Every week during the regular season begins here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring features that let us relive the biggest moments, key performances and hot issues in Jazzland from various angles. Check in every week for the quotes, stats, plays and performances that tell the stories from the last 168 hours in the world of the Jazz.
A quick look at a big-picture topic relevant to the Jazz’s week
Fire up the trade machine. As of today, the armchair GMs out there can get quite a bit wackier.
December 15 of each year is what many consider to be the unofficial start of the NBA’s trade season, because as of today, 82 of last summer’s free agent signees can legally be included in deals. That’s no small deal: around 19% of the players on standard contracts are now at least technically available.
But for a lot of reasons, that doesn’t mean teams rush to the phone in mid December. For starters, 13 of those 82 still have the ability to veto trades by nature of the type of contracts they signed with their incumbent teams. Then there are another 41 who can’t be traded until sometime later by virtue of when they signed a contract or extension, including eight that won’t be eligible for trade at all this season. Add in eight guys whose trade math is tricky because of pending extensions and one more explicit no-trade clause (LeBron James’) and it’s still not exactly a free-for-all.
More than that, though, December deals are rare because there is still a lot of negotiating teams can do in the almost eight weeks until the transaction window closes.
There isn’t a ton of motivation to bring your very best offer the second the market opens. So teams more often bide their time, unless there’s a unique and timely need or a deal that benefits all parties. Last season, two teams had trades teed up on 12/15: one a bench big acquisition and the other a bench guard shuffle. The year before, the earliest deal after 12/15 came 15 days later, the Knicks’ big swing for OG Anunoby. The year before that, nothing happened until January.
For the Utah Jazz specifically, none of their players had the December 15 limitation to begin with, so it’s not like today opens up the floodgates on their side of a deal. The bigger question for them is whether teams have interest in their veterans, or whether an opportunity comes up that’s enticing enough to put some of their young players in an offer package. Because Utah’s roster is split into some pretty obvious tranches:
Expiring veterans: Jusuf Nurkic, Georges Niang and Kevin Love are on true expiring deals. Kyle Anderson and Svi Mykhailiuk have summer guarantee dates that make them virtual expirings. With those five, the Jazz have the option of assembling as much as $44.6 million in salary without including any young guys and without their trade partner having to take any money past this year. That could be useful in several different scenarios.
One option is to just become a seller and auction off those players’ rights to a team looking for veteran help. But those five all project as depth pieces on a playoff team, so the asset yield would probably be modest. Theoretically, part of the return in any trade offloading a veteran is that it helps the Jazz improve the value of their 2026 draft pick, to the extent you believe those five are really driving wins. (EPM has them all below 1.0 wins added.)
Another possibility is if the Jazz are in “buyer” mode and need salary to ladder up to a big number of a player they’d like to acquire. It might be early for that kind of move, though. It’s more likely that Utah could use those salary chits to help teams accomplish some financial motive, like the handful of teams that are a small deal away from ducking the tax.
Expiring… sort of: Walker Kessler is also expiring, except that the Jazz have (and any acquiring team would inherit) matching rights next summer. That makes him even more enticing to teams looking for a starting-caliber center, and there are reportedly a few of those out there.
The complicating factor with Kessler is the injury. Teams make buy-now trades because they want to win, umm, now. The Jazz had callers over the summer, but now his situation is different. An acquiring team would have to be willing to wait for him to rehabilitate… AND pay him next summer. Also, the Jazz still really like what he has become.
Recent draftees: Most of this roster is made up of guys still on their first NBA contract. The Jazz have eight guys under standard contracts whom they drafted in one of the last three drafts, ostensibly because they believed in them. Not all of them have burst into the league looking like future stars, but it’s still somewhat uncommon for teams to pull the plug on a draftee this early.
It does happen, though, and you don’t have to go back that far to find an example of these very Jazz opting to liquidate. They moved on from 2022 lottery pick Ochai Agbaji after just a year and a half. It wasn’t because they didn’t like Agbaji — they did, and he was reportedly a delight to be around, too — but they decided that based on where they had him projected long-term, it was worth turning him into another draft swing. That’s how they got the pick they used on Isaiah Collier.
There might not be an Agbaji type situation this year, though. They’re not getting out of the Ace Bailey or Walt Clayton Jr. business this early. Keyonte George has gotten good enough that if he’s in a deal it will be a different type altogether. Cody Williams and Taylor Hendricks probably wouldn’t draw a first since they’ve been out of the rotation. Brice Sensabaugh, Kyle Filipowski and Collier have shown enough to potentially catch some eyes.
And that leaves…
The big kahuna: All indications, including as recently as yesterday with the plugged-in Mike Scotto — indicate the Jazz are interested in building around Lauri Markkanen, rather than extending their rebuild into perpetuity by trading him.
The Jazz are way closer to true contention with Markkanen, their 11 future firsts, multiple young guys and $50M in cap space next summer than they would be by putting the Finnish forward on NBA eBay. Mark Pereira has said it and so have I: the only reason to seriously entertain moving this guy is if some GM gets drunk and makes a ridiculous offer the Jazz just can’t ignore.
Other assets: The Jazz currently have up to 11 firsts, and they could legally trade as many as eight of them. They also have seven seconds (not counting the two that could convert from protected firsts we already counted).
They also have $18.38 million left of a trade exception from when they sent John Collins to L.A. They can’t combined that $18.38M with other salary, but could use it to help teams with financial needs. They’re operating as an over-the-cap team in order to keep that exception alive, but even without using it they can still take back more than they send out in a trade. If they send out less than $8.28M, they can take back double, plus $250K; if they send out $33.0M or more, they can take back 125% of outgoing salary, plus $250K; if they send out any amount in between, they can take back an extra $8.53M.
Stay tuned. The Jazz could get mentioned a lot this trade season.
Telling or interesting words from Jazz people”(George) keeps getting better and better every game that we play. It was just a matter of time for this to happen and it’s just the beginning for him.”
-Markkanen, via the DNews, after George’s career-high 39 points in Memphis
George became the second youngest player ever to score 39 or more in a game, at 22 years and 34 days old. (Donovan Mitchell had a 41 and a 40, both before his 22nd birthday.)
He was doing a little bit of everything: he was 2-for-4 on catch-and-shoot threes, 3-for-5 off the bounce. He scored in the midrange and got to his patented little slot drives. He hit a big almost-three late (they checked, but he was over the line) and then iced the win with free throws.
Will Hardy called it a “terrific game” for George, and gave the guard credit for being smart against a sometimes grabby defense that was trying to bait him once he got into foul trouble.
“Keyonte has grown so much,” the fourth-year coach concluded.
Stats that tell the story of the week
3-7
The bottom nine teams in the NBA standings all have 3-7 records or better in the last 10 games, with the lone exception being the Clippers, who owe their pick to OKC unconditionally. Which is a way of saying: don’t fret, all these teams are going to win some games, and there’s a long way to go before lottery odds are final. Utah’s actually 4-3 in its last seven, but also 4-6 over the last 10, an identical record over that span to the teams just ahead of them in the lotto standings (except again LAC). Nobody’s going 0-82.
46.4%
In their lone game this week, the Jazz had their best rim defense of the season, holding Memphis to 13-for-28 around the cup. That helped Utah overcome Memphis’ 46% night from three.
69, 39
With less basketball to talk about this week, let’s check in on Markkanen’s pursuit of 200 threes + 100 dunks in a season. It would be the second such season in NBA history, the first being when he did it in 2022-23. Right now he’s at 69 threes and 39 dunks. At that pace, he’ll get to the dunk threshold in his 59th game, but he does need to pick up the pace a little on threes. At present, he’s on pace to cross that line in game 67, but who knows if he’ll play as much in the latter half of the season as he’s playing currently.
#1
The Jazz still give up the most opponent three (15.5 per game), but it appears to be a conscious choice since they’re allowing the fewest rim attempts. Their defensive “location eFG” that measures expected shot outcomes by location is the best in the league.
4
We have to recognize Love’s explosion, too. It was the second time this season he’s made at least four threes, making him one of just 20 NBA players ever to have multiple such games in a season after turning 37.
Dissecting a Jazz scoring play
Without a doubt, we need to focus in here on George’s career night.
The thing he’s doing best at this season is on these little slot drives where he changes gears, gets deep, and gets into the body of the defender. These didn’t even get called as fouls, but he’s finishing at a really high rate after these bumps.
If he’s going to regularly hit these types of midrange pull-ups, he becomes really tricky to guard:
But in particular, I loved watching the Jazz run this patented Lauri action for him:
They do this partially because they’re picking on Cam Spencer (who botches the switch), but you’ll see Markkanen run this little ghost Spain-to-DHO-to-flare action all the time. The big is dropped and has no intention of helping at all on the screening action, so when Spencer misreads the switch and then tries to recover under the Nurkic screen, the result is that nobody’s within 10 feet of George.
Recognizing the best (or most memorable) performances from each outing
Jazz 130, Grizzlies 126: Keyonte George. Apologies to Love’s throwback 20-point barrage, and Nurkic’s meaty 13-17-7 line, and even Markkanen ‘s 26 and 9. Because on any other night, those would have been serious contenders (in that order) for Game Ball, but in this one they weren’t even really considered because of how unstoppable George was offensively. It was obvious by halftime (27 points on 13 shots) that it was going to be a big night for Key, and he kept going with a career-high 39, plus eight assists, six boards and two steals.
What the next seven days have in store
The Jazz have three home games this week before playing 11 of their next 16 on the road.
Monday 12/15 vs. Mavericks: Dallas has climbed out of the bottom eight thanks to a 5-1 stretch, with rookie phenom Cooper Flagg leading the way at 23-6-3 over that span. They might be close to centerless when they visit Utah, though. Anthony Davis and Daniel Gafford are questionable, and Dereck Lively II is out for the year. Expect a lot of Dwight Powell and two-way signee Moussa Cisse, plus some smallball lineups with the likes of PJ Washington or Naji Marshall as the nominal five. This team relies a lot on defense to win (#6 DRtg), but that may not hold up on a night with very little size.
Thursday 12/18 vs. Lakers: Not to get all dramatic, but this could be the last time LeBron James plays in Utah. The all-time great hasn’t officially said whether or not he’ll play past this season, but this is the Lake Show’s final trip to Utah this year. There have been several extraordinarily memorable LeBron games in Utah: Gordon Hayward’s game-winner, a Devin Harris floater, and of course Sundiata Gaines jumping on the scorer’s table. The Lakers have split their last six after winning seven straight. Second leading scorer Austin Reaves is out briefly with a calf strain.
Saturday 12/20 vs. Magic: Orlando is currently in possession of a homecourt seed in the East despite another tough injury to Franz Wagner, their leading per-game scorer. Paolo Banchero missed a bunch of games too, but it back now and averaging over 20 a night despite outside shooting woes. They had reeled off a 9-3 stretch but since then have lost three of five, and will land in Utah in the middle of a dreaded 4-in-6-nights stretch on the road.
Random stuff for your enjoyment
Dunk of the week!
