With the Utah Jazz showing their glaring weaknesses far too prominently of late, it seems a good time to look ahead to this summer’s promising free agency period with a look at 12 players in three different tiers.
With the Utah Jazz currently in a bit of a lull, it’s hard for a mind to avoid starting to wander towards summer time. Although the Jazz were supposed to be entering an easier stretch of schedule, they’ve now dropped three of their last four games, two of which came to unarguably inferior opponents.
As such, Utah has now plummeted to eighth in the Western Conference and the need for additional talent on this squad has revealed itself in full force. Unfortunately, with the trade deadline long passed, there’s no way for any such influx of talent to suddenly land on the Jazz roster. The next chance they’ll have to improve as a team is this summer with the draft, trade market and, of course, free agency.
We’ll be focusing on all three of those at length here at The J-Notes, but for today I wanted to turn our focus to free agency. Outside of playoffs and the trade deadline, NBA free agency is one of the most exciting times of the year. The speculation runs rampant and a player’s decision to join another team can completely shift the balance of power for several seasons ahead.
Unfortunately, free agency hasn’t exactly been a gold mine for the Jazz in recent seasons. Salt Lake City isn’t known as a glamorous free agent destination, and the small market Utah squad has tended to have a hard time luring elite stars into its mix. Recent allegations regarding a reputation of inappropriate behavior from Jazz fans likely won’t help that matter any either.
Nevertheless, when viewed from a pure basketball standpoint, there’s a lot to like about Utah’s free agency odds. They have a brilliant and well-respected coach, a nice foundation in place with the duo of rising star Donovan Mitchell and defensive anchor Rudy Gobert, and ample flexibility to pay a big fish this summer.
The question is, can they get said big fish to take the bait?
Even if the answer is no, they still have to try. And there most certainly are a handful of elite players that should be high on their list. Even if they don’t have the appeal to reel in top talent, that doesn’t mean the Jazz can give up on getting better as there are plenty of formidable guys that will be available that they should look at in free agency outside of the guys that will be grabbing the headlines.
As such, the way I’ve organized these free agent targets is into three tiers – a top tier of star players the Jazz should swing for the fences for, a middle tier of solid players that would improve the Jazz despite not necessarily taking them to an elite level and finally a lower tier of helpful role players that could make an impact for the Jazz.
While some or all of these guys will be tough to get, I’ve attempted to make sure there’s at least some semblance of a realistic shot with each one. In other words, you’ll find no Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard or Kyrie Irving on this list despite their free agent status.
With that out of the way, let’s jump right in to three tiers of free agents – 12 total players – that the Utah Jazz should take a long hard look at this summer as they aim to make some noise in free agency.