The season is over for the Utah Jazz, and their immediate future concerning Lauri Markkanen is up in the air.
The Finnish forward has just one year left on his deal, at $18 million, meaning the Jazz will need to make a call on his future.
A common extension isn’t in the cards, due to league restrictions capping such an extension at 140% of the salary of the last-played season. That means, under such a format, Markkanen would be limited to a new starting salary of $27 million, despite having averaged 24.5 points, and 8.4 rebounds, over the past two seasons.
In short, that’s just not going to cut it. Markkanen can make a significantly larger amount on the open market, and would unquestionably decline any extension offer, forcing the Jazz to compete for his services in 2025 free agency, without the option of retaining him by matching similar offers.
Essentially, Markkanen would control everything.
That puts the Jazz in a situation where they will have to be proactive this very summer if they wish to keep Markkanen long-term.
They could enter re-negotiations, which would allow them to dig into cap space, and add on more years to Markkanen’s deal, but at a much higher annual salary.
With Jordan Clarkson’s contract declining in value from $23.5 million to $14 million due to him signing a cheaper extension, that’s almost $10 million saved right there. Talen Horton-Tucker and Kira Lewis are both free agents, with a combined $16.7 million coming off the books, assuming the Jazz have no interest in extending Lewis a qualifying offer to make him a restricted free agent.
Add that to the fact that the league’s cap is projected to jump by $5 million, and this would indeed be the summer to do this exact type of re-negotiations with Markkanen.
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