The Utah Jazz giving All-Star center Rudy Gobert a five-year, $205 million max contract extension, the largest ever for an NBA big man, is almost definitely way too much. Yet it was likely the only way the franchise would remain relevant and competitive for the next several years.
It’s the way the NBA system works in a place like Salt Lake City, where the Jazz are never going to lure superstar free agents. Hope you draft or trade for young, controllable All-Stars, offer them nearly as much money as you can and hope they don’t want out.
You can do everything in your power as a small market team to hold onto players, and sometimes it’s just never enough. LeBron James leaving Cleveland 10 years ago is the perfect example. Anthony Davis couldn’t wait to leave New Orleans the first chance he got. Giannis Antetokounmpo staying in Milwaukee has become the NBA exception, rather than the rule.
Despite the reported the differences in 2020 between the 28-year-old Gobert and All-Star teammate Donovan Mitchell, overpaying the 7-foot-1, two-time Defensive Player of the Year, and one of the best defensive bigs we’ve seen in 10-15 years, was the only way to help ensure Spida wouldn’t eventually ask out himself. The fact is that middle and large market NBA franchises are sharks that circle around young All-Stars on other teams like sharks sensing chum in the water. Once they realized Antetokounmpo was off the market, they began circling players like Houston’s James Harden and Washington’s Bradley Beal. I’m sure plenty of teams are already on Zion Williamson watch with the Pelicans.
Gobert’s contract, which reportedly has a 5th-year player option, probably won’t age well, and giving behemoth centers long-term contracts into his 30s usually don’t work out too well. But it was either that or risk losing the Stifle Tower for nothing or trading him elsewhere for pennies on the dollar. Utah felt those options were less palatable than backing up the Brinks truck for an All-Star who averaged 15.3 points, 13.5 rebounds and two blocks per game. He averaged 17 and 11 in the team’s seven-game first round playoff loss to the Denver Nuggets in September, and maybe first round and out is now this franchise’s ceiling going forward.
But in the modern NBA, giving Gobert all the damn money was really the Jazz’s only realistic option. It’s just simply how small market teams need to operate.
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