Paul Millsap of Utah Jazz (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Anybody who’s spent any time watching the Utah Jazz over the course of the last year knows that the future of that team lies in the kids. The young frontcourt of Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors, and Enes Kanter has looked very, very promising at times, and had the Jazz not surprised everyone by making the playoffs last year, the youth movement may have been given the green light in Salt Lake City for 2012-2013.Instead, Utah looks as committed as ever to Paul Millsap, whose contract expires next summer. Instead of exploring the idea of trading him or letting him walk so Favors can bloom, Millsap and the Jazz have reportedly already begun talking about an extension, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
The deal on the table is for three years with 7.5% increases in salary each year of the contract, and while that sounds like it would be a great deal for the average American, a player as good as Millsap might deserve more. Remember, his $8 million-per-season (on average) deal has been one of the best bargains in basketball the last three years, so even with the raises a new, three-year deal starting in 2013-2014 would only top out at around $25 million based on his 2012-2013 salary of $7.2 million.
So, perhaps unsurprisingly, Millsap and his camp aren’t showing much interest in the offer. They think—and rightfully so—that he could earn more as a free agent in the summer of 2013, and really nobody’s going to argue with that. He could. And should.
But the really interesting thing about all of this is the fact that Utah is trying to extend him at all. It’s not that they should let him go in free agency without pulling back any assets in return. He is, after all, Utah’s best player. But with Favors finally starting to come into his own, the time is approaching—and much sooner than four years from now, when Millsap’s hypothetical new deal would expire—where he’s going to want his own opportunity to start and thrive for the Jazz.
So there’s at least an outside chance that these talks are taking place right now as a formality to show Millsap appreciation for everything he’s done for the franchise. They must know he’s more valuable than the $8.33 million a season he’d earn in that new deal, and they can’t be shocked to hear he’d rather let the market dictate his value a year from now.
The real question, though, is whether they really plan to keep Millsap through 2016, and what that means for Favors. Millsap isn’t so old that he couldn’t grow with the rest of the young core, and NBA common sense says that sometimes it’s definitely smarter to keep the established NBA player rather than ship him off and hope the kid with potential blossoms into something comparable or better.
It doesn’t always happen that way, so maybe the long-term plan is to keep Millsap since he’s a known commodity, and if Favors really does start to look ready to start, maybe he’s the one who gets traded instead. It would be far from silliest thing an NBA organization could ever do, and many would even applaud such a direction.
In either case, Utah is putting down the ground work to keep Paul Millsap a member of the Jazz, but it’s going to be about a year before fans know whether that ground work pays off.
