The Jazz selected Trey Lyles with the 12th overall pick in the NBA Draft, but he hasn’t yet practiced with the team, and remains unsigned to his rookie-scale deal.
There’s little negotiation where the contracts of first round picks are concerned. There is a set number allocated depending on where they are selected, but players are able to sign for up to 120 percent of this number, and often times do.
Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey told fans not to worry, however, and expects that the situation will be resolved very soon.
Aaron Falk of the Salt Lake Tribune:“We’ll have some news for our fans here real short, so no worries,” Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey told 1280 The Zone on Monday evening.
Lindsey has previously said that, while there were some ongoing negotiations, the primary the hold-up in getting the team’s first-round draft pick signed lay with Jazz management, who wanted to keep the player temporarily out of contract in order to maintain a small amount of extra cap space.
“Trey and his representation worked with us very well,” Lindsey said. “Like we said, it was more than likely we weren’t going to use that room, but when you need the room and you’ve used it it always comes up, guys. So we needed to get through the first part of free agency to have the conversations that we needed to have and clarity about what we’re doing. And we have very good clarity as of today.”
This is about salary cap space, and nothing else.
It’s fairly common for teams to wait on signing their newly-drafted rookies during the July free agency period while they weigh their options. In the case of the Lakers and Julius Randle last season, for example, he missed L.A.'s initial Summer League contest, before finally signing with the team 20 minutes before its second game.
