NEW INTEL on Ace Bailey, Lauri Markkanen and Walker Kessler’s contract

NEW INTEL on Ace Bailey, Lauri Markkanen and Walker Kessler’s contract

New intel on Walker Kesler’s contract. Lowry Markin and Ace Bailey. Let’s talk about it. It’s the Hoopner Show. [Music] All right guys, like always like the video, subscribe to the channel. Okay, so there is a lot of intel that came from Keith Smith at Spotrak. We’re going to go through each and every item. I did not realize this had come out. So, this was important to cover. This talks about Walker Kesler, like I said, Lowry Markin, also Ace Bailey, the young guys, contracts, veterans, everything. It’s great. So, I’m just going to go through this. Let’s talk about it. So, the first thing that Keith Smith wrote about was the team’s roster construction. And this is something a Jazz executive said. He says, “We had a lot of work to do for sure when you have as many guys on expiring contracts as we did, plus as many young players. You have to be very proactive. We didn’t want the older players here pushing for minutes to get their next deal, which is what they should be doing. We didn’t want the younger players getting resentful because guys who aren’t a part of our future are playing in front of him.” That mindset drove some of our moves this summer. All right. So, he says some they want to allow those players who are playing for contracts to go to other places. Obviously, that is going to help with, you know, getting the young guys time to play. You’re not going to have young older players getting angry because they’re not going to be able to get a contract because the Jazz are helping uh developing their young players. So, this just made a lot of sense for just a team happiness perspective. The goals of the Jazz right now are not necessarily to be a playoff team. It’s more to develop their youth so that they can become a perennial playoff team and hopefully a championship contender. If they get an MVP caliber candidate, if Ace Bailey is that or if the next year’s draft brings that on, then that’s great. Eventually, Utah will find that player with what they’re doing. And it makes it difficult to do that if you have veterans on the team playing for a contract. John Collins obviously would like to play his expiring year on a team that’s playing to win and that’s what he gets to do with the Clippers now. He’s going to play really well for them and do and get lots of minutes and that’s what he should get. Like the Jazz said, if he’s on the Jazz that doesn’t help anything. Utah has their pick next year, top eight protected and they don’t want to lose it. On top of that, you’ve got players like Ace Bailey wanting to needing minutes. Taylor Hendris is going to come back from injury. He needs minutes. So, someone like John Collins being on the roster makes that really difficult. All right, the next thing is a Jazz Front Office executive talked about Ace Bailey and Walter Clayton. Here’s what they said. When Ace was on the board at our pick, it sure took a lot of sting out of dropping in the lottery. Just going to say that’s really interesting cuz it felt like Utah treated things like the sky was falling and then all of a sudden the draft worked out. Anyway, all the stuff about him pre-draft and not wanting to come to Utah, that was all just nonsense. He’s excited to be with us and we’re thrilled to have him. A Jazz front office executive said, “As far as on day one of camp, we can already see it during summer league and it’s authentic. Talk to anyone around Florida program and they’ll tell you that Walter drove them to to the title this year. Not just on the floor, but in practices and in the locker room. We love that about him. So anyways, Walter Clayton sounds like he’s going to be an incredible addition to this team if he becomes as good as he looked in summer league. He got better and better and better. That’s great. If he becomes a leader for this team in the locker room and just kind of that leader that the Jazz have needed for years, that’s incredible. Utah really has not had that kind of leadership in the locker room in a while. Like when’s the last time you really had that real leader in the locker room? I guess Mike Connley kind of uh but they really haven’t had that. And so having someone like Walter Clayton who might be that leadership guy is great. Now the stuff about Ace Bailey fantastic. All the media speculation, all the stuff that was said, nonsense. We’re thrilled to have him. It’s great. And I, you know, some of that may be a little bit true. I think that just saying none of that was reality is probably being a little a little disingenuous. But I I believe what the Jazz are saying here that they feel like it was a lot of nonsense and that he’s happy to be here. And the reason we can believe that is because that’s what Ace Bailey has said in literally every t situation he’s been asked and every situation his actual player agency has talked has said he was happy to be there and has a great opportunity and Utah is doing the right thing like we mentioned with the other point that they’re trading veterans to clear the path for guys like Ace Bailey. This is perfect. That’s exactly what you want. So, nothing but happy with that information on Ace Bailey and Walter Clayton. All right, here’s a note on Walker Kesler and his contract extension. By the way, keep in mind, and this one’s interesting, this quote, Walker Kesler’s eligible for a contract extension as of July 1. Utah could give him an extension now. And we’ve seen reports that he’d like to be in Utah and Utah would like to sign him. Both both sides are saying the right things. What a contract hasn’t happened. So, a lot of times you got to take uh actions over words sometimes. I guess we’ll see. But here’s what the executive from Utah said about Walker Kesler. We’d love to get Walker signed. We have a whole lot of flexibility because Lowry Markin is the only veteran we have on a long-term deal. That will come into play with Walker, too, because he’ll be the next guy on a long-term deal. That’s something we have to be mindful of as we plan and build out roster out in the in the immediate and for the future. All right. So, that’s interesting. Utah is wanting to be very careful about how they give these contracts out. It sounds like they don’t want to just give a big time contract to Kesler. And it very much seems like Walker Kesler wants a specific amount. Might be too high. So, Utah is going to go through this. They have a full season to see how Walker Kesler plays and then they can give him a contract extension this upcoming off season. Uh although if that doesn’t happen then things get kind of weird and you get into the qualifying offer range which is not something you want to do. Do you really want to be in the Jonathan Kaminga situation that Golden State is in right now? Probably not. And I don’t think that’s what Utah is going to be in. But it is certainly something to watch. No contract yet. They could do it. They haven’t. So, they’re going to the AAM’s razor to this, the most likely easy path or easy answer is that they probably just want to make sure that Walker Kesler plays well this season before they do give him a contract. And hopefully they don’t have too much back and forth with Walker Kesler’s team wanting too much. I personally don’t feel like Walker Kesler should be getting anything above 20 million. And if they do, if it’s if you start getting close to 30 million, that gets into like really rough territory for a player that’s really good, but he’s also not a ball dominant player. He’s not a good free throw shooter. And there’s been times where the effort could have been better. So, I’m guessing Utah wants to see him play hard this year and play well and then they probably give him that contract. But, it is something to watch. If they really, really wanted to make it happen, probably signed. I’m sure they want to, but not that bad. All right, so next is on Lowry Markin’s future in Utah. The thing everyone loves me talking about. Here’s the quote from the Utah Jazz executive on Lowry Markin’s future in Utah. We hope it will be a long one. And then he puts in quotes, laughs. Seriously, we love Lowry. He’s been great since getting here and nothing will change with that. He understands what we’re doing and how this team is building. He’s ready to get back here and to get back to work for next season, a Jazz Front Office executive said. Interesting. So, I wonder if that laugh about that is probably them knowing that, you know, there has been lots of rumors about Lowry Markin in the last few seasons and especially this latest offseason. We have seen rumors about possible trade possibilities with Lowry Markin. The only issue with Lowry Markin and trades, whether you believe the Jazz should trade Lowry Markin or not, is getting a trade done with his contract at about 46 million is going to be difficult for that to happen. So whether you want that trade or not, it’s going to be difficult. It’s interesting that Utah talks about him as a long-term contract and a veteran, you know, and you know, if you It’s probably splitting hairs. They don’t call him a star or anything like that. They don’t go beyond calling him a veteran player. Interesting. If and you know, I guess I don’t need to dive into that too much. I don’t want the angry comments below. Do I think Lowry Markin is going to play better this year? I do think he will play better. I do. Uh the motivation for Lowry is just to play well and I’m sure he’d like to win. But it is also interesting that they keep saying things like he understands what we’re doing. We heard those same quotes last off seasonason and we know how last season went. The Jazz went full-on tank and midway through the year they really went tank. Well, it was more about a third or halfway through when they had that Brooklyn win that really had the whole front office just frustrated. And so then they started manipulating lineups. Well, now this year they are not manipulating lineups. They are going to play to win. So Lowry is going to play and if he plays well, I’m sure the Jazz will get phone calls about him. We’ll see if a trade happens. We do know from intel, from good reporting that if the Jazz get a big time offer, they’ll consider it, but only if they get a big time offer, they’re not going to trade him for nothing. And I do think, you know, just so everyone can can calm down in the comments section, I do think there’s a world where Lowry Markin is a part of this team when they get really good. And that includes next year. I think this year they are going to do everything they can to get that top eight pick. It’s why I just I just can’t get that nagging thought out of my head that a trade might be coming at some point with Markin because they want that top eight pick and they want to get someone like Darren Peterson, Camboozer or AJ Debonsa. They want one of those guys. Having Markin play long minutes, multiple nights, that puts that in question. Now I think here’s my prediction. They’re not going to manipulate lineups during games. And maybe they’re talking about like I guess manipulating lineups to lose games. I don’t think they’re going to sit Markin all year like they did with John Collins. That was probably the most egregious of the tanking the Jazz did. But if Lowry Markin has a sniffle or a hint of an ankle something or you know some sort of some sort of slight little pull, he’s going to rest. They’re going to rest him is my prediction. And probably overly careful with certain things. That’s my guess. We’ll see. Or maybe they just play him and who knows. But I do think they’re going to do that a little bit. Like players are going to get a lot of rest. I mean, we saw it this summer league already. Ace Bailey had some sort of hip thing and didn’t play the all of Las Vegas summer league and uh you know, Walter Clayton Jr. had some sort of calf pull and then after the game said he probably would be fine and Utah said, “Nope, you’re out.” So, I think that’s basically going to be the mentality this season with Larry Markin. If he has some sort of back spasms thing like he had last year and the year before, they’re going to rest him. uh because you know it does no good to get him injured in a season where Utah wants to lose. And to be just completely honest, you don’t want to injure him if a team does want to give you a big time like if a Golden State Warriors give you two picks unprotected post Steph Curry for Lowry Markin. I mean, come on. You got to think about that, you know, and Utah doesn’t want to miss out on a trade like that. So, and then finally on having so many young players, uh, this executive or this it was actually from one of the Jazz coaches. Who do you think was it Hardy or someone else? Who knows? Uh, it’s important that we set the right tone. It’s okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them. These guys are young and some some of them are young young if that makes sense. Mistakes are going to come, but they can’t be the same mistakes over and over. If they are, look around. There’s another guy ready to take your minutes. That level of competition is going to be awesome for us. And if the kids aren’t getting it done, we’ve got a lot of vets who have had success in the league. Those guys aren’t done playing yet. No one on our roster is just collecting a paycheck. They’re all here to work and push each other to be better, a Utah Jazz coach said. So anyways, that is the culture of the Jazz. You are going to play and if you make mistakes, you can get replaced. Just because the Jazz are going young doesn’t mean they can’t build a good culture. That’s the biggest thing that I think has been maybe one of the biggest misnomers and ma and kind of false narratives to just be honest from the last two three seasons is that you can’t somehow have a good culture with only young players. Yes, you can. It’s it’s as if some people think you don’t have a coaching staff that can make changes. Utah has empowered Will Hardy that he has a long-term contract. They have put full confidence in him. And this season, more than any other season, he has, you know, I mean, he’s had it every single season, but they have given him the opportunity to play who he wants. And if players earn the minutes, they’ll get them. And if players lose the minutes, they will lose them. And that is how you build a culture of winning is when you have guys supplanting the guy in front of them. That’s how it works. So, that’s what we’re going to see with the Jazz this upcoming season. And it’s going to be really good. Uh, it’s why I do think some trades are still on the in the works. We might see a trade that probably surprises us a little bit. We’ll see. But guys, like and subscribe to the channel. Shout out to all the members, especially of the Allstars. I appreciate you so much. I will talk to you

Keith Smith at Spotrac did an incredible job giving us information on Ace Bailey and how things are going in Utah. He also provided us with information on Walker Kessler’s contract and Lauri Markkanen. Jazz fans have to be wondering if there will be more NBA trade rumors with Markkanen. Likely, we’ll still see some of these happening

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