Week 9 Offseason Recap and Final Team USA Update

Tuesday August 6th 

Lauri Markkanen agrees to a contract renegotiation and extension with the Utah Jazz. The August 6th extension eligibility for Markkanen was paid close attention to by the rest of the league. The Utah Jazz were listening to trade talks for the Finnish center, but ultimately chose to extend the center and build the current roster around him. 

Wednesday August 7th 

Markkanen officially signs the contract extension with the Jazz for 5 years  and 238 million dollars. The reason why he signed on August 7th and not August 6th means he is ineligible to be traded prior to this year's trade deadline and is significant news for many teams including the Jazz for this season. Free agents who sign with teams in the offseason have a 6 month period before they can be traded. This means the earliest Markkanen can be traded is February 7th. The extension essentially creates a no trade clause for Markkanen through the end of the league’s season. Now teams like the Warriors cannot trade for Markkanen this upcoming season. It also signals some importance from the Jazz front office that the team wants to win. Extending Markkanen is a strong signal to head coach Will Hardy that the team doesn’t want to keep selecting draft picks in the lottery for upcoming seasons. 

Malachi Flynn signs a 1 year deal with the San Antonio Spurs. Flynn played for the Pistons this past season and scored a career-high 50 points this past year as well. 

Friday August 9th 

Svi Mykhailiuk signs a 4 year 15 million dollar deal with the Utah Jazz. Mykhailiuk, a Kansas Alum, has bounced around the league with a couple of teams. He played on the Celtics last season. 

Free Agency Recap

The Markkanen signing all but officially wraps up free agency for the summer. The only player still left that holds significant value in the NBA is Brandon Ingram. Ingram can sign a 4 year 208 million dollar extension with the Pelicans, something he has made known to the league that he wants. I suspect the Pelicans want to trade him and bring back players that fit better next to Zion Williamson, Dejounte Murray, and Trey Murphy for the future. However, matching salary with a trading partner is difficult with Ingram’s 36 million dollars  he is due for this upcoming year. Overall, Ingram’s value isn’t super high around the league because of his play style and his stubbornness to take catch and shoot threes devalues him as a floor spacer and  an efficient offensive player. Essentially it comes down to if a team wants to take a chance on Ingram because as of right now it appears the Pelicans do not want to extend him. 

Team USA

Team USA blitzed Brazil in its quarter-final matchup on Tuesday. The 122 points scored was a team high for the Americans at this year’s Olympics as they cruised to 122-87 victory. In the semi-finals they matched up with Serbia for the third time this summer. It was arguably one of the best Olympic games that produced a 17 point comeback from Team USA to down Serbia 95-91. Steph Curry had a team-high with 36 points on 9/14 shooting from three. As I mentioned in last week's addition it felt like we were close to getting a Steph Curry game and he certainly delivered as the USA needed every single point to defeat Nikola Jokic and Serbia. In the gold medal game the USA controlled the game against France the entire way before Curry iced the game away with 4 consecutive threes. Each three Curry hit felt like it was a reminder that he is the greatest shooting the game has ever seen. Because of Curry’s heat check, the USA defeated France 98-87 to earn a fifth consecutive gold medal. He led all scorers again with 24 points on 8 made threes. Lebron James was named Most Valuable Player for the Olympics and rightfully earned it. The 39 year old was the best player from start to finish for the Americans this summer. 

Team USA will now look to replace a majority of the roster for the 2028 Olympics on home soil in Los Angeles. I suspect this will be the last Olympics for Lebron James, Kevin Durant, and Steph Curry, but if any of them want to play they've earned the right to for 2028. Joel Embiid and Anthony Davis will both be 34 and 35 years old and their injury history suggests that USA will likely look the other way. Both Jrue Holiday and Derrick White will likely not play as they will age into their mid 30s as well. The golden generational of Team USA basketball was capped by its three best players leading them to gold. Lebron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant have become the face of the current era of basketball and it was really cool to see all of them play together and play well. Curry launching threes, Lebron dropping dimes and fastbreak dunks, and Kevin Durant walking down anybody that guarded him was something special to see during the Olympics. Each of them have a place in basketball lore that's amongst the greatest of all time and it was really special to watch throughout the summer. It is definitely a feeling I will not forget for a long time. I rarely like to use this word, but their aura of how they impacted the game was something other worldly while watching them this summer. It is likely it is the last time they will take the floor together in a competitive basketball game, but I'm happy I was able to witness them put on a generational run through the Olympics. 

A breakdown of the games against Serbia and France is available on the website.