The NBA can be pretty simple. There’s one ball and five players. If you have one of the best players in the league handling the ball the majority of the time, your team is going to win a lot of games. The issue that teams run into is the salaries. Teams rise and fall with the balance of contracts that fit into a team’s timelines and windows.
How many teams have fizzled because a team had no cap room to improve? That’s every team, actually. As teams fill their rosters, typically in the draft, those
players eventually run out their contracts and will demand the most possible. The best teams in the league will make sure they’re constantly replenishing their team with young players from the draft. If teams run out of draft picks, it’s inevitable that the cap or age catches up to them. The best example of this came from the Jazz four seasons ago. Utah had gone all in on a Mike Conley trade as they tried to maximize on their two-man core of Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell. With the picks gone from the Mike Conley trade, and with some bad drafting (looking at you, Udoka Azubuike), the Jazz maxed out their potential and had no way to improve because they were capped out.
Beyond the potential of being the best prospect in Jazz history, the #2 pick is valuable for what it does for the Jazz cap as well. Having a player like AJ Dybantsa or Darryn Peterson is incredibly valuable. But having them on your team, secured on a rookie contract, means the Jazz can also maximize every other position.
Next season, Utah will be giving $49M to Jaren Jackson Jr., $46M to Lauri Markkanen, and they’ll likely be giving somewhere between $25M and $30M to Walker Kessler, and Keyonte George is going to get paid soon too. That’s a situation that doesn’t leave anything for signing players in free agency, outside of exceptions like the mid-level exception.
But that’s what makes the #2 pick even more valuable. That core of George, Kessler, Markkanen, and Jackson, with Ace Bailey on a rookie contract, is great. Now? The Jazz will add another rookie contract in either Dybantsa or Peterson. And what if Dybantsa or Peterson are as good as people hope? Having a tier-1 prospect making $13M over the next four years is incredible. Down the road, Utah will have to make decisions on their contracts, but for now? They’re sitting pretty and can keep this current roster together as long as they’re willing to pay the tax.
With the draft just weeks away, Utah has to be excited about the chance to add not only a generational prospect, but one that will also fit into a rapidly rising cap situation for the Jazz. Currently, FanDuel has the odds of AJ Dybantsa at -450 so it seems likely that Darryn Peterson is likely going to be on the Jazz.
