There is Markannen to Spurs Buzz

[mo7888]

I know this will get the usual suspects ting themselves in rage, but not only is Markkanen nowhere close to Dirk as a compe or and player, and the suggestion is practically insulting, he's much closer to Andrea Bargnani, especially his higher usage years like when he was 25 at Toronto and he was given the keys.

That's bull.... Yes, he's not in Dirk's stratosphere, but the gap between Dirk and Bargnani is so wide that Lauri is closer to Dirk...even though it means nothing....

Yes, I realize you were being sarcastic/ hyperbolic in the illustration, but c'mon.... everyone here is letting their Lauri preferences push them to the absurd..

[scott]

One other thing:

A lot of folks on this board were really intrigued by Risacher in this last draft because of his archetype. There were questions about Risacher the player, but I'm not sure if ANYONE was against him because they felt he's the wrong type of player for this team. Some folks even wanted to expend various assets to move up and grab him.

Lauri is the 99.9% outcome of Risacher, and there is a very slim chance that Risacher ever comes close to Lauri's level. If you liked the idea of Risacher, you should be salivating over the chance to get Lauri.

I joked that we should look at trading 4 FRPs to Ainge as not losing something, but gaining the protection against Wright picking more Blakes and Branhams... but as LeBowen has pointed out, that's really only kind of a joke.

Would you trade Wesley, Branham, Primo and Sochan for Lauri? I sure as would. A lot of draft picks don't ever amount to . We can't evaluate future FRPs as future contributors, because odds are not all of them will be.

Get Lauri.

[scott]

It's possible that by the time you read this, you'll be caught up. But another poster said that the CBA prohibits renegotiations in conjunctions with trades and has a six-month double-ban where you can't trade a recently renegotiated player and can't renegotiate a player recently acquired via trade. So the Jazz can really only trade Mark as is or give him an extend-and-trade offer, which is 5-percent raises with no jump and for two seasons max. A team could acquire Mark, wait six months and offer a vet extension that includes the jump and 8-percent raises.

Even after reading through the CBA, there doesn't seem to be an issue with the Spurs renegotiating and extending Mark while including the 40-percent jump, other than the obvious issue of them not being able to carry significant cap space into the season. Like if they were to carry max cap space into the season (about $14 Million), they could trade for Mark, wait six months, then do a renegotiation to bump up his salary to about $32 Million, then use the 40-percent jump to give him an even bigger extension. What isn't possible is for the Jazz to extend-and-trade Mark to the Spurs and then having them renegotiate his salary using their cap space, or for Utah to renegotiate, send him on his one year renegotiated deal to SA, have the Spurs wait six months and then give him the extension.

Renegotiations and extensions both reset the clocks back to three years, and you can only do both if they're done together. Trades have a six-month double-ban with both renegotiations and non-E&T extensions. What I said originally was just me spit-balling based on the CBA FAQ. After that other poster pointed out a blurb from Hoops Rumors saying my understanding was wrong, I then looked at the actual current CBA. After doing so, the above represents my belief in the current state of things. I'm not an expert and can be reading it wrong, but the language is pretty straight-forward, even considering the legalese

Indeed, I responded too soon originally. Thank you for putting in the work here.

So, I still fall back to thinking that an expiring is not that big a deal, going off the OG and Siakam deals.

[Chinook]

So then the incentive to get a trade done now is that Lauri would want the more lucrative offer at 8% increases as opposed to 5%? I'm just trying to figure out why there hasn't been any movement on this front.

There's likely no movement because the Jazz don't want to trade him. They have no restriction on renegotiating and extending Mark's deal other than they have to wait until the end of August to do it. So if the Jazz intend to keep Mark and he wants to stay, we'll hear about the next contract in eight weeks or so. If he wants to move on, the only thing stopping the Jazz from moving him is the hope they can leverage a better deal from teams who are worried Mark would agree to stay in Utah if left to his own devices. We aren't really hearing huge buzz about Lauri being sought after from the main reporters. It's mostly the secondary and lesser guys pushing this idea.

[BatManu20]

There's likely no movement because the Jazz don't want to trade him. They have no restriction on renegotiating and extending Mark's deal other than they have to wait until the end of August to do it. So if the Jazz intend to keep Mark and he wants to stay, we'll hear about the next contract in eight weeks or so. If he wants to move on, the only thing stopping the Jazz from moving him is the hope they can leverage a better deal from teams who are worried Mark would agree to stay in Utah if left to his own devices. We aren't really hearing huge buzz about Lauri being sought after from the main reporters. It's mostly the secondary and lesser guys pushing this idea.

Correct. They'll only move him for a treasure-trove of FRP's.

The leaguewide belief is that the Jazz would only consider moving Markkanen for a sizable trade package similar to what the Knicks gave up to acquire Mikal Bridges – a player Utah tried to acquire and pair with Markkanen.

https://hoopshype.com/lists/nba-rumo...-knicks-76ers/

[LeBowen]

There's likely no movement because the Jazz don't want to trade him.

This is obvious, no team wants to trade an all-star that's about to enter his prime.
But they can't really build a legit contender around him since he's not good enough to be the first option on a championship team.
And he publicly said he won't accept any more tanking after what they did to him in not one, but two seasons when they shut him down to get a better pick.

I don't think he signs an extension if Jazz doesn't get at least one or two competent players to help him. Why would he?
He doesn't want to wait until he's 30 to compete.
On the other hand, with two upcoming drafts looking strong, it's in Jazz's best interest to tank and get a franchise player.

Markkanen's unwillingness to keep tanking is the only reason that he could be available.

We aren't really hearing huge buzz about Lauri being sought after from the main reporters. It's mostly the secondary and lesser guys pushing this idea.

There's no buzz because there are no teams with multiple good FRPs lying around. Or enough tradeable players that wouldn't leave the roster gutted and make it a lateral move.
Right now Spurs are the only team with established franchise player, a lot of FRPs and cap space.
Other than OKC, but they can't commit to another long-term max deal because soon enough they'll have a supermax and two max contracts on the books.

[scott]

There's likely no movement because the Jazz don't want to trade him. They have no restriction on renegotiating and extending Mark's deal other than they have to wait until the end of August to do it. So if the Jazz intend to keep Mark and he wants to stay, we'll hear about the next contract in eight weeks or so. If he wants to move on, the only thing stopping the Jazz from moving him is the hope they can leverage a better deal from teams who are worried Mark would agree to stay in Utah if left to his own devices. We aren't really hearing huge buzz about Lauri being sought after from the main reporters. It's mostly the secondary and lesser guys pushing this idea.

Yep, this is the big piece everyone is missing when they throw out their low-ball offers (just like they did with Trae). Until these guys demand a trade, the teams don't have to trade them and will only do a trade if they get what they perceive to be positive value. There is no indication that Lauri is some prima donna, he's just someone who has expressed he wants to be in a winning scenario (which, we should want players who want this). I don't think Lauri is the type who will demand a trade or demand a trade to only one team (and it's a fantasy to think that he's going to tell Ainge he only wants to come to San Antonio... c'mon guys). We can only hope that Lauri is on a shortlist of teams he'd be good with. I wonder if fellow University of Arizona alum Sean Elliott could put in a good word for the city there.

[scott]

Someone mentioned Houston and how it wouldn't make sense for them because of Jabari... but maybe Lauri is the exact type of consolidation move that Houston should be looking at. Jabari, Cam Whitmore and 2 FRPs is probably exactly the kind of deal Ainge is looking for - draft capital plus two young promising players.

[LeBowen]

I don't think Lauri is the type who will demand a trade

Agreed, but Ainge isn't naive to let him walk. He'll set a deadline for Lauri to decide if he's extending or not.
And I think that deadline will be before the season starts. Yeah, he can trade him at the actual trade deadline, but only desperate contenders would be interested and they don't have much assets.
There would be no reason for us to trade for Markkanen at the deadline unless this roster really overperforms and we're at around .500.
Imo, we either get him over the summer or try to get him in FA.

Someone mentioned Houston and how it wouldn't make sense for them because of Jabari... but maybe Lauri is the exact type of consolidation move that Houston should be looking at. Jabari, Cam Whitmore and 2 FRPs is probably exactly the kind of deal Ainge is looking for - draft capital plus two young promising players.

Even though I'm one of the biggest Markkanen fans in here, I don't think he's worth trading for if you don't have a legit first option.
What's the point? And I don't think he'd be a good fit with the Rockets.

Imo, Markkanen needs to play with an elite rim protector or it gets really questionable on defense. Markkanen and Sengun wouldn't work.

[Mr. Body]

Again, I think there is a misread of the situation on this board. Thankfully you don't tend to see it elsewhere. If Markkanen truly is the "missing piece" for contention, then you'd see actual contenders going after him. We're seeing no one going for him other than the Warriors, who are desperate to do something for Curry.

Obviously lack of chatter is evidence of nothing in itself, but wouldn't an All-Star shooter with magnificent shooting percentages draw incredible attention? There still are contenders with picks and player that can be traded.

Yet... there's no interest. So far it's GSW, a has-been team, and supposed interest from SAS which may have just been a phone call. If he's really this game-mover, this big winning piece, you'd think teams would be chasing him down. Just throwing out the Kings and Pelicans. Wouldn't they love this incredible piece? They both have trade items and many picks to use.

Once again, I think Ainge is sweating because he isn't getting big bites on this player. Once he has to max Markkanen, his options go down.

[vy65]

There's likely no movement because the Jazz don't want to trade him. They have no restriction on renegotiating and extending Mark's deal other than they have to wait until the end of August to do it. So if the Jazz intend to keep Mark and he wants to stay, we'll hear about the next contract in eight weeks or so. If he wants to move on, the only thing stopping the Jazz from moving him is the hope they can leverage a better deal from teams who are worried Mark would agree to stay in Utah if left to his own devices. We aren't really hearing huge buzz about Lauri being sought after from the main reporters. It's mostly the secondary and lesser guys pushing this idea.

I get that. And it makes absolute sense. On the other hand, Chicago is getting a lot of flack for letting Drummond (and likely DD) go without having monetized them into useful assets. Utah can not want to trade Mark all they want, but that doesn't make that approach savvy in a world where Mark intends on leaving for greener pastures. Now, it may be the case that Lauri wants to stay, in which case, all of this is much ado about nothing. But there is a world in which Lauri intends on leaving - and that is the world that I think those having this conversation inhabit.

[DAF86]

Watching all the high-low action with Wemby in the French NT. Imagine this 7 foot sniper coming up to the top, with the defense scrambling to get to him, only for him to drop it down to Wemby for the slam. This duo can be unstoppable. Make it happen, tbh.

[DAF86]

There's likely no movement because the Jazz don't want to trade him. They have no restriction on renegotiating and extending Mark's deal other than they have to wait until the end of August to do it. So if the Jazz intend to keep Mark and he wants to stay, we'll hear about the next contract in eight weeks or so. If he wants to move on, the only thing stopping the Jazz from moving him is the hope they can leverage a better deal from teams who are worried Mark would agree to stay in Utah if left to his own devices. We aren't really hearing huge buzz about Lauri being sought after from the main reporters. It's mostly the secondary and lesser guys pushing this idea.

It makes no sense for the Jazz to keep Lauri. They will be stuck for years in purgatory, like the Spurs were, first with DeRozan and Aldridge and then with Murray. There's no point in having these #2/#3 options that raise your floor, if you have no way of adding that #1 option.

The best thing the Jazz can do is trade Lauri, bottom out and hope that the kid they draft is a #1.

[CGD]

Again, I think there is a misread of the situation on this board. Thankfully you don't tend to see it elsewhere. If Markkanen truly is the "missing piece" for contention, then you'd see actual contenders going after him. We're seeing no one going for him other than the Warriors, who are desperate to do something for Curry.

Obviously lack of chatter is evidence of nothing in itself, but wouldn't an All-Star shooter with magnificent shooting percentages draw incredible attention? There still are contenders with picks and player that can be traded.

Yet... there's no interest. So far it's GSW, a has-been team, and supposed interest from SAS which may have just been a phone call. If he's really this game-mover, this big winning piece, you'd think teams would be chasing him down. Just throwing out the Kings and Pelicans. Wouldn't they love this incredible piece? They both have trade items and many picks to use.

Once again, I think Ainge is sweating because he isn't getting big bites on this player. Once he has to max Markkanen, his options go down.

All true. Say nothing of the fact that he had one of the worst defensive ratings on the team with worst defensive rating last season.

He’s a good offensive player, but how many guys are we expecting Wemby to clean up for on the other side of the ball?

[scott]

Agreed, but Ainge isn't naive to let him walk. He'll set a deadline for Lauri to decide if he's extending or not.

Yeah, I think that if Lauri refuses to renegotiate and extend, he and his agent should know that is tantamount to demanding a trade, and he'll likely at that point deliver a short list of teams.

And I think that deadline will be before the season starts. Yeah, he can trade him at the actual trade deadline, but only desperate contenders would be interested and they don't have much assets.
There would be no reason for us to trade for Markkanen at the deadline unless this roster really overperforms and we're at around .500.
Imo, we either get him over the summer or try to get him in FA.

I'll slightly disagree here. Like you said, Ainge won't let Markannen go for free. I do agree Ainge is probably getting maximum return before the season, but if for some reason it extends to deadline, he will get moved in a Siakam/OG type move and he will never hit FA, IMO. I think the only way to get him is to trade for him, now or at the deadline. The other option would be if they renegotiate and extend and then you trade for him next summer (which might be even costlier)

Even though I'm one of the biggest Markkanen fans in here, I don't think he's worth trading for if you don't have a legit first option.
What's the point? And I don't think he'd be a good fit with the Rockets.

Imo, Markkanen needs to play with an elite rim protector or it gets really questionable on defense. Markkanen and Sengun wouldn't work.

I agree with you there, just throwing out ideas for other compe ors potentially after Lauri. Houston is a team with the assets to make it happen - don't know that they would, but they could.

[CGD]

It makes no sense for the Jazz to keep Lauri. They will be stuck for years in purgatory, like the Spurs were, first with DeRozan and Aldridge and then with Murray. There's no point in having these #2/#3 options that raise your floor, if you have no way of adding that #1 option.

The best thing the Jazz can do is trade Lauri, bottom out and hope that the kid they draft is a #1.

Exactly, Utah’s power is overstated. GWS will probably overpay because of the Curry factor, but if not revisit this discussion in February if the Spurs want him.

[LeBowen]

Yeah, all true.
Why aren't the Lakers, Bucks, Clippers, Suns or Heat trying ot trade for Lauri? He's awful!

Individual defensive rating is one of the worst metrics, especially when your starting C is 6'9 John Collins and your team is trying to tank.
Why didn't we even improve by a single win after adding Wemby?

Now I want Markkanen at any cost just because of awful takes.
People who are defending Jeremy talking about Markkanen not being a good player.

[scott]

It makes no sense for the Jazz to keep Lauri. They will be stuck for years in purgatory, like the Spurs were, first with DeRozan and Aldridge and then with Murray. There's no point in having these #2/#3 options that raise your floor, if you have no way of adding that #1 option.

The best thing the Jazz can do is trade Lauri, bottom out and hope that the kid they draft is a #1.

Yeah, I think the path is pretty clear and obvious what Utah *should* do. The have tons of young pieces that could develop into complementary pieces (which Lauri is as well, and is what he would be for us) but no true #1. Play those young kids (I threw out a Collier/George/Cody/Hendricks/Kessler core before... those are the guys they should focus on developing, they also have Flip they should be giving heavy playing time to).

Play those guys, go 15-67, and get a Top 4 pick in 2025. Hopefully you land your #1 and now you have an unprecedented war chest to do what the Spurs should be doing: using that war chest to fill out the roster and go contend. This really sets up nicely for Ainge. He'll have a #1 prospect, a bunch of interesting complementary prospects, a haul of picks that puts OKC and SAS war chests to shame, and control over MIN's draft (especially if they get the 30 swap and 31 pick from us). That's like the San Antonio plan on steroids.

If I were Ainge, I'd also be looking to monetize Sexton, for the same reasons. It would make sense to keep Jordan Clarkson as that long-term ins utional knowledge vet. Not sure they could get any value from John Collins, so you keep him as well. In addition to the other young guys I previously mentioned, I forgot they also have Brice Sensabaugh, Kenneth Lofton Jr and Darius Bazley on their team. Give all these young guys heavy minutes. This would be a hard tank with promise, not the "holy , Doug McDermott, Josh Richardson, and KBD are getting heavy minutes" kind of tank that was solely a tank. The Utah tank would be a tank + development of lots of youth. In many respects, we missed an opportunity to play Blake and Bran more in that tank year. Blake was due to injury and Bran got heavy run at the last 75% of the season, but we should have just thrown him straight in the fire to start that year.

[scott]

Yeah, all true.
Why aren't the Lakers, Bucks, Clippers, Suns or Heat trying ot trade for Lauri? He's awful!

Individual defensive rating is one of the worst metrics, especially when your starting C is 6'9 John Collins and your team is trying to tank.
Why didn't we even improve by a single win after adding Wemby?

Now I want Markkanen at any cost just because of awful takes.
People who are defending Jeremy talking about Markkanen not being a good player.

Legit saw a popular Spurs YouTuber talking about how if Sochan is part of the deal for Lauri, that's a deal breaker. The Spurs-colored glasses really infect people's brains.

[LeBowen]

Legit saw a popular Spurs YouTuber talking about how if Sochan is part of the deal for Lauri, that's a deal breaker. The Spurs-colored glasses really infect people's brains.

Every time someone overrates anyone on our roster except maybe Devin, I get flashbacks to the last season and watching actual basketball teams play right after our game finishes.
Like a different sport.

We have to see what we have in Castle, but other than Devin none of our players is worth as of now.
Tre is your average backup point guard, Keldon is a high engery, low IQ chucker with traffic cone defense and Jeremy is someone with no actual NBA skills as of now.
Those final couple of weeks when we played without supposedly key rotation pieces were eye opening to how awful this roster is.

[Obstructed_View]

Holy .

[scott]

Every time someone overrates anyone on our roster except maybe Devin, I get flashbacks to the last season and watching actual basketball teams play right after our game finishes.
Like a different sport.

We have to see what we have in Castle, but other than Devin none of our players is worth as of now.
Tre is your average backup point guard, Keldon is a high engery, low IQ chucker with traffic cone defense and Jeremy is someone with no actual NBA skills as of now.
Those final couple of weeks when we played without supposedly key rotation pieces were eye opening to how awful this roster is.

Agree 100%. As of right now, Wemby-Devin-Castle is the future. Everyone else is only here until a better option comes around. In the case of Sochan, he may develop into that "better" option organically on his own (and I hope he does if he's on his team), but he and everyone else is definitely on the table. , even Devin should be on the table for certain players (not Lauri though, as I've explained... the Wemby-Lauri-Devin main trio is the goal).

I love with Spurs fans come up with their list of untouchables that include the entire team that just went 22-60 for two straight years

[baseline bum]

One other thing:

A lot of folks on this board were really intrigued by Risacher in this last draft because of his archetype. There were questions about Risacher the player, but I'm not sure if ANYONE was against him because they felt he's the wrong type of player for this team. Some folks even wanted to expend various assets to move up and grab him.

Lauri is the 99.9% outcome of Risacher, and there is a very slim chance that Risacher ever comes close to Lauri's level. If you liked the idea of Risacher, you should be salivating over the chance to get Lauri.

I joked that we should look at trading 4 FRPs to Ainge as not losing something, but gaining the protection against Wright picking more Blakes and Branhams... but as LeBowen has pointed out, that's really only kind of a joke.

Would you trade Wesley, Branham, Primo and Sochan for Lauri? I sure as would. A lot of draft picks don't ever amount to . We can't evaluate future FRPs as future contributors, because odds are not all of them will be.

Get Lauri.

Yeah I'd go and get him on my 26 pick (with unprotected ATL swap) + 27 unprotected ATL pick + 30 pick (with 2 top 1 protected swaps MIN/DAL) + 31 unprotected MIN pick + Keldon proposal if Lauri says he'll sign a 5 year max deal to stay. That's better than Brooklyn got for Bridges so I don't think it's an unrealistic proposal. Though I'd lead off with Graham + Branham as the salary in the deal in case Ainge just wants short term money back and could care less about getting them instead of Keldon.

[vy65]

Yeah, I think the path is pretty clear and obvious what Utah *should* do. The have tons of young pieces that could develop into complementary pieces (which Lauri is as well, and is what he would be for us) but no true #1. Play those young kids (I threw out a Collier/George/Cody/Hendricks/Kessler core before... those are the guys they should focus on developing, they also have Flip they should be giving heavy playing time to).

Play those guys, go 15-67, and get a Top 4 pick in 2025. Hopefully you land your #1 and now you have an unprecedented war chest to do what the Spurs should be doing: using that war chest to fill out the roster and go contend. This really sets up nicely for Ainge. He'll have a #1 prospect, a bunch of interesting complementary prospects, a haul of picks that puts OKC and SAS war chests to shame, and control over MIN's draft (especially if they get the 30 swap and 31 pick from us). That's like the San Antonio plan on steroids.

If I were Ainge, I'd also be looking to monetize Sexton, for the same reasons. It would make sense to keep Jordan Clarkson as that long-term ins utional knowledge vet. Not sure they could get any value from John Collins, so you keep him as well. In addition to the other young guys I previously mentioned, I forgot they also have Brice Sensabaugh, Kenneth Lofton Jr and Darius Bazley on their team. Give all these young guys heavy minutes. This would be a hard tank with promise, not the "holy , Doug McDermott, Josh Richardson, and KBD are getting heavy minutes" kind of tank that was solely a tank. The Utah tank would be a tank + development of lots of youth. In many respects, we missed an opportunity to play Blake and Bran more in that tank year. Blake was due to injury and Bran got heavy run at the last 75% of the season, but we should have just thrown him straight in the fire to start that year.

I agree, but Ainge has a balancing act. If memory serves, the Jazz were a play-in +500 club pre-ASB. Extending Lauri would make his contract have more value in the event of a trade, but I think if he extends in August, he can't be traded at all during the season because the expiration of the 6 month moratorium would come after the trade deadline. So does that mean Utah ends up in similar draft position (10) next year? Next year is the draft to go all-in on so I'd do whatever I could to minimize Lauri's playing time. Is Lauri on-board with that? Does he get the extension and basically stfu with minimal PT until summer of 2025 when he gets traded? I have no clue.

[LeBowen]

Yeah I'd go and get him on my 26 pick (with unprotected ATL swap) + 27 unprotected ATL pick + 30 pick (with 2 top 1 protected swaps MIN/DAL) + 31 unprotected MIN pick + Keldon proposal if Lauri says he'll sign a 5 year max deal to stay. That's better than Brooklyn got for Bridges so I don't think it's an unrealistic proposal.

How would you value our picks?

I'd say that '27 ATL and '26 ATL/SAS swap are easily the most valuable, I'd argue those two are more valuable than 4 FRPs Knicks traded for Bridges.
'25 ATL isn't as valuable as those with Trae still on the roster.
'25 SAS loses value if we trade it for Markkanen.
'27 and onwards SAS picks are hopefully well into 20s.
'25 CHI could convey because Bulls hate tanking and they shouldn't be top8 in both '26 and '27.

BOS and DAL swaps probably won't be great, maybe if DAL implodes.
MIN picks are a complete unknown, I can see them dropping out of contention by then because this is the best roster they can put together and 7 years is a long time to go.
I'd say those picks would be up there with ATL picks for Ainge, he wants to control MIN's future even more.

I'd say two MIN picks and CHI would be a guarantee, then I'd let them choose between one of those ATL picks or give them two SAS picks.

'25 CHI
'26 ATL/SAS
'27 ATL
'30 MIN/SAS
'31 MIN

I'd do those 5 picks only if they also take Collins. Even throw that fake CHA first in.
If they want Keldon, take away '25 CHI.
If they want Jeremy, '27 SAS instead of '27 ATL.

There are also some options to effectively trade down because they have so many FRPs.
For example, trading '26 ATL/SAS for '26 MIN/CLE would still have a lot of value for them.
Even if we end up with no FRP in '26 draft it's not the end of the world because we have 5 SRPs that year and could easily move up to mid-20s if we really like someone.