When do the Utah Jazz need to make decisions on Luka Samanic and Kris Dunn?

The Utah Jazz have two major names, Luka Samanic, and Kris Dunn, under non-guaranteed deals.

The Utah Jazz are doing everything they can to rebuild their team into a winner, without sacrificing the long-term future of the club. Part of that is to slowly build a team with a combination of traded assets, drafted rookies, and free agents. Though, not every player that the team receives in a trade, sign, or even draft is going to be a contributor to the future of the club. Sometimes the team just wants to see what they have in those players. The Jazz has two of them, Kris Dunn and Luka Samanic.

Both men are under contract with the Jazz, and both are in the last year of their deals. Samanic played for the Jazz during the 2022-2023 season and recently signed a new deal with the team in April of 2023. He finished out the previous season with the club under that new deal and has one remaining year on the contract. It’s worth about $2.1 million, but it’s not guaranteed.

Meaning, if the Jazz cut him, they don’t owe him that money. Dunn is in a similar situation. He signed with the club in March of ’23, just before Samanic. He’s owed just under $2.6 million. The Jazz are $2.8 million under the cap, so if the club wanted to make a move, they could free up $5.5 million to throw at a player.

And considering both Samanic and Dunn are first-round picks that haven’t lived up to their draft status, cutting them wouldn’t be a big deal. It’s not like the Jazz drafted either man.

Samanic was drafted by the Spurs in 2019, with the 19th overall pick. He’s only 23 and has time to develop still, but Dunn is 29. He was drafted 5th overall in the 2016 draft and is already on his fifth team after stops in Minnesota, Chicago, Atlanta, and Portland.

Because of their situations and issues adapting to the NBA game, both men could be gone tomorrow and it wouldn’t cost the Jazz much of anything. But when do their contracts turn into fully-guaranteed deals?

According to HoopsRumors, it’s different for each man.

For Samanic, his deal becomes partially guaranteed on July 18, 2023, earning him $400k. For Dunn, his deal becomes fully guaranteed on Oct. 23, 2023. On that date as well, Samanic’s deal goes from $400k to $600k.

Now, the Jazz had two other situations similar to that of Dunn and Samanic.

Kelly Olynyk had his deal increased to $12 million on June 28, up from his partial guarantee of $3 million. Another player who was on a full non-guaranteed contract is the former last pick in the 2020 draft, Vernon Carey Jr.

He was waived by the team on July 7 but had the Jazz kept him, his deal would have matured to its full $1.9 million on the same date as Samanic and Dunn; Oct. 23, 2023.