Top 2016 Offseason Priorities for the Utah Jazz

The Utah Jazz were the last team eliminated from the playoffs. The Houston Rockets beat the Sacramento Kings Wednesday night and held the tiebreaker. But, as it turned out, a 60-point career finale from Kobe Bryant upended the Jazz, and it didn’t matter anyway.

Still, based on their Simple Rating System (which includes margin of victory and strength of schedule) score of plus-1.84, the Jazz were easily the best team this year to not make the playoffs.

In fact, they were better than six that did.

They did so without a true starting-caliber point guard for most of the season and injuries to franchise cornerstones Derrick Favors (who missed 23 games) and Rudy Gobert (who missed 22).

While they missed the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season, there is a lot to be happy about and a young core to build on. The right offseason moves could make them contenders. They did the hard part. Now they need to do the fine-tuning to get to the next step. 

The Core

Hannah Foslien/Associated Press

According to RealGM.com, the Jazz were tied with the Philadelphia 76ers for the youngest team in the NBA this season with an average age of 24.4. Of those players, five, in particular, are truly worth building around: Dante Exum, Rodney Hood, Hayward, Favors and Gobert.

Particularly groovy is that they also—if healthy—comprise the team's starting five.

Exum missed the entire season when he blew out his ACL playing for the Australian National Team last summer. Ironically, he should get right back on that horse and play for the Land Down Under this summer to shake off as much rust as possible.

He told Gordon Monson of the Salt Lake Tribune that while rehabbing, he worked on his shot, making sure he has two hands on the ball when releasing.  He also deepened his understanding of the game by watching on the bench:

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You're thinking like a coach, in a way. When you're a point guard out on the court, you need to be able to do things on the fly. If Gordon can hit a jumper going right, what play do you run to get him that when he's on fire? You saw Rodney hit all those threes, so, on the fly, you have to be able to call those plays.

I simulate in my mind what I would do, how I would react, if [an opponent] is playing well, what I would do to stop him. That's how my mind works. It's been hard for me this year. We've had a few injuries. We had Rudy out, Faves out, Alec getting hurt. I just can't wait until we're all healthy.

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With both the shot adjustments and transferring that newfound knowledge into action, time on the court can only help.

Exum isn’t the only member of the core who can benefit from offseason work. Hood is an excellent secondary ball-handler, particularly off the pick-and-roll, where his .88 points per play put him in the 77.4 percentile, according to NBA.com. He averaged 2.0 threes per game, shooting 35.9 percent from deep.

Rick Bowmer/Associated Press

He’s very good from two as well, averaging more than a bucket a game from the paint outside the restricted area and another from mid-range (outside the paint but inside the three-point line). He shot over 40 percent from both. Only two players, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul, matched that production in each area of the floor.

However, Hood only made 66 shots at the rim this year, and that’s something he can improve. At 6’8”, he should be taking advantage of his size more often.

Hayward is an incredibly solid all-around player. He can shoot, he has handles, and he’s developed into a well-above-average defender. But if there’s one thing he can work on, it’s his passing. His assist percentage has dropped each of the last two seasons. Spending some time pouring over film might help with that and give his body a break.

Derrick Favors is a power forward on the rise who could claim a spot among the elite next season, but a better jump shot would go a long way. It was good only 37.4 percent of the time last year. In the stretch 4 age, that has to come up.

Gobert is one of the elite rim protectors in the game. He has a defensive real plus-minus of plus-3.81, ninth in the league, per ESPN.com. And according to Seth Partnow's rim protection numbers at Nylon Calculus, he saves 1.79 points per game at the rim. 

However, with a free-throw percentage of 59.9, Gobert could use some practice at the charity stripe. And it wouldn’t hurt him to develop something even resembling a post-up game, where he had just 16 points this season.

If the core continues to develop, this has the potential to be one of the league’s best starting fives.

The Draft

The Jazz have their own picks this year and two additional second-rounders, according to RealGM.com. However, since those are coming from the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors, both additional selections will be near the end of the draft.

Utah has the luxury of not having to pick for need, but at the same time, it needs depth across the board. So it won’t be put in a desperate situation of trying to trade up or settle for a player that falls to it. As the Jazz have shown in recent years by taking guys like Trey Lyles (No. 12 pick, 2015), Hood (23, 2014) and Gobert (27, 2013), they’re pretty good at getting their picks right.

That said, shooting is probably the top priority from any position, so someone like Timothe Luwawu out of France would be a solid pick. His profile write-up at DraftExpress.com by Jonathan Givony is intriguing.

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Luwawu has pretty much everything you look for in a two-way role-playing NBA wing. He has strong physical attributes for a shooting guard or small forward, standing (in his words) 6'7" without shoes, 205 pounds, with a 6'11" wingspan, and excellent athletic ability. He is very smooth and fluid, and can play above the rim with ease, sometimes in highlight reel fashion. 

Luwawu has made huge strides as an outside shooter, upping his 3-point percentage this season from 29 to 39%, while tripling his total number of attempts. He's been extremely reliable shooting the ball with his feet set this season (43% in catch and shoot situations according to Synergy Sports Tech), and has also shown some flashes of being capable of coming off screens. He's also developing his ability to pull-up off the dribble, something he has the freedom to experiment quite a bit with at Mega Leks.  

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The Jazz also have a small cadre of players they could move in trades on draft night, including the likes of Trey Burke. With their second-round picks, it wouldn’t be surprising if they went draft-and-stash and stored some players overseas for a couple of years.                                                           

Free Agency

Matt Slocum/Associated Press

On July 1, things are going to get interesting, not just for the Jazz, but for the whole league. That’s the day that teams can start talking to players, and an unprecedented spending spree will start.

The Jazz, though, will be one of the better-positioned teams to take advantage of the cap boost.

They currently have about $56.5 million in guaranteed contracts, according to Spotrac.com. With the cap expected to be in the neighborhood of $89 million, the Jazz will have north of $30 million to spend on new players, even after cap holds.

There are two routes they can go with that. The first is to go after a high-end player. While Kevin Durant isn’t likely to happen, the next tier holds real possibilities. Tony Jones of the Salt Lake Tribune speculates that could mean Nicolas Batum.

A signing like that would probably move Hood to the bench, where he could develop into a Sixth Man of the Year candidate. And with Batum and Hayward as the wings, the Jazz would have a formidable perimeter attack on defense as well.

Utah could forego the pursuit of a premiere free agent and use the money to shore up the bench, adding next-level players like Arron Afflalo, Brandon Jennings, Dwight Powell, Donatas Motiejunas, etc. It may be that two or three of those guys would be better than just one player who bumps a starter.

The cap is Utah’s friend this summer, and they should be a much deeper team when next season starts. As such, they are poised to not only break into the playoffs, but possibly end up a top-four team in the West as well.