Lauri Markkanen trade scenarios are officially off the table for the Utah Jazz until next offseason. That knocks them down a peg or three in this discussion.

It does not bounce them from the field entirely.

Granted, it absolutely could. Renegotiating and extending Markkanen cannot purely be considered a ploy to increase his trade value. He will command a better return if he’s moved with multiple years left on his deal, but you don’t risk punting on another high-end lottery spot to nab a couple of extra first-round picks or prospects from other teams.

Conventional wisdom dictates the Jazz will now travel down one of two paths: They can look to leverage their prospects, future first-rounders galore and conveniently priced matching salaries into a win-now acquisition or two. Or they can look to strip the roster around Markkanen bare—so much so that not even another All-Star season from him will win them too many games.

“Well-actually” superheroes will insist Utah needn’t do either of these things. The Portland Trail Blazers are currently the only Western Conference squad that doesn’t appear interested in winning next season, which will repress the Jazz’s victory total by default, and the organization can always shut down its best players rather than jettison them.

This is a fair point. It’s also a regular-season plot Utah has played out in each of the past two years. In both cases, the Jazz ended up in the latter half of the lottery.

That can’t happen again. Unless, of course, Utah believes it already has #TheGuy in its clutches. Which it doesn’t. The Jazz wouldn’t even have listened to Markkanen offers if they believed he was primary-cornerstone material. Nobody else comes close to fitting the bill—though, to be fair, we need more information on Keyonte George, Taylor Hendricks and Cody Williams.

Bank on Utah being more proactive this time around. If yours truly were running the team, this would entail acting like buyers. But team CEO Danny Ainge doesn’t seem like one to go that route.

If that’s his prerogative, Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson, John Collins and, apparently, Walker Kessler should be up for grabs right now. And look, if we’re being brutally honest, that goes for everyone else in town other than Williams and Markkanen. Utah has neither the incumbents nor the as-is lottery trajectory to be overly romantic about what’s already in place.