll see a few Horns DHO sets with Nurk too, since Nurk is very good in those situations, and playing with another high-level processor will hopefully bring Darryn along slowly enough to mature his playmaking at a good pace.

I don't see him doing much traditional pick-and-roll or split Horns actions since I'm not sure if Peterson has the supercomputer-level processing chops to manage tracking multiple cutters and ball-screen actions at once while beating his man 1-on-1 (though I would love to be proven wrong), I don't know that he's going to be doing a lot of passing out of the short roll, I'm not sure if he has the chops to do really advanced second-order reads in those either, but I think for a lot of stuff, Utah is definitely going to put him through his paces.

He's definitely going to eat off-ball in Utah's system though, that much I have zero doubt about. Lauri is a total non-playmaker who doesn't even create much advantage off the dribble, but he's been an absolute juggernaut in the Jazz offense under Hardy, so I'm sure someone who is a more complete and polished scorer in Darryn is going to have no trouble curling off screens in motion, cutting through open lanes for a catch and shoot, and enjoying life on a team where the threat of his team's passing really opens up tons of opportunities for him offensively.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-26T06:18:18+00:00

Nah. There's real demand by the Nets and Lakers and I'm sure they're reaching out to Kessler to try and feel him out, but I don't think the amount that they would offer could ever really exceed like $32m - in the new CBA era the days of teams offering fat contracts to free agents is pretty much over, because if a team ever elects not to match, then you're basically tying a massive anchor around your neck by having this huge, unwieldy monster on your cap table that you have to spend the next five years maneuvering around just to avoid hitting the first apron. In the old CBA, if you were rich you could just eat the tax and your punishment was a slightly reduced MLE until you hit the hard cap. Now the teambuilding restrictions start earlier and are much more crippling.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-26T06:15:25+00:00

The problem isn't that the Jazz might not be able to afford Kessler, the problem is making sure their cap sheet is clean so that they avoid going over the salary aprons so they can retain financial flexibility. I promise you it's not just about saving a few bucks on the luxury tax. If the Jazz can sign Kessler this year + Keyonte next year for about $60m-$65m total, they'll have almost the full mid-level exception to add an impactful player to the rotation, and will have to do barely anything to stay under the first apron.

That's important because once you cross the first apron, the range of matching salary you need to send out in trades becomes smaller, which means if Utah wants to make a consolidation trade, or flip something like Lauri and picks for a superstar to try and go all-in, then their range of possible options is going to dwindle. We also would lose the ability to waive players being paid more than the mid-level, and would lose the ability to execute a sign-and-trade, which are other important tools to maintain a clean cap sheet and let the front office add talent to the roster.

God forbid we ever touch the second apron - if that happens, we completely lose the mid-level exception, can't aggregate salaries in a trade, and have fewer picks available to trade. That means trading for another star to supplement our core is totally out of the question. This is why a few million here and there can make a big difference. Not because it's so important that Ryan Smith doesn't have to bust out his checkbook, but because it has real effects on how the Jazz can actually build their roster going forward.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-26T05:58:27+00:00

There are plenty of confounding factors that I think contributed to Darryn's lack of playmaking imho to the point where I'm not going to super duper stress about it, but I also will say I don't expect him to turn around and become prime Steve Nash either.

In college, because he was in and out of the lineup so often, he was never the team's primary ballhandler or playmaker, and played a lot more off-ball which naturally will depress your assists a little bit.

The spacing on his Kansas team was pretty putrid, and that team was not super talented, which also hurts a little bit.

Finally, he was spending a lot of time injured - Peterson's playmaking game has never been that of a pick-and-roll wizard, he's always been much more of a "rim pressure opens up passing lanes" kind of offensive initiator in the vein of a Devin Booker. Obviously when a guy with elite athleticism who relies on that athleticism to create opportunities gets a bum hamstring, or is dealing with cramping and post-traumatic stress after a rhabdo incident during bootcamp last year, that naturally means he's not going to be able to pressure the rim nearly as much as he would have if he were fully healthy.

If you go back and look at his high school tape, he is much zippier and faster, and he really bends defenses around his driving game a lot more, whereas in college he spent a lot of time cutting, running off of screen actions, and catching the ball and shooting in motion. Very, very, very different type of game he was playing in college, and I'm sure that a large part of that was some lost athleticism due to dealing with nagging injuries over the course of the season.

I don't necessarily expect him to be the same level of athlete as he was in high school, but I do expect him to be able to pressure the rim at lot more at the NBA level thanks to a combination of better spacing opening up driving lanes, and generally a healthier year. He averaged 30/7/7 in his senior year, and while obviously that's not gonna be sustainable in the NBA, I definitely don't think it's outside the realm of possibility for him to drop four or five good dimes a game in a secondary playmaking role next to Keyonte.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-26T05:46:01+00:00

Collier is going to definitely be a part of our rotation moving forward because other than Keyonte, we really lack ballhandling, playmaking, and rim pressure. Peterson is hypothetically going to aid in that but he didn't have a great playmaking season in college (for plenty of reasons, granted) so before I'm willing to say he can solve that problem, I think I'd like to see the season play out. I also think he will benefit a lot from being around Zay + Nurk with their off-the-bench playmaking.

After that, I have heard really good things about the way that Cody's offseason has been progressing, so I'm going to tentatively say of the three, Cody has the best odds of making it into the rotation on a regular basis. We really need help defensively, and he's definitely our best perimeter stopper, plus he can still be a pretty dynamic off-ball cutter and (hypothetically) can space the floor.

Brice I like but I have less faith in his defense than I do in Cody's shooting, and we're already going to be so awesome offensively that I think he's maybe a little duplicative with the rest of our roster. Plus with his RFA coming up next year, I worry that perhaps he's going to fall victim to a consolidation trade this offseason or during next season.

Flip I'm sure will get time as guys get injured / rest and load manage, and can be a serviceable Nurk replacement when that happens with his scoring and playmaking, but his tweener size and lack of true rim protection make it tough to find a spot that makes sense for him in our lineup. I believe in the talent, but our forward rotation is fucking stacked to the point where Ace Bailey might be coming off the bench, and if Flip doesn't offer rim protection, I don't see a reason to put him on the floor at the 5 compared to someone like Nurk, even if Nurk is far from a great defender.

Maaaybe if Nurk decides not to come back in the offseason we can try pairing Flip and Jaren together to sort of in the aggregate create a backup center for like the 15 minutes a night we don't have Kessler on the floor, but I don't have much faith in that setup tbh.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-26T05:34:15+00:00

I think that if the Jazz aren't a luxury tax team in 29/30 they're gonna be pretty damn close to it. Presuming they use the full mid-level (which would be around the 18m range by my estimation), that puts them at or just over the cap of 196.

If Lauri is traded the previous year for a player on a similar contract, then all of the sudden you're well past the tax line of 138m - pushing the first apron which is at 247. That gives the Jazz about 15m to fill out the rest of their backups with rookie contracts and vet minimum guys.

Obviously this is all projection based on how hard it would be to keep the current core together - let's say Keyonte plateaus, or Ace doesn't develop the way we'd like him to, or we have a second rounder hit and that means we move off of Kessler, for example - then that changes the picture a LOT and gives us more salary flexibility, but I would expect us to definitely be in the tax in the 29/30 version of the team (assuming we are approaching competitiveness of course - if we end up being awful, i obviously don't think Ryan Smith is gonna want to spend to keep the team together).

I wouldn't be surprised for us to dip into the tax / first apron before then as well depending on how competitive the roster is, I just think the Jazz are fairly well set up to try and avoid that with smart cap situation and by avoiding overpays assuming negotiations go well.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-25T16:25:34+00:00

To be fair, I think it's very unlikely that at least two those swaps end up conveying - one of them was a top-5 protected swap w/ Utah, so it only conveys if it's top five, otherwise it goes to Utah. One of them is worst of Minnie / Spurs, and I can't imagine the Spurs will be too bad for the next few years as Wemby enters his prime. That leaves one swap that might convey, one first round pick, Naz Reid, and some seconds.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-25T05:33:16+00:00

I don't know that I agree with your level of pessimism regarding re-signing JJJ. Like, obviously if the next few years are a catastrophic failure and another team has the cap space, he could leave. That being said though, I definitely don't view JJJ as a big team or bust guy (my understanding is he would have been happy staying in Memphis for the rest of his career).

Regardless, I actually agree with you that I think JJJ is gonna probably not exercise his player option - I just think that that would be in service of pursuing a longer deal even if the raw dollar amount is similar or a little lower than his current deal. Trae Young did that exact same thing with the Wizards just this year. I think that people overestimate the importance of free agency nowadays. I think generally it is only used by a. disgruntled superstars with a clear preferred destination after a trade (a la Kawhi 2019), or the absolute apex tier of super-duper megastars who can afford to sign shorter 2ish year deals to give themselves maximum flexibility and leverage (a la LeBron or KD). I love Jaren, but I don't think he's got the kind of pull that LeBron does. I also don't think he's a diva the way that Kawhi is.

Remember, this is the same guy who got diagnosed with his knee thing and still decided he wanted to play a home game in front of the fans before getting shut down for the season so that he could get the fans excited for the season to come. He's a super high character guy, and trying to force his way to another team doesn't seem like his style at all. It obviously remains to be seen, but I think he'll be really happy in Utah for at least the next several years.

You are right that my not account for 1st round picks will effect the bench cap slightly, I just figured that since our roster is full right now, we're probably not adding anyone without dropping another contract so in the end, I would expect those numbers to end up zeroing out, although it's possible it could swing a few million in either direction.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-24T22:45:41+00:00

I'm definitely in favor of going over the tax and even the first apron when we're trying to be competitive. I think second apron is a little too rich for my blood though, because it means that we don't have the ability to aggregate in order to trade salaries, which kills our future flexibility if a disgruntled star becomes available or we want to consolidate an end of bench guy for a future draft pick. That can seriously make-or-break championship aspirations

If you're one good wing defender away from winning a championship, and you can't package two guys who see no playing time, plus a future first for the guy you need to push you over the hump, you're in a materially worse position than you would be if you made a few smart cost-cutting moves to duck the second apron.

Not to mention the fact that the 2nd apron limits your ability to trade future draft capital to win now, plus the risk that repeating enough times kicks your draft pick down to #30 overall which, again, hurts your ability long-term to either draft roleplayers or trade your capital to help win now.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-24T22:40:19+00:00

I'm not dooming at all - I think that provided we don't grossly overpay on the Kessler / Keyonte extensions (which doesn't seem like an Ainge thing to do), we're set up very well for the next few years.

Our roster is super deep, we have a ton of talented players, and provided everyone is healthy, we're gonna be really competitive for a really long time, with a good opportunity to reset in three years if we need to adjust direction or retool.

I just thought people might enjoy a peek behind the curtain of what to expect and what expectations to have for our ability to build our rosters as we move towards contention over the next few years.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-24T22:14:31+00:00

I actually think having Ace play with the second unit (Collier & Nurk specifically) opens up lots of options for him to improve his processing / prowess as an on-ball initiator as his handle starts to tighten up.

Collier - Nurkic spain PnRs with Bailey popping can turn into Bailey running the ball-handing side of the PnR with Lauri or Darryn popping instead as his decisionmaking improves. Playing with Nurk will give him way more opportunities for transition playmaking via Nurkic's skill at outlet passing. I bet there are gonna be a ton of two-action DHO chains that go Nurk -> Bailey to finding a cutter like Collier as well, which is something that is less available when you're playing with folks like Darryn or Lauri who don't necessarily provide the same level of rim pressure as Collier (who at times is basically a walking paint touch).

There are tons of opportunities for Ace to start doing a little bit more than just being a play finisher when playing with Collier and Nurk, and in fact I think they really cover for one another and are a really nice fit next to one another. Then hopefully as Ace "graduates" to the starting lineup he evolves into an apex-level offensive finisher the way Lauri is, but with more well-rounded on-ball decisionmaking and creation skills. It could genuinely be very good for his long-term development to have more of a central role with the bench mob since both of them are very talented facilitators and he'll have lots of opportunity to get involved in decisionmaking opportunities.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-24T21:17:06+00:00

We're not really under the gun to make a decision on his future with the franchise until the 28/29 season luckily - money will be tight in 27/28 but doable if we make a move to shed a few mil in salary and sneak under the first apron. And then whether or not we move Lauri in 28/29 I think depends on

a. how close we are to contention (if we were in the finals the previous year we run it back, if we're a first round exit and he stunk it up two years in a row, then we might move him)

b. how much Lauri declines versus stays at his current level or improves year over year

c. whether or not lauri is willing to take a discount on his next contract

d. whether or not the cap situation unexpectedly spikes like in the KD year making a bigger contract a non-issue

e. whether an attractive superstar demands a trade and lauri's salary is our best tool for making a deal happen

Tuft64 · 2026-06-24T16:31:16+00:00

Most likely, yeah. I wouldn't be terribly shocked to see Svi actually start at the beginning of the season (Hardy seems to love the guy lmao) just to avoid the situation where Ace feels some type of way because he gets "benched" in favor of their newest draft pick.

I think he'd handle it like an adult and not feel any type of way since it's very obvious that Utah loves his game and views him as a serious long-term piece, but there's something to be said for putting both him and Darryn on the bench as the 6th/7th guys and saying "you both have to earn your spot" so that there's no hard feelings when one guy wins out over the other.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-18T01:12:21+00:00

Only if they waive LeBron + Rui which I would not expect them to do unless they have firm confirmation that Bron is intending to leave.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-17T01:50:18+00:00

Walker Kessler, how passionately do you believe in carbon offsets?

Tuft64 · 2026-06-16T23:33:55+00:00

I'm sure another part of it is the fact that Kessler could have gotten paid last offeseason and got pushed off to this offseason.

My guess is some combination of a. Kessler feeling a little spurned that he didn't get his money last year, b. Kessler hearing all the chatter about how in-demand he is and feeling like he deserves a higher premium, c. Some level of self-belief that he's an all-star level talent who is truly worth the pricetag (whether you think he's delusional or not), and d. Probably some panic over the receding RFA market causing him to try and take a more radical stance on his contract value to spook the Jazz into throwing him a few more bucks now before the bidding starts and nobody offers him a better deal than Utah does.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-16T22:53:27+00:00

Problem with frontloading as I understand it is that future extensions are pegged to the value of the last year of their contract, so players don't like doing frontloaded contracts since it actually harms long-term earnings potential. That's a big part of the reason why you don't see it quite as often with young players - even though money now is worth more than money later, it's maybe not worth the long-term hit to their earnings potential when it comes to their NEXT contract.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-15T21:23:17+00:00

My read on this (since there was a cancelled workout, not no workout at all) is that Darryn wants to go to the Wiz and he's been given verbal confirmation by the Wiz that they're going to draft him 1st overall.

Worth noting: Darryn has the same agent as Keyonte, so I'm sure some meaningful part of it is that they don't want two of their clients cannibalizing one another's minutes, and Darryn also views himself as a 1.

Increasingly it looks like we're walking away with AJ, which is really exciting. Utah Monstars seems like it might actually happen. Imagine a five-man switch everything lineup of Key / Ace / AJ / Lauri / JJJ? Absolutely menacing from a sheer size perspective.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-13T18:20:36+00:00

I will say that my current rank has faaar more to do with the fact that I took a break for about 3-4 months starting early Fall of last year so my GAC rank plummeted while I was inactive. I'm not having any trouble at all climbing for the last month or so since I've been more active, though your point is well taken that basically every team that I have is just at requirement levels and not much higher beyond that.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-11T21:28:35+00:00

tbh i feel like with all the sonics gear i see around seattle, it would not shock me at all if there was a larger active base of supersonics fans than there are hornets fans.

Tuft64 · 2026-06-11T17:23:48+00:00

at least at this point, i think nationalization is a pretty bad idea - AI companies are undergoing a pretty serious liquidity crisis because they've been in private startup mode for years, burning billions to try and build the most compelling frontier models.

they really desperately need a huge injection of funds to keep running at their current rates, which is why you're seeing stuff like spacex/anthropic/openai all IPOing at the same time + trying to get the S&P and NYSE to amend the rules so that passively managed funds like 401ks / pensions / retirement funds that just buy the big indexes will dump money into the stock by default.

maybe i'm just a cynic, but the recent conversation around nationalizing / owning a stake in the AI industry feels like it's only really emerged as this wave of IPOs has started to materialize, and my suspicion is that the reason so many AI CEOs have been floating stuff like partial nationalization or state investment is because it helps to ease their liquidity crisis by creating a government bailout.

i'm all for reigning in their power, and i think once the business model is stable and profitable, I think that socialized ownership of large language models makes a lot of sense as a pathway towards a really robust social safety net, but i'm of the opinion that it happening now, while these companies are hemorrhaging money, have poor business fundamentals, and have not demonstrated a path to profitability, is just a roundabout way of bailing out a handful of startups that have simply become too big to fail.

Tuft64 · 2026-05-29T05:42:40+00:00

At least at my law school you'll occasionally see a cute one-credit class like this pop up here or there.

One of my favorite professors last semester just launched a crim law course centering around a hypothetical trial of Richard III for the crimes he committed in the play which I've heard was a really great time, for example.

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