The Utah Jazz have decisions to make soon. Projected starters Derrick Favors, Enes Kanter, Gordon Hayward and Alec Burks were all drafted within a two-year period. This means that their contracts will all be ending close together. If the Jazz decide to keep all of them, they will need to be very creative with the way they structure their contracts. However, with the front office’s goals seemingly pointed towards achieving more high-level draft picks, they may not want to tie up too much money in long-term contracts. With this in mind, it’s worth examining Alec Burks’ place on the roster.
It is clear that Alec has extreme potential. His ability to get to the rim and draw fouls gives him the chance to, at least, have an extended career as a role player. However, he isn’t a great shooter (though a better 3-point shooter than most said he was out of college) and has really struggled at the free-throw line, where he barely shot better than 71 percent last season. It will be really hard for Burks to have a career with that bad of a stroke from the stripe. It’s impossible to overstate the importance of this coming season for Alec Burks’ career. If he can hit free throws at an above average rate, he is likely a very efficient player due to a high percentage of his shots being at the rim and his frequent trips to the free-throw line. Otherwise, Alec Burks is surprisingly inefficient, as many of his offensive touches will be wasted on missed free throws. This will affect his minutes for this season and maybe his last chance to make his mark with the Jazz.
As mentioned, the Jazz may be in a tough spot if Alec lives up to his potential this season. The way I see it, the Jazz will have three options when it comes to Burks:
Keep Him
(a) – This option involves the Jazz keeping Burks at a low price tag. In this scenario, Utah will decide to lock him into a long-term extension at a cheap price before the start of his last contract year. In order for this to happen, two things will need to occur. First, Burks will need to get minutes over the next two seasons. If he doesn’t get the minutes, it’s very unlikely he will want to be locked into another contract with an organization that gave him very little game time to prove himself. Second, this option revolves around Burks putting up decent numbers with his extended minutes. If his stats aren’t good enough the Jazz likely would not see the value in paying him any longer, while if the production is quite good his market value may climb too high for the Jazz to match (due to the other three players mentioned above being owed big money during similar time frames).
(b) – If Burks does take the leap outlined in the second half of the scenario above, it may be likely that the Jazz front office feels that Alec is either more valuable than one of the other three players mentioned. In this case, the Jazz front office may choose not to resign one of them, or trade one of them for valuable future assets. It’s also possible that Burks and his “core-mates” all prove to the Jazz they are all worth the investment and the Jazz do whatever it takes (front-loading/back-loading contracts?) to make the numbers work while keeping all four.
Let Him Walk
Whether Burks performs well or not over the remainder of his contract, it’s entirely possible he could simply just sign with another team during free agency. Under-performance could mean the Jazz don’t want him anymore, while over-performance may bring too many suitors to the table for the Jazz to keep up with.
Trade Him
If you have paid attention to general manager Dennis Lindsey’s first full offseason with the team, you would know that Dennis isn’t afraid to make trades. This knowledge may make this last option seem like the most likely scenario. Again using the examples above, Lindsey could decide to trade Alec whether he performs well and commands a blockbuster caliber move, or fizzles and is only worth mediocre future picks. Depending on where the Jazz find themselves in the next two seasons, either a big trade to bring back high level draft picks (maybe more ammo in next years historically promising draft class) or proven players to help them contend could be a welcome swap. On the other hand, Dennis may decide that trading an underwhelming Burks for anything at all is better than just letting him go in free agency for nothing.
It should be said that these options are possible for each of the four players mentioned, but Burks may be the most likely to be the most expendable based on what has already been proven on the court. While Hayward, Favors and Kanter all seem to have given the Jazz a pretty solid indication of their talent, Burks’ place on the roster has the most question marks.
[slider_pro id=”29″]