How a trade for Mike Conley could help the Knicks and pull the Jazz out of salary hell
Despite a limited market for salary dumps this offseason, Mike Conley Jr. of the Utah Jazz could be a sneaky candidate for the Knicks to pursue. Could a trade for Conley help both the Knicks and the Jazz for years to come?
They say the best things come in threes: The three little pigs, the Marx Brothers, and celebrity deaths are all examples of this. While teams like the Celtics and the Heat have found success with the number three, the Knicks have not. Although, that could very easily change this offseason thanks to the Utah Jazz.
First, the Knicks poached Walt Perrin from the Jazz. Secondly, New York lured Johnnie Bryant. So third is naturally Donovan Mitchell, right? Uh, no.
Yes, there was that one fleeting stretch of time, spanning from the culmination of a tepid spring through a summer when the only thing hotter than the weather were the flames stoked by bigotry and ignorance, where the man they call “Spida” was a Knick. Well, he wasn’t actually a Knick, but it felt imminent. And sure, it was never actually imminent, but it was fun to dream for a minute.
Times are tough in the age of COVID. Last month, The Salt Lake Tribune published an article pondering the hypothetical of Mike Conley Jr. opting out and re-signing for more money over more years. The author himself acknowledged that the odds of this were less than zero (and Conley did eventually decide not to exercise his ETO anyway), but that’s not what stood out to me the most:
Long story short, the Jazz are looking at going into the luxury tax. [Jazz general manager] Dennis Lindsey has said before he has permission from the Miller family to do so if he can demonstrate he’s built a contender … and yet, the Jazz have gone into the luxury tax exactly one time in the past decade. Given that the Larry H. Miller Group of Companies laid off some staff and Larry H. Miller Sports & Entertainment furloughed hundreds more during the pandemic, and given that the pandemic is hardly abating, what are the odds this coming season will be one where ownership decides to give management carte blanche to spend whatever?
For full disclosure, I had this article written and saved in my back pocket weeks ago. Nothing could go wrong, I thought. Just need to wait until we get financials and this baby will be born. And then, the Miller family went ahead and sold a majority stake of the Jazz to billionaire Ryan Smith. There are 30 teams in the NBA and the one I don’t usually dissect had to undergo a major change? Great. Just great. That’s show biz, baby!
Smith is living out every sports fan’s dream of owning your childhood team. Perhaps Smith is more willing to pay the luxury tax than the Millers were. Until we see money being spent, we simply don’t know his comfort level. After all, the rich like to stay rich: having money does not necessarily mean there’s an interest in consistently spending it. Yet if Smith is weighing the pros and cons of spending this year versus not, he should discover that this is not the year to be a tax-level team if you’re the Jazz.
The NBA recently announced that the salary cap for the 2020-21 season will be $109.14 million again, and the tax line starts at $132.627 million once more. If you’re the Knicks, this is fine, since you have oodles of cap space. More cap space would have meant more spending power, whereas less could have more owners in a panic over having too much money on the books. If you’re the Jazz, well, you might have to make some tough financial decisions.
Let’s begin with next season for Utah. Now that Conley Jr. did not exercise his early termination option and will remain with Utah, the Jazz have a ton of money on the books this upcoming year. The fact that the luxury tax did not increase could be a killer for them.
Utah has to take Jordan Clarkson’s next contract, their first-round pick’s salary, the mid-level exception (MLE), and the bi-annual exception (BAE) into account. It’s fine that the Jazz are above the salary cap, but they are in dangerous territory with regard to that tax number.
If Clarkson secures a contract starting at $10 million a year, and if the Jazz sign Player X to the full, non-taxpayer MLE at two years and $20 million, that’s about $19 million in additional salary commitments this upcoming year. Signing Player X for anything more than what’s equal to the taxpayer MLE ($5,718,000) would hard cap the Jazz, meaning they can spend up to $138,928,000. Except that number is largely irrelevant, because we want the Jazz to get below the tax line of $132,627,000 anyway. Anything over that tax line is bad if the plan is still to be frugal.
Suppose the Jazz do decide to splurge this year and go into the tax. Here is the tax table:
See that non-repeater section? That would be where the Jazz find themselves this year. The tax rate means that for every dollar the Jazz spend, it is multiplied by the listed amount. If a team is, for example, $4 million above the luxury tax, you multiply that amount by $1.50, which equals $6 million. So that team would pay their entire payroll, plus luxury taxes, all while there are no fans in attendance.
Next we’ll examine the 2021-22 Jazz, considering that the 2021-22 salary cap can range from $112.4 million to $120 million and the luxury tax is probably fluctuating between around $135 million and around $145 million:
Mitchell’s max contract would be at least $28 million if the salary cap is on the lowest end.
Re-signing a 29-year-old Rudy Gobert to a contract starting at even $3 million greater than what he’s earning this year puts him at $30.5 million.
Bojan Bogdanović, 32, is earning $18.7 million, Joe Ingles, 34, is on the books for $13 million, and Utah’s on the hook for Royce O’Neale, 28, and his $8.8 million.
Assuming Utah keeps Clarkson, 29, in the previous offseason, the second year of his contract (with an eight percent raise) could be about $11 million.
If Utah re-signs Tony Bradley, 24, to anything above his $5.3 million cap hold, the total increases to over $118 million.
Player X, signed with the MLE in 2020 to a two-year deal, will earn $10 million in his second year.
Utah’s 2020 first round pick will cost $2.4 million in 2021 and Utah’s 2021 first (if it isn’t conveyed to Memphis) should be at least $2 million.
We’re now at 10 players making about $130 million. Then we have to account for two cap holds, plus the Jazz must have 13 players on the roster, so that brings us to roughly $133 million. Even if the Jazz renounced Bradley’s cap hold or non-guaranteed their other players, they’re still well over the cap and could be close to the luxury tax again, especially if they use their MLE once more.
If the Jazz are above the tax line in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons, they’ll get hit with the repeater tax after that second year. So if Utah pays anywhere up to $4,999,999 above the tax line this season and next, they’re taxed $2.50 for every dollar they spend instead of $1.50 like the previous year. Between payroll and taxes, that’s over $275 million spent in two years for a team with lower profits that will struggle to win a playoff series.
So the question for Utah may not be “Are we comfortable going into the luxury tax?” but instead “Are we comfortable going into the luxury tax this year when we know we could very easily go into it next year too, and thus get hit with the repeater penalty?” Yes, it appears that the Jazz have a financial dilemma on their hands. So what is our only possible option here? We have to *very Oprah voice*:
Cut. Salary. From. The. Paaaaaaayrolllllllllll!!!!!!!!
We should start with the players who are unlikely to move. Mitchell is a no-go for obvious reasons. Gobert could probably be had for the right price, but it’s really hard to replace a two-time Defensive Player of the Year, and his worth will be less since he’s on an expiring contract with no matching rights. Bogdanović’s value is affected by his contract and his injury, and trading the best free agent your franchise has signed in ages could be a bad move. Ingles is not only a fantastic playmaking wing who can shoot the rock quite well but is a huge fan favorite and very involved in the community, so dealing him doesn’t make a ton of sense, both from an on- and off-the-court perspective. The Jazz are short on 3&D wings under the age of 30, which is why O’Neale is important.
And then there’s Conley Jr. and Ed Davis.
I’ll start with Davis because this should be quick. Utah gave Davis $10 million over two years to be what is now a third-string backup. Over the team’s last 30 games (including playoffs), Davis logged exactly 35 minutes. He earned those minutes over the course of three games, all of which were in the bubble when the Jazz could fall to no lower than sixth in the standings. Utah will find a way to trade him.
There’s no sugarcoating it: Conley Jr. had a disappointing start to the season. Things started to click deeper into the season and his individual play picked up in the bubble thanks to an almost five-month hiatus. Hopefully for his sake, he’s adapted to Utah’s system and can produce after another long break, this time between seasons. That seems unlikely, though.
According to Jacob E. Goldstein’s PIPM player projection tool, if we use Conley Jr.’s average usage rating percentage (25.2 percent) and minutes played (1626) over the last five years, there is a zero percent chance Conley Jr. provides positive value on his contract next year. Yes, you read that right: zero percent. His likely value will be $5.6 to $17.5 million next year, which ranges from $17 to $28.9 million less than what he’s set to make. The lower end of his likely value over the next five years is $32 million, which means there’s a chance that Conley Jr. adds less value over the next five years than the contract he’s under next year. Simply put, Mike Conley Jr.’s name carries more weight than his current and projected play do.
Even if things go well for him as his age-33 campaign begins, how are the Jazz adding talent off the bench this year without hitting the tax line? And what does the future entail? And if ownership still won’t go into the tax, how is Utah supposed to keep Conley Jr. after this year? If you feel you probably won’t re-sign him, does keeping him make sense? It’s a ton of pressure for Conley Jr. to stay healthy, and that’s not the safest of bets.
The idea of dealing Conley Jr. is not a novel one. In a normal offseason, he may not be moved. But now? Amidst a pandemic? We’re not talking about his play in a vacuum; we’re talking about his play and how his salary affects overall spending and roster construction. We’re determining that in a market with low demand, the Jazz would be operating from a point of weakness if they want to move him to save money.
Why low demand? Well, which NBA team is bailing out Utah? It’s certainly not going to be a team in the West. Good luck finding a team that wants Conley Jr.’s salary and is willing to part with any sort of assets for him or have the right matching pieces to send back. We turn our lonely eyes to the Eastern Conference:
Unless the Jazz want Cody Zeller (yuck) or Terry Rozier (double yuck), Conley Jr. isn’t going to the Hornets. Trading Conley Jr. for Nicolas Batum also makes zero sense, since Utah’s goal is to both acquire depth and save some money.
The Hawks have plenty of cash to spend and could use more established players. Yet what good is bringing in Conley Jr. when he plays the same position as your best player in Trae Young, is only signed for one more year, and has an injury history? If the goal for Atlanta is to compete, this isn’t the move to make. And besides, what is Utah getting back that helps them try to win?
The Pistons could work out a trade revolving around Blake Griffin for Mike Conley Jr. and Ed Davis. Remember how we discussed the repeater luxury tax in 2021-22, though? The Jazz adding Griffin would actually mean they are even deeper into the repeater tax than if they didn’t trade Conley Jr. at all and still re-signed Clarkson and signed a player to the MLE. So I don’t see Griffin going to Utah. Maybe Tony Snell and Derrick Rose for Conley, Davis, and an asset, but that can’t work if Detroit re-signs Christian Wood starting at around the $12 million threshold, due to matching restrictions.
Maybe a swap between the Bulls and Jazz featuring Conley Jr. and Otto Porter Jr. works, but how does trading for someone who’s played 29 games the last two seasons help Utah?
And finally, we’re left with the New York Knickerbockers. We can now transition from thestock.ton to thestrick.land.
The Jazz need depth and, as we have decreed, must slash their payroll. The Knicks could use a playmaker, have plenty of cap space, and own the rights to several rotation-level pieces. Let’s work something out, shall we?
If the Jazz don’t want to spend big with Conley, and if no other teams are focused on bailing out Utah, New York holds leverage over the Jazz. Think about how many options are available to the Knicks at point guard.
All Leon Rose has to do is say “Oh, you won’t adhere to my requests, Dennis? That’s fine. I can let you suffer while I pluck someone like D.J. Augustin off the free agent market for less than one-fourth of what your precious Conley costs. See if I care.” Oh, and who better to know what Utah wants and likes than Perrin, the man who worked there for almost 20 years? Trades are built on relationships.
In this scenario, a plausible one where ownership doesn’t want to go above the tax line this year and needs to add bench pieces, Conley Jr. and Davis would need a (protected) first-round pick to go out with them. Again, find me another team willing to take on such deals for a year that can also send something of value out, and I’ll probably wind up calling you a liar because I simply do not see it happening. But I’ve been wrong before.
Scenario 1: The Draft Night Trade
Since the salary cap will not have reset yet and the 23rd pick will not count as salary on draft night, Conley Jr., Davis, and the 23rd pick would cost $37,278,623. The rule for incoming salary when the outgoing amount is at least $19.6 million is: 125% of the outgoing salary, plus $100,000. If we do it in reverse from New York’s perspective, that’s $37,278,623 - $100,000 = $37,178,623. We then divide that by 125% (or 1.25) and get $29,742,898. In other words, $29,742,898 is the minimum amount of salary New York must send on draft night to acquire Conley Jr., Davis, and the 23rd pick.
Option one is Julius Randle and Bobby Portis ($33,000,000). The Knicks would have to guarantee Portis’ team option. If I’m Utah, I don’t need to add two big men, especially when Portis is extremely overpaid on the team option. What’s more, I’m really not saving that much here if I’m the Jazz. If I’m that desperate to acquire Portis, I’ll wait until he’s a free agent and potentially sign him using part of my MLE.
Option two is Randle, Dennis Smith Jr., and guaranteeing players like Wayne Ellington and Reggie Bullock’s salaries ($34,663,640). This would only save Utah $5,005,605 next season. The key problem with a draft night trade like this, though, is available roster spots. The Jazz can’t clear Emmanuel Mudiay (ha) or Juwan Morgan’s roster spots since they’re on expiring deals, so that means they’d have to waive two non-guaranteed players who are under contract. It’s messier than it sounds.
Scenario 2: The Prearranged Agreement and Free Agency Salary Dump
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about why I don’t see a salary dump market taking off with big, expiring contracts. Might one exist? Absolutely. Some teams could dump a small expiring deal or two. Yet if you’re hoping for something big that involves a first-round pick, I’m dubious that will come to fruition through dumping. I also wrote about the difference between salary dumping and salary cutting. I left Conley Jr. off the list because I don’t view him as a salary dumping candidate, but instead as salary cutting. Allow me to walk you through why dumping Conley Jr.’s salary doesn’t make a ton of sense for the Jazz or the Knicks.
The Jazz dump the combined salaries of Conley Jr., Davis, and the player they drafted 23rd overall ($41,794,282) outright. New York absorbs that amount, leaving them with only $614,545 left to spend in free agency, assuming they non-guarantee all their non-guaranteed deals and renounce all cap holds.
This deal won’t happen, because the Jazz don’t need that money to sign free agents; they need to acquire depth via trade while shedding some salary. They’d get a massive traded player exception (TPE), but there are few contracts worth acquiring and they’d have to spend an asset to dump Conley Jr. and Davis, then trade another asset to acquire someone to fit into the TPE. Meanwhile, the Knicks now have nothing to operate with during free agency except for the room exception. This is bad all around.
Scenario 3: The Free Agency Straight Dump
Suppose the two teams can’t agree to a deal before the draft and the Knicks strike out in free agency. Maybe now they can take on a salary dump? No.
This once again helps neither team. The Knicks will be able to sign talent, though which players exactly, we’re unsure of. Once the Knicks do sign players, they have to worry about salary matching for a Jazz trade, which brings us to our next scenario.
Scenario 4: The Prearranged Salary Cut Before Signing Free Agents
So the salary dump doesn’t work for either team. What about a salary cut?
The Jazz and the Knicks could execute a trade as soon as free agency starts. If Utah wants to trade their pick but not on draft night, their pick would not be able to be dealt until 30 days after he signs his contract. Normally, that’s not a huge problem. However, training camp starts December 1st, which is less than 30 days from the start of free agency. So either the NBA changes the rule to resolve the situation or Utah and New York can’t practice with their new players. For the sake of this, let’s say Utah wants to keep their pick this year and instead wishes to send a future first instead. Seeing as how Utah owes Memphis a protected first, let’s establish that the Jazz are sending the Knicks a protected 2022 first, which is likely to be conveyed in 2024. New York prefers this option, seeing as how the Knicks need to start consolidating assets and a future pick makes things less urgent.
Since the Knicks have cap space, they could acquire Conley and Davis, while sending out, say, Randle, Ellington, and Smith Jr. Or they could send out Randle and Bullock. Or they could send out Randle, Ellington, Bullock, and Elfrid Payton. The possibilities are vast, but there’s a catch: Salaries have to match. Remember our formula in Scenario 1? Conley Jr. and Davis’ 2020-21 salaries equal $39,509,482, but then we have to subtract $100,000 and divide that difference by 1.25, giving us $31,527,586.
Randle, Payton, and Bullock make a ton of sense for Utah. Despite the wrath of Knicks fans, Randle isn’t a bad player. He can thrive as an expensive bench piece, but the fact that his contract is team friendly (only $4 million guaranteed in 2021) should excite Utah, seeing as how team control is more important in such a small market. Either Utah keeps Randle in 2021, kicks him to the curb for $4 million, or passes him to another team to avoid harsher luxury tax penalties.
Payton is also despised by some Knicks fans, but he’d also be a perfectly good piece off the bench for Utah. Even if the Jazz re-sign Clarkson, he’s not really a point guard. Payton would give the team some much-needed depth at the 1, and his shooting wouldn’t be as much of an issue, considering Utah led the NBA in 3-point percentage last year.
Bullock is another bench option, but he’s cheaper than Randle and Payton. He had an injury-plagued season last year but can be the perfect eighth or ninth man while on that contract.
Okay, so we have our trade, right? Wrong! Two issues present themselves:
The contracts don’t match, and
This deal, if done before the Knicks use up all of their cap space, is a waste of resources
Randle + Payton + Bullock = $31 million exactly, which means we’re short by $527,586. So close, yet so far. We can’t swap DSJ for Bullock because then the Jazz would have too many point guards. We could swap Ellington for Bullock, but then that means Utah is only saving $4,609,482. It’s an improvement, but we can do better. The solution: Theophilus Alphonso Pinson.
Yes, Theo Pinson and his $1,701,593 team option, which cannot be traded on draft night, play a role here. The endgame of dumping Allonzo Trier finally comes into play. The Randle/Payton/Bullock/Pinson (who would be waived) package equals $32,701,593 and that gives Utah a cushier savings of $6,807,889 instead.
Why can’t we make this official the moment free agency begins? Because it’s poor cap management.
As you can see, the maximum amount of cap space the Knicks could create is $24,697,655. That’s still a lot of money, but we can do better here too.
Scenario 5: The Prearranged, Over the Cap Salary Cut
Everything we discussed in the previous scenario is applicable here except we’re going to switch up our order of operations. Here’s what we get once we guarantee Payton and Bullock’s contracts and pick up Pinson’s deal before free agency starts:
Ain’t she a beaut?!
We now have $8,504,509 more in cap space that we wouldn’t have had if the first thing we did once free agency started was make that trade. So let’s pretend that we’ve spent that $33,202,164 on a few free agents and a small salary dump, leading us to being capped out and still having the room exception at our disposal. Since the salary cap is a soft cap, we can go over it to make the trade with Utah as long as the deal fits matching criteria. Fortunately, as I/we established, the desired deal does.
In case you’re wondering, it’s perfectly fine that the Knicks are in the negative with cap space with this trade. As long as the Knicks make trades that match, they can go further into negative cap space too.
The Jazz, meanwhile, are above the salary cap yet still below the tax level. In addition to cutting Pinson, they would have to cut two players on non-guaranteed contracts (Nigel Williams-Goss and Miye Oni as an example here).
I don’t know what the Knicks are going to do this offseason, but Utah sending some type of salary to New York simply makes too much sense not to come to fruition. Facilitating the outlined trade package would save Utah $6,807,889 and leave them at $1,267,283 below the tax level. The Jazz would have added depth through this trade and the 2020 draft and can sign a player using the MLE without having to worry about entering tax territory this year. They could not accomplish all this if they simply dumped Conley Jr. on the Knicks and peaced out, nor if they re-signed Clarkson and signed someone with the MLE.
If you think Conley/Davis/a future protected first for Randle/Payton/Bullock/Pinson is a lopsided deal, I get it. Conley’s no scrub but he’s no spring chicken either, and his performance and availability have dipped recently. Davis’ deal isn’t terrible, but few teams can actually accept that deal. New York taking on those two players — one of who is very undesirable — and their more expensive salaries should lead to decent compensation. After all, Randle, Payton, and Bullock can contribute to winning basketball if they’re in the right roles. Considering all three would come off the bench, the value should increase considering how they will be used. They’re all overpaid, but Utah still saves money this year with the deal. Plus, all three are effectively expiring free agents, as Randle’s guarantee could be shopped to another team if Utah has no interest in paying his deal.
A starting lineup of Mitchell/O’Neale/Ingles/Bogdanović/Gobert would be exquisite for Utah, seeing as how that group had a net rating of +13.7 in 570 minutes last season. Bringing Payton, Clarkson, Bullock, Randle, their first round pick, and the player signed with the MLE off the bench makes them an improved team without going into the luxury tax, especially before Utah might go into it in 2021-22.
There is, of course, a chance that Utah does the easiest move and dumps Davis and an asset to a team like New York. If this is the furthest a deal between the two teams goes, so be it. I would welcome it with open arms depending on what that asset is. I just think that if Utah wants to save more money, build a deeper team, and diversify their portfolio from an injury perspective, trading Conley Jr. as part of a bigger package makes the most sense.
Should Conley Jr. still be on the table for the Knicks, New York gets a playmaker who can make his teammates better on offense, unlike past mercenaries at the lead guard spot. Conley Jr. is reunited with his former agent Leon Rose and former assistant coaches Andy Greer (Memphis) and Bryant (Utah). Should the Knicks choose to keep Davis, he would serve as a great mentor for Mitchell Robinson, seeing as how Davis was signed by the Nets specifically to help mentor Jarrett Allen. Of course, the Knicks could prefer to retain Taj Gibson, since Tom Thibodeau is in the building, meaning Davis would then be waived; two non-shooting bigs playing the role of mentor is one too many.
By dealing Randle, New York has a pristinely clean cap sheet in 2021. Their draft position wouldn’t be too affected by Conley Jr. either, seeing as how he’s 33, his overall play seems to generally be trending downward, the fact that he has only appeared in a little over half the possible regular season games possible the last three seasons, and the overall difficulty involved with likely playing division rivals for an even more significant part of the year. And if Conley Jr. sees a rejuvenation to the point where the Knicks defy the odds, that reflects well on the staff New York’s front office has assembled. That’s a win-win in my book.
