SALT LAKE CITY — The NBA's trade deadline is three weeks away, on Feb. 23, and the Jazz have some opportunities to improve. Let's break down some of the bigger-picture possibilities for the Jazz before the deadline, and we'll get to specific options in a later article.

Salary cap space

As of now, the Jazz are paying $80,498,192 to their players this season, according to Basketball Insiders. The salary cap this year is $94.1 million, and the salary cap floor is $84.7 million. That means the Jazz have a lot of room to operate and potentially get an asset in exchange for taking on some dead salary.

Five other teams have that much salary cap space too, so it's not as if the Jazz will be the only option for teams needing to dump some money. But the Jazz also should probably at least take on someone to get up to that salary cap floor. If they don't, the difference is just distributed among the players on the roster, so it's not a huge penalty. Rather, the difference between the current salary and the salary cap floor represents a free opportunity to improve the roster and get assets.

The Jazz had hoped to use the salary cap space to extend Derrick Favors or George Hill, and technically, they still can. But it seems very unlikely at this point. Hill and his representation prefer to get to free agency, and Favors' injury situation means the Jazz don't really want to extend Favors to years after 2018 until they know he's going to be healthy beyond that.

There's also the trouble of the Jazz's long term cap situation: with Gordon Hayward, George Hill, and Joe Ingles all free agents in this offseason, and Rudy Gobert's big $25 million extension kicking in, the Jazz will need to pay a lot of money to keep their best players in the fold. Taking on long-term salary now doesn't make sense, even with the room they have in the short term.

I think it's likely that the Jazz make a trade this deadline, but I think the most plausible option is that it's a small deal designed to take advantage of their temporary salary cap space.

Power forward questions

Derrick Favors has missed the last two games, officially due to rest, but in reality due to a sore knee that limited his explosion. With Favors out, the Jazz have relied a lot on Boris Diaw and Trey Lyles at the power forward position, to mixed results.

Favors says he'll play Saturday against the Charlotte Hornets, saying that the break helped. "I got a lot of treatment done," Favors said. "I feel good." He's trying to be smart about the injury, but is frustrated with both its impact on his effectiveness and his playing time.

Diaw's plus-minus numbers are great, and he's a fun player to play with. But teams have figured out a strategy to guard him effectively: don't. With Diaw on the floor, teams can just sink off of him to help with other actions, ruining the Jazz's spacing. A lot of teams haven't done this because game planning is limited in the regular season, but in the playoffs, they'll take advantage.

And Lyles has still been bad defensively in the paint, just being bullied at the rim especially. His offense hasn't been good enough to save him, thanks especially to declining shooting percentages this year.

It'd probably be best for the Jazz if they had a reliable power forward who could both defend and space the floor for Rudy Gobert pick and rolls, though the number of players who can do that are limited. Serge Ibaka might be available. Wilson Chandler's not a traditional power forward, but has indicated he's not happy with his role.

The Jazz also have to consider their likely playoff matchups. It looks likely that they'll play either the Clippers, Grizzlies, or Thunder in the first round, and all of those teams like to play with two big, strong bigs who could feast on smaller power forwards. Favors is a nice option there.

In the end, I think it's most likely that the Jazz address their long-term power forward situation in the offseason, including maybe in the draft. But it's still something to explore in February for this playoff push as well.

Backup point guards

The Jazz have two opportunities at the point guard slot: first of all, they have four point guards, and another guard (Alec Burks) who can play at the one. That means all of Dante Exum, Shelvin Mack, and Raul Neto haven't been getting much playing time.

Last week, ESPN's Marc Stein reported that the Cleveland Cavaliers are interested in acquiring Mack. I wouldn't be surprised if a move of that sort of type happens.

Last year, the Jazz acquired Mack at the deadline. That deal was actually essentially discussed and agreed to a couple of weeks before the deadline, contingent on what other moves the Jazz and Hawks did. If the Hawks traded away Jeff Teague at the deadline, or the Jazz were able to acquire Teague or Hill in bigger deals, than the Mack move wouldn't have happened. But since those moves didn't happen at the deadline, the Hawks and Jazz went to their plan B with Mack. I could see something similar happening again this time around.

Or, just get healthy

There's also some sense in not making any major moves, because the Jazz still don't really know how good the team will be when healthy. Rodney Hood's out at least a week due to his sprained LCL, and it wouldn't be surprising to see him held out until the All-Star break, less than two weeks away.

Hill's not moving around well either, still bothered by the toe some. Alec Burks has come back and is playing major minutes, but hasn't really been himself in terms of finishing around the rim.

"The opportunity to gain continuity not just with a lineup, but with an entire rotation is different" than what they're used to, says coach Quin Snyder. "I looked up in the third quarter (against Milwaukee) and we were missing two starters again. And frankly it didn't occur to me until then."

There's real statistical evidence that continuity, in both players and coaching staff, is of long-term benefit. With injuries robbing them of that so far, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Jazz wait until the offseason to make moves in free agency or the trade market.

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