SALT LAKE CITY — The NBA Free Agency frenzy has lived up to the hype after seeing a dramatic increase in the league’s salary cap. With the league adding $24 million to the salary cap, the majority of the league’s teams have had more money to spend than they know what to do with. Early on, the Jazz appear to have spent wisely. Not every team has fared so well.

I try not to underestimate the NBA’s collection of general managers, understanding how difficult it must be to get one of 30 NBA lead front office jobs on the planet, but some of the deals have been downright bizarre.

Lakers

The Lakers, long thought of as a top-tier free agent destination, made one of the bigger and stranger splashes in free agency, signing former Cavaliers center Timofey Mozgov to a four-year $64 million deal. That $16 million per season for a starting center is reasonable, but it depends on Mozgov being a starting center. The 29-year-old fell out of the Cavaliers' rotation to end the year and does little to match the modern style of the NBA, valuing spacing today more than ever before.

Nets

The Brooklyn Nets offered Tyler Johnson a four-year, $50-million deal. While Johnson has performed reasonably well in his career, he’s appeared in only 68 games, with just seven starts. He’s also 23 years old, potentially limiting his upside.

Warriors

The Golden State Warriors are the league’s biggest winners through four days of free agency, signing future Hall of Famer Kevin Durant to a two-year contract. Adding Durant gives the Warriors the most talented roster in the league, if they didn’t already have it. While it’s unlikely they win 73 games again next season, they’re a far more potent playoff team, having another go-to scorer late in games.

Hornets

The Charlotte Hornets have done well also, resigning former Jazzman Marvin Williams to a four-year, $54 million deal. Williams’ value was likely closer to $20 million per season. They resigned Nicolas Batum to a deal at less than the maximum allowable, which he could have gotten had he told the team it was what he required to return. They likely solidified themselves as an Eastern Conference team in the East.

Jazz

The Jazz belong in the same column as the Warriors and Hornets, and not the column featuring the Lakers, Nets and Portland Trail Blazers, who paid Evan Turner $70 million over four years. Turner is a better than average NBA player, but doesn’t shoot the ball well and started just 12 games last season.

Through Monday night, the Jazz have made only one free agent signing, inking seven-time All-Star Joe Johnson to a two-year, $22 million deal. While Johnson, who has just turned 35, is no longer the elite scorer he was in his prime, he appeared to have reinvented himself during his last stop in Miami. Starting in each of the 24 games he appeared in for the Heat, Johnson shot a career best .588 effective field goal percentage, including 41 percent from beyond the 3-point line.

Johnson will likely back up Gordon Hayward at small forward for most of the season and will see time at power forward when the Jazz utilize a smaller lineup. When looking toward the offseason, a combo forward like Joe Johnson seemed like the ideal fit for the roster, but few expected Johnson to consider the Jazz. Johnson knows he’s not going to win his first championship with the Jazz and likely landed in Utah because they were the highest bidder, but it’s a tremendous fit for both parties.

With the acquisition of George Hill becoming official on July 7, the Jazz will have added 176 games of playoff experience, and 1,398 career starts to their roster. That’s approximately 17 full seasons of starts combined between the two newest Jazzmen. The Jazz current core, Gordon Hayward (335), Derrick Favors (250), Rudy Gobert (97), Rodney Hood (100) and Dante Exum (41) have a combined 823 starts, or roughly 10 seasons combined. Experience like this, on playoff-contending teams, is invaluable for a young Jazz roster still hoping to avoid the deep crevices present in every NBA season.

Even after these two veteran additions, the Jazz could have as much as $17 million in cap space remaining this summer — more than enough to trade for or sign another above-average player to their roster.

Of Western Conference teams on the outside of the playoffs looking in, the Jazz have fared as well as any with their two offseason additions, which bodes well as the team has the fewest games to make up to become a playoff team, missing the postseason by just one game in 2016.

Kings

The Sacramento Kings have made several additions to their roster, inking Anthony Tolliver, Matt Barnes and Arron Afflalo since July 1 and were the next closest team to the Jazz to make the Western Conference Playoffs. Unlike the Jazz, however, the Kings finished eight games outside of the postseason.

With Portland failing to address their needs in the front court; the Oklahoma City Thunder losing both Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka this offseason; and Dallas and Houston failing to make a major improvement to this point, the Western Conference Playoffs picture should remain competitive.

With the additions of George Hill and Joe Johnson, and the Jazz ability to avoid signing egregiously unwise contracts, the Jazz wins in the summer should translate to wins this coming season.

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