In 1982, the Jazz needed cash, and quickly.
“Things hit rock bottom when Coach (Frank) Layden, who was also our general manager at the time, got a call from our team owner, Sam Battistone," 1982 fourth-round pick Mark Eaton remembers in his book, ”The Four Commitments of a Winning Team. “He told Layden the team needed a million dollars in order to make payroll on Monday, and he wondered if Layden had any ideas to come up with the money.”
It turned out that Layden had one: trade the player who had just been drafted No. 3 overall, trade a future nine-time All-Star and first-ballot NBA Hall-of-Famer, trade a future NBA scoring champion and two-time dunk contest winner. The idea was to trade Dominique Wilkins to the Atlanta Hawks, where owner/mogul Ted Turner had the $1 million to spare; the Hawks also included John Drew and Freeman Williams in the deal.
“If I told you money wasn’t a major part of the deal, I wouldn’t be truthful,” Battistone said then.
Today, in 2019, things are very different. Thanks to NBA cap reporters like Eric Pincus at Basketball Insiders and Jeff Siegel of Early Bird Rights, we can get an idea of how much cash gets traded in and out of deals that have occurred over the past half-decade or so. And the picture shows that the Jazz have been willing to spend, especially in the past month.
First, the team gave up a 2021 second-round pick and $1 million to the Indiana Pacers in order to get the No. 50 pick in the draft — Jarrell Brantley. Then, Utah handed $2 million over to the Golden State Warriors for the No. 58 pick, which became Miye Oni.
That’s not the only off-cap expenditures the Jazz have made this offseason, though. Olympiacos was paid $1 million in order to buy out the contract of Nigel Williams-Goss, who figures to be the Jazz’s 13th or 14th man this year. William Howard, a defensive prospect the Jazz are interested in bringing in to fight for the 15th spot on the roster, required a buyout of about $170K to release him from his previous contract with Limoges. Under NBA cap rules, teams are allowed to spend $725K for the season in European buyouts that don’t count toward the cap, while any buyouts above that figure are paid by the player — perhaps one reason Williams-Goss was paid $1.5 million per season rather than the NBA minimum of about $900K.
Other cash paid in player deals in years past include $1.1 million the Jazz sent to the Sacramento Kings in the Jae Crowder/Rodney Hood deal in 2018, as well as $1.6 million in the 2016 Tibor Pleiss trade. Critically, the Jazz paid a reported $3 million to upgrade the Jazz’s No. 46 pick to No. 27 to select Rudy Gobert, and an unreported buyout amount for Royce O’Neale in 2017.
We have to note that the Jazz have done their fair share of acquiring cash in the last half-decade, too. The Jazz received $3 million in a 2016 deal which sent the No. 42 pick to Brooklyn (Isaiah Whitehead) in exchange for the No. 55 pick of that draft (used on Marcus Paige). In 2015, they received $1.5 million from Portland for the No. 54 pick, Daniel Diez. In 2013, they received $1.3 million in the trade that sent John Lucas III to Cleveland in exchange for a second-round pick.
If you do the math, it’s about $10 million outgoing in terms of expenditures, in income, it’s about $5.8 million in over the last few seasons. Just over the last month, it’s been over $4.17 million outgoing this offseason, money that mostly doesn’t count toward the Jazz’s cap room.
That’s because, as the Jazz have filled the top of their cap room with high-priced players like Mike Conley, Gobert, Bojan Bogdanovic and Joe Ingles, they’ve been limited to NBA minimum salary deals at the end of the roster. If the Jazz can use off-cap money to acquire end-of-roster players, they can ideally get a higher caliber of player than they’d otherwise get at the replacement level.
“The Millers have always been fully invested to make the Jazz a championship contender," Jazz executive vice president of basketball operations Dennis Lindsey told The Salt Lake Tribune. Lindsey cited the improvements to facilities like Vivint Arena and the Zions Bank Basketball Center, but also noted that “LHM Sports and Entertainment has spent countless resources on foreign based scouts, coaches from other countries, international buyouts, and purchasing draft picks.”
“All of this has helped us get the rights to Gobert, O’Neale and several other players who are currently on the Jazz roster,” Lindsey said.
Now, of course, the Miller family trust should be willing to make those payments. Unlike in 1982, the Jazz themselves are worth over a billion dollars, according to Forbes, with an initial purchase price of $24 million.
And all of this pales in comparison to the bigger expenditures the Jazz make, like the 4-year, $73-million deal they gave to Bogdanovic on July 1. But still, even as the NBA’s salary numbers boom into the eight and nine figures, there are still front offices and ownership groups on other teams that penny pinch on the small stuff. That’s not the case in Utah now.
"In my seven years, the Miller Family has never said no to one high priority expenditure,” Lindsey said.
That’s a very different approach than Jazz ownership faced back in the early ‘80s. As Bob Dylan noted, the times ... well, they’re certainly a-changin‘.
