Poll: Will Jazz Extend Favors And/Or Hayward?

As our list of players eligible for rookie-scale extensions shows, six NBA teams entered the season with multiple extension-eligible players on their respective rosters. Of those six clubs though, only a couple have more than one legit extension candidates under contract.

The Wizards and Bucks have already locked up John Wall and Larry Sanders respectively, but it'd be a bit surprising to see Trevor Booker or Kevin Seraphin sign a long-term deal with Washington, and Ekpe Udoh seems unlikely to re-up with Milwaukee quite yet. The Celtics and Grizzlies also don't have two genuine extension candidates on board.

But one team that realistically could extend multiple players is the Utah Jazz. By electing not to re-sign Paul Millsap or Al Jefferson this offseason, Utah committed to a youth movement centered around young players like Derrick Favors, Gordon Hayward, Enes Kanter, and Alec Burks. Kanter and Burks are still a year away from being extension-eligible, but Favors and Hayward could be locked up long-term before November.

We heard in mid-August that the Jazz are comfortable heading into the season without new deals for either player, but the team is still engaged in extension talks with both guys, and Hayward tells Zac Keefer of the Indianapolis Star that he'd love to continue his career in Utah. It may also be in the team's best interest to work out deals now, before Favors and Hayward see a huge bump in minutes — and, presumably, in the rest of their numbers.

Utah's books are fairly wide open for the next few years, with no expensive long-term contracts tying up the club's cap space. In a pair of pieces on Favors and Hayward for our Extension Candidate series, Chuck Myron of Hoops Rumors suggested both players could be in line for deals in the four-year, $40MM+ range, and the Jazz could afford those easily. On the other hand, perhaps the team prefers to wait and see how its young players respond to the increased responsibility and workload before committing too significantly to them. Without extensions, both guys would still be restricted free agents in 2014, so the Jazz would be able to keep one or both if they wanted to.

What do you think? Will the Jazz sign Favors and/or Hayward to contract extensions by the Halloween deadline?

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