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Who would you rather keep, Lauri Markkanen or John Collins? (Please read scenario)

If the Jazz choose to keep only one of John Collins or Lauri Markkanen, who should they keep?

  • John Collins

    Votes: 6 17.6%

  • Lauri Markkanen

    Votes: 28 82.4%
  • Total voters
    34
Depends on the return tbh. Obviously Lauri is better in a vacuum but if they can land a premium FRP + prospect they could consider dealing him I would assume. Locke certainly seems to believe they will be "tanking" again next season so it doesn't really make sense to worry too much about roster construction at this point unless it seriously impacts available minutes for their draft pick.
 
Another thing to consider is that Collins as a player has very few weak areas. He can score inside, he can shoot from the outside, he is OK on defense, can do some passing and dribbling, can play physically. John also has playoff experience, very coachable and sticks well to his role. John is easily pluggable in all kind of schemes and lineups, while not having any obvious flaws that can be exploited in the playoffs.

Lauri has an undeniably higher ceiling and more position-flexible but there are more questions about him. Can he play physically in playoffs, how well can he coexist with, say, younger stars who would try to take away his leadership role on the team, will he return to his All Star form, will he get tired of the extended tank? Also, Markkanen will turn 28 in a month - I would be way more comfortable in keeping him marinating on the max if he were 25.
 
I cant decide. I think Lauri is the better player but his contract tho.
I guess I would probably say trade Lauri and keep collins if he is going to get something in the 20-25 million per year on his next deal.
 
Like, realistically, what is the timeline with Lauri? We will most likely tank next year. Will we make the playoffs the year after that? The West is tough and the Jazz can easily fall short even with good young players. (see the Spurs with Wemby). If we make the payoffs for the first time in the 27/28 season then Lauri will be getting his first playoff learning experience at the age of 31, while spending all of his career on the bad teams. How long would it take for him to take his lumps and become a productive star player on a contender then? By the time he is 33 or 34? I think there is quite a bit of risk in it.
 
I have real concerns with Lauri and his contract. Then there’s the tanking piece that @KqWIN mentioned wherein if Lauri’s good, it’s bad for that, and if Lauri’s bad (again, frankly) then we quickly have one of the absolute worst contracts in the NBA hanging around our necks.

I’ll take either an expiring Collins or a renegotiate and extended Collins on a value deal (bearing in mind we have to hit a salary floor and need good salary ballast for future trades) by a comfortable margin.

I’d probably prefer to have neither if they can be successfully liquidated for respectable value.
 
Obviously Lauri being a great player is a reason to keep him, but I do think there has to be a plan going forward if you keeping. If the plan is to try to move forward and compete for playoffs, that’s a hell no for me. Are we going to sit and do nothing? Also a hell no for me. I don’t think of tanking as the golden goose, but I don’t see other paths as viable. I actually see them as pretty awful ways to build given our position, so tanking is the way. Great players don’t mix with tanking.

It obviously worked out this season, but there was a lot of "good" fortune we had that produced this result. Lauri not being a great player was part of that and if we want it to succeed that would also be a part of that. On a personal note, I also hate the good fortune we produced on our own by purposely throwing games. It's embarrassing and even if it hurts us I hope the league finds a way to prevent it in the future. If you look back, I was more optimistic about the Lauri+tank option than anyone. This time, I am much less optimistic. Our young players are improving and turning into real players. With reasonable improvement, we'd actually have a deep roster....the exact type of roster that produces wins in the regular season. With some organic growth and less artificial losses, I think we're headed for the Blazers zone and for that it likely means we lose our pick next year.

So if you're selling me on keeping Lauri, I think that requires trading both Sexton and Collins. That is non-negotiable and I don't care if we take the L on a trade and give them away for nothing. I think we also consider trading one of our younger players who are ready to contribute, someone like Keyonte. Sounds crazy to trade a young player while tanking, but there's a cost to trying to tank with Lauri. I understand the hesitation to trade Lauri when his value is low. But if you're not willing to take the L on his trade, you have to take the L elsewhere.

I think it should also be noted that if you're planning on keeping Lauri now, you're probably in it for the long haul with him unless you try to push forward. You're setting him up for personal failure, and if he has another bad year we are looking at one of the worst deals in the league. We won't be trading Lauri unless he lives up to his contract which is tough to do in a tanking situation.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
Somewhat related, but could someone put together our options for a potential John Collins extension this summer? I don't think I'm necessarily interested in extending Collins, but am just curious what we could offer him.
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If they cut KJ Martin and find another ~$15 million in cuts and/or by returning less salary in another trade (the Jazz are gonna have to ink some substantial deals for their draft picks), they could give Collins a ~$10 million raise this season, then drop 40% for the remainder of the at-least 4-year contract (which includes the last year of the old deal that will receive a raise).

I think it would look something like this:
25-26: $35.5 million
26-27: $21.3 million
27-28: $21.3 million
28-29: $21.3 million

Bear in mind that the cap almost always goes up, so those later seasons get cheaper and cheaper relative to the cap. I chose these numbers based on how much Collins would make if he were to simply make the same amount of the last year of his current contract over three additional years, but front-loading next season.
 
NUMBERICA said:
If they cut KJ Martin and find another ~$15 million in cuts and/or by returning less salary in another trade (the Jazz are gonna have to ink some substantial deals for their draft picks), they could give Collins a ~$10 million raise this season, then drop 40% for the remainder of the at-least 4-year contract (which includes the last year of the old deal that will receive a raise).

I think it would look something like this:
25-26: $35.5 million
26-27: $21.3 million
27-28: $21.3 million
28-29: $21.3 million

Bear in mind that the cap almost always goes up, so those later seasons get cheaper and cheaper relative to the cap. I chose these numbers based on how much Collins would make if he were to simply make the same amount of the last year of his current contract over three additional years, but front-loading next season.
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This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks.
 
Just going to put this here. The jazz maybe have the greatest two year draft stretch in nba history getting Stockton and Malone in back to back years. And that led to two finals runs and before I get flack for how long it took, I blame that on Miller no willing or able to spend the money to build the team.

God willing we can get picks one or two this year and replicate it next year with a top 3 pick. We should trade Lauri, not because he sucks or even that he will get us prime picks, but because we need to spend money to fill out the team and get one more elite talent. Lauri for his size and shooting is a great not elite star type talent.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks.
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This was actually less-rosy than I had initially been computing because I hadn’t considered the cap impacts of a high draft pick. But, IIRC, Svi ($3.3 million), Juzang ($2.8 million), and Springer ($2.6 million) can be cut and their cap numbers are removed from the books. That alone might get them close enough to a number to make it happen ($33, $20, $20, $20). Also, it would be easy to return less money in a Lauri trade.
 
I dunno its like, in a strategy card game, you want to set up your deck to give yourself multiple ways to win. My optimimum is to get this combination of cards, and if I do I will win. But if I don't get that combination of cards, I want a backup plan involving a different combination of cards. And probably a backup to that. So you maximize your chances of winning by maximizing the chance that you'll get at least one of those killer combos.

Jazz have a lot of cards in the deck right now. Own draft picks. Other teams picks. Young Players. Good Players. Tradable contracts.

One of the winning conditions is you acquire 3 fantastic young players that can become the core of a contender team in several years when they hit their primes.
One of the winning conditions in you acquire 3 established all stars from other teams and win now.
One of the winning conditions from this is you acquire two all star players alongside Lauri.
You may be able to make an argument that you can win by acquiring 2 young future all star players and play them alongside Lauri. If the window on that one is open, its closing pretty fast though.

The "Draft for Success" strategy is maybe the one we think has the best chance of working. But with all the tradeable assets we have, I think you want to keep the "Trade to Success" strategy on the table. And that condition is easier to fulfill if you have Lauri on the team. So, as long as you can keep that going without compromising the drafting strategy (which, gross as it was, recent evidence would say we can probably do for at least one more year) you keep him.
 
Thee Idiotic Minivan K said:
I blame that on Miller no willing or able to spend the money to build the team.
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Of all the mistruths in Jazz history, this one is, to me, the most oft-repeated but blatantly false. If I’m ever on a @Handlogten's Heros @Elizah Huge podcast, it’s to dispel this ridiculous truism that’s been baked so thoroughly into Jazz culture history.
 
We should definitely trade Lauri to be consistent with who we are. Over the last 3 years we do all we can to get rid of our best players because getting draft picks and drafting rookies with unknown potential is much more fun than winning games. How cool is it that Jazz fans get more excited for the draft lottery than they do for the playoffs! I hope we never change. Trade both of them. They are both too good to be Jazzmen.
 
infection said:
Of all the mistruths in Jazz history, this one is, to me, the most oft-repeated but blatantly false. If I’m ever on a @Handlogten's Heros @Elizah Huge podcast, it’s to dispel this ridiculous truism that’s been baked so thoroughly into Jazz culture history.
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The Millers were not smart. They just did all they could to keep the Jazz in Utah and build a winning team. We now have enlightened owners and an enlightened FO.
 
And Lauri's contract doesn't really concerns me. Jazz ain't using cap space to get game changing fa signings, nor do they currently have any young players to be getting max to near max rookie extensions in the next 3 years outside of Kessler (whom I fear much more being someone we could be better off trading him than paying his next salary If it gets towards/upwards that $30mi+ threshold).
 
jazznik said:
2. For his entire career Markkanen has been a player who gets injured a lot: he usually plays <60 games per season. It is certainly a concern.

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People will probably vote based on how certain they are that Lauri could return to his All Star form in the future and maintain it. I honestly do not know.
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While Lauri has had several minor injuries, it also has to be noted, almost every season aside the Cavs stint, has been with tanking teams. You take your time with any minor thing at those situation, and probably avoid using too many cortisone shots and such, as for the long term health they're not good for anyone.

That said, Lauri has had minor back issues earlier in his career, and now he had them again. If they were not only for tanking to keep him out so much, that's not something that wouldn't be a no -factor. Lauri thrives from off-ball production, and he needs to move a lot. If there's any indications that his back issues keep going on, we won't see the all star Lauri again. He landed hard on his hip in the early part of this season so that might have affected quite much at that period.

Later in this season I saw flashes of old Lauri, when we decided to go with Collier starting. He had few nice games and then Jazz needed to tank hard against the bottom dwellers. Any spark Lauri had in that early 2025 week or two was killed by that and he just seemed not interested at all when he played some games here and there after it. Such a weird season.

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I don't think Lauri can return to his All star form in current Jazz, and if he can in 2-3 seasons when Jazz might try compete,is left to be seen. But I think he can product closely as well in a place that's not tanking another season, and has less rookies in the team.

I see merit in both trading him,but also keeping him and hope Jazz lands a star on this draft and maybe trade for another one.
 
rjfan said:
And Lauri's contract doesn't really concerns me. Jazz ain't using cap space to get game changing fa signings, nor do they currently have any young players to be getting max to near max rookie extensions in the next 3 years outside of Kessler (whom I fear much more being someone we could be better off trading him than paying his next salary If it gets towards/upwards that $30mi+ threshold).
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1. It’s a super long contract. By the time it expires, there will absolutely be significant opportunity costs to keeping it for its duration
2. The new CBA is in the process of eliminating fake max contracts and I would say Lauri is a fake max player (that in the past may have been worth a max when they were getting doled out willy nilly).
3. You can do numerous other things with cap space besides trying to poach other teams’ max players.
4. If the Jazz are trying to tank again this upcoming season, I think they basically gotta do it more organically/ethically than last year’s fake injury fest, and getting rid of Lauri helps with that.
5. I’m glad you brought up Walker; I think I agree with you on that front, but I also think Walker is more worthy of $30 million a year than Lauri is worth $50 million a year (for 5 whole years holy smokes).
 
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