Porzingis: We have to trust front office

When last season ended, the Utah Jazz were prepared to go “big game hunting” this offseason per CEO Danny Ainge. Instead, Utah ended up using most of their cap space to renegotiate-and-extend Lauri Markkanen and to sign a handful of veteran role players.

“You guys have seen how things evolve in an offseason,” Jazz GM Justin Zanik said. “In this organization, we are extremely aggressive with pursuing any and all means necessary to make this a championship-caliber roster. When those opportunities come up, we’re ready for it. There weren’t any.

“And so to sit there and not do anything, we decided that our plan was to completely throw our focus into our young guys and the best player on our roster in Lauri Markkanen.”

Utah is excited to build around their young players this season and beyond.

“I think what’s different this year is that we’re starting to build a really good depth base. They just happen to be really young. So instead of having three guys that are rookies, we have seven guys now under the age of 23,” Zanik said. “Our growth is going to come from developing our talent base so that we can win more games now and in the future. That doesn’t happen overnight – but what’s important about development is playing.”

The Board of Governors voted 29-1 in approving the NBA’s media rights deals with ESPN, NBC and Amazon with the lone “no” coming from James Dolan of the New York Knicks, sources tell Tom Friend of the Sports Business Journal. Dolan had sent a letter to his fellow Board of Governors arguing that the NBA was moving toward a model similar to the NFL where local TV revenue was deprioritized.

Some owners sided with Dolan that the NBA shouldn’t point to rising valuations to ease concerns about losing local TV money and sponsorships with the implication being that selling their teams was their best financial recourse.

Sources, however, described the three-hour meeting as a “breeze” as they were also informed that the total value of the media rights package was at $77 billion over 11 years.