Former Sixth Man of the Year finalizing extension with Jazz

Clarkson and the Jazz are finalizing a renegotiation and extension that will give him a raise in 2023-24 and will add two new years to his current contract, his agents at Klutch Sports tell Charania.

The deal will be worth $55M, Charania adds. Based on the wording of his report, it’s unclear if that $55M is all new money or if it includes Clarkson’s preexisting $14.3M salary for 2023-24—I’d assume the latter unless we hear otherwise since agents leaking word of an agreement typically frame it in the most flattering light.

As we outlined on Saturday when Domantas Sabonis completed a similar deal with the Kings, contract renegotiations in the NBA are rare, since they can only be completed when a team has cap space and intends to increase a player’s salary rather than reducing it. Like Sacramento with Sabonis, Utah has the cap room necessary to give Clarkson’s current-year salary a bump and negotiate an extension of that new cap hit.

Interestingly, without renegotiation, the maximum two-year extension Utah could give Clarkson would be worth about $41.5M—when added to his current $14.3M salary, that would also work out to just over $55M. By forgoing a traditional ascending extension structure and renegotiating his current-year salary to give him an immediate raise, the Jazz may end up paying the veteran guard the same amount of money overall while applying more of it to the 2023-24 cap in order to maximize future flexibility.

Clarkson, 31, entered Utah’s starting lineup in 2022-23 after coming off the bench as a microwave scorer for most of his nine-year NBA career. In 61 games (32.6 MPG) in 2022-23, he averaged 20.8 points, 4.4 assists, and 4.0 rebounds with a shooting line of .444/.338/.816.

The Jazz, who are acquiring John Collins into their cap room in a trade with Atlanta, is still projected to have nearly $15M in cap room available after completing that deal, per Keith Smith of Spotrac (Twitter link). Whether or not they have more room to operate after the Clarkson renegotiation will depend on how much money they add to his 2023-24 salary.

Clarkson is the third player to agree to renegotiate his contract in 2023, joining Sabonis and Pacers center Myles Turner. Prior to Turner, no player had renegotiated a deal since Robert Covington in 2017.