Utah Jazz: A way too early look at the 2020 offseason

Mike Conley player option

When the market is open for free agents in a couple of months, Mike Conley will have an opportunity to join those free agents and pick his own team.

He may turn down the fifth year of his contract he signed back in 2015 that made him the highest paid player in the league for a short time. Or, he can opt in to one more year under contract with the Utah Jazz for 34.5 million dollars.

This ought to be a no-brainer for Conley, as he has struggled this season and looks like he’s fallen off a cliff. There’s no way he will make anything close to 34.5 million dollars if he signs a new deal on the 2020 market.

Running it back for one more year will buy him some time to fix himself and convince the league executives that he is not washed up, and still has plenty left to give. He’d make his lucrative 34.5 million, and get a better deal in the summer of 2021, getting the best of both worlds.

Having said that, will the Utah Jazz want another year of Mountain Mike? They gave up a lot of assets to receive his services, and he hasn’t raised the team’s ceiling at all compared to what Ricky Rubio gave for the Jazz a couple years ago.

He makes an undersized backcourt with Donovan Mitchell, and gets confused too often on defense for whom he’s supposed to guard. He over helps on the interior rather than trusting Rudy to erase mistakes, and he gets confused on switches.

Younger players have blown by him, and on offense Conley has failed to develop the dangerous pick and roll tandem with Rudy Gobert that was anticipated in the offseason.

So even when Conley’s shot has been falling this season, he’s not contributing anything more than volume scoring. Pretty redundant for a club that already has Jordan Clarkson filling the same role at less than half the cost of Conley.

Sure, give him more time and he will develop chemistry with his teammates about switching on the pick and roll defensively. He will get better at feeding Gobert in the interior, and he will get better at playing off the ball.

But do those benefits outweigh the cost of the defensive liability? Donovan Mitchell has not been the defender he promised to be last summer, and it’s clear he needs a defensive ace to be his backcourt mate going forward.

In my opinion the Jazz should look to deal Conley as a salary dump should he opt-in to his 34.5 million. I’d love to see it, but will they be able to find a worthwhile deal for the 34 year old veteran? They may be stuck with him until 2021.