It's not about stalling his development. It's about not bending over backwards to shoot yourself in the foot. I mean, if Dante's development were so urgent, they might as well let Hill walk and just roll with Dante as the starter. Don't bring in anybody else to play in front of him, but throw him to the wolves and see how he does. There are a lot of people who believe that's how it should be done, so that you have a better idea of whether you should keep him or not. In some cases, that may be best, but I don't believe so with a player like Dante, who came in raw and then missed a year.
And I think you're kidding yourself if you don't believe this happens frequently when teams are up against the wall financially, or are afraid of matching a contract that ends up being untradeable. Utah did this with CJ miles years ago and managed to sign him to a decent deal that didn't hurt them once he didn't pan out. They did this to a degree with Kanter as well, regardless of how much people think it was just the coach. And low and behold, as much complaining as people have made about how bad we got robbed in the Kanter trade, that contract is definitely one they dodged a bullet on.
I'm not saying Utah will go to extremes to hold Dante's value down, but there's zero doubt in my mind that DL's best case scenario is developing him slowly as the backup for one more year. Having to match a max offer on Dante would be a kick in the teeth for a team who is going to fighting to get under the tax or keep it as low as possible.