Los Angeles Lakers: Are the Jazz a threat to sign Talen Horton-Tucker?

The Los Angeles Lakers are fresh off of a two-game series against the Utah Jazz in which the two sides split. The Lakers won the first game in the battle of the role players while the Jazz emerged victorious in round two with some of their star players returning.

Utah got an up-close and personal look at Talen Horton-Tucker in this series. THT had a rather pedestrian game in the first matchup but put up big numbers in the second game. THT scored 24 points on 8/13 shooting, nailing 3/5 from deep. He also hauled in four boards, two assists and two steals.

The 24 points were a career-high for Horton-Tucker, scoring four more points than years he has been alive. It was the ninth time in Lakers history that a player 20 years or younger scored 24+ points in fewer than 30 minutes. Six of those instances were Kobe Bryant.

RELATED: The steps THT must make to become an all-star

While the Jazz won the second game, the front office must have been thinking ‘what-if?’ while watching the 20-year-old second-round pick go to work. According to Tony Jones of The Athletic (who covers the Utah Jazz), the Jazz were hoping that THT would fall to them in the 2019 NBA Draft.

THT wound up going 46th overall to the Lakers while the Jazz selected Justin Wright-Foreman with the 53rd overall pick. Wright-Foreman has played four games in his NBA career.

The Jazz missed out on THT once and after seeing this performance they may not want to miss out on him again. Talen Horton-Tucker is a restricted free agent after this season and there was speculation that he could get a poison-pill offer from a team similar to the four-year, $50 million contract that Tyler Johnson signed in 2016.

The problem with this for the Lakers is that a poison-pill provision starts with a low salary and balloons in the final two years. If a team is under the cap they can choose to take the average salary or the yearly salary as the cap hit. The Lakers will likely be over the cap, meaning they would be forced to take the yearly salary as the cap hit.

That is helpful early in the contract but could seriously restrict the team if they are paying THT $20 million per season in the final two years of the deal.

Simply put: if a team really wants Talen Horton-Tucker they can throw money at him and the Lakers might be forced to simply let him walk.

Are the Utah Jazz a threat to sign Talen Horton-Tucker away from the Los Angeles Lakers?

The Utah Jazz are losing a massive contract off the books this offseason. Mike Conley is a free agent after the season and even if he re-signs he is not going to get the $34.5 million that the Jazz are paying him this season.

In a vacuum, the money freed up by Conley would create more than enough space for the Jazz to sign THT. The smart move is to take the average salary as the cap hit, so the Jazz would need to realistically be at least $15 million under the salary cap.

But there is one thing that keeps the Utah Jazz from being a threat: Donovan Mitchell. Mitchell is getting a huge pay increase next season that is making up for the money saved by Conley. Mitchell’s salary is going from $5.1 million to $28.1 million next season.

Joe Ingles is also getting a $3.2 million pay raise, Jordan Clarkson and Bojan Bogdanovic a combined $1.8 million pay raise and Rudy Gobert an $8.8 million pay raise. The Jazz actually have more on the books next season with Conley’s contract freeing up than they do this season because of all the pay raises.

So no, the Utah Jazz are not a threat to sign Talen Horton-Tucker away from the Los Angeles Lakers. Even if they love THT, they do not have the money to bring him into the fold.

Instead, the Jazz will likely utilize Conley’s Bird Rights to re-sign Conley and go over the cap, leaving the Los Angeles Lakers and other potential suitors to fight for THT’s services.