I'm not sure which contenders have actual money to spend. Like the Lakers could definitely use Jak but they can't pay him. Same with the Nets. If I'm Utah, I am looking hard at Gobert and trying to trade him for Jak, filler, and their FRP. Gobert has wilted in the playoffs over and over again while Jak has never started in them so he still has hope.
But as far as we are concerend, Jak is a C player. Once you start paying C players 18 million a year then that's how you lose the already narrow path to the playoffs. Granted having a franchise player can offset that to a degree but we don't have one of those. I believe this team can reach the playoff with DJ as our 1a)/1b) best player. I do not think we can make the playoffs with Jak as our starting center AND DJ as our 1a)/1b). And I definitely don't think we should sign him for that extension.
That being said, this is about Chet and if we draft Chet then you must keep Jak, even at 15 a year. Jak plays a great role next to Chet. He will bang against the stronger bodies and do the dirty work that you might not want someone with Chet's body to do right after coming out of college. Let Chet build muscle for a few years and become a man before you play him in that role, if at all. I mean as long as we are dreaming about Chet, we might as well include Lavine in our dream and have that as our big 3 going forward