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3 teams whose offseasons will be shaped by the playoffs

Chris Nicoll / USA TODAY Sports

The playoffs bring high stakes for all teams involved each year, but they're always higher for some than for others. This season sees three teams gazing at the horizon to see summer storm clouds beginning to form in the distance.

Here's how the playoffs could shape those teams' respective offseasons.

Utah Jazz

The good news for the Jazz: They're finally reaping the fruits of a multi-year rebuild, fostering a sturdy, still-young core that's a product of equal parts homegrown talent and trade-market savvy. The bad news: They now have to sweat out an uncertain spring and summer that could determine the course of the franchise.

The team's starting backcourt of George Hill and Gordon Hayward is headed for unrestricted free agency, and both guys - two of their three most important players - have played well enough to command near-max deals in the summer. A small handful of teams can carve out max-level space to make a run at those guys, and retaining both would take the Jazz well past the cap. (They can shed money by declining Boris Diaw's option and trying to pawn off Alec Burks, but once you toss Joe Ingles' restricted free agency into the mix, the Jazz will likely have to dip into the luxury tax to keep the band together.)

In theory, power forward Derrick Favors should be involved in any vision of the franchise's best future, but his lingering knee injury has thrown everything a little off-kilter. It's sapped him of his explosiveness, and he's been a step slow all season. As such, the Jazz haven't really gained any further insight into whether he and Rudy Gobert can be a viable long-term fit in the frontcourt. Unless he gets back to looking like his 2014-16 self between now and season's end, he could wind up as trade bait this summer - a casualty of Utah's impending salary crunch a year ahead of his free agency.

This will all be part of a tricky balancing act, at the heart of which lies this central question: Can the Jazz convince Hill and, more importantly, Hayward that being locked into this core for the foreseeable future will be fortuitous? Hayward has been vocal about his desire to compete for a title, suggesting his free-agency decision will be based on a team's ability to provide him that opportunity. Can the Jazz - who will still be able to offer him more years and money than other teams, if not the super-max an improbable All-NBA appearance would allow - make a case that they're in better position to do that, long-term, than the Boston Celtics? Or a big-market, fair-weather destination where other stars can be lured, like the Miami Heat or Los Angeles Lakers? Or, in Hill's case, the San Antonio Spurs?

Much may depend on how the Jazz fare this spring. Given that they're all but locked into the 4-5 bracket, and would almost certainly have to face the Warriors or Spurs in the second round, the second round is about as far as they can reasonably be expected to go. But if they get completely blown off the floor in that round, or don't make it that far, it may change the way Hayward and Hill approach free agency. And it won't help that their likely opponent in that first round will be just as desperate, if not more so.

Los Angeles Clippers

And so we ask again: Is this the last hurrah for the current Clippers core? Is the team's once-promising assembly of talent doomed to be remembered as a flop; a failed exercise marked by bad luck, bad timing, and bad chemistry?

This is Year 6 for the Clips in the Chris Paul - Blake Griffin - DeAndre Jordan era, and they're still hunting their first conference finals berth. This season seemed like as good an opportunity as any, especially when they came stampeding out of the gate, playing like the best team in the NBA. But then the injury bug showed up and bit them in the rear, again, and though they're back to full strength now, they've yet to fully recover.

They're a game back of the Jazz in the race for home court in their likely 4-5 matchup, but lead the season series 2-1 ahead of Saturday's tiebreak-determining meeting. The Warriors' mini-slump in the wake of Kevin Durant's injury briefly opened the door for the Spurs to ascend to the No. 1 seed - which would've meant the Clippers potentially avoiding the team that's beaten them 10 straight times until the West final - but the Warriors have righted the ship, and that dream appears to be dead. Regardless, the Clippers are still looking at having to go through a very good Jazz team, possibly starting on the road, just to reach the second round.

Meanwhile, their free-agency angst puts even Utah's to shame. Paul, Griffin, and J.J. Redick will all be unrestricted, and if things go sideways again in the postseason, after six years of frustration and disappointment, with some occasional disharmony sprinkled in, how do you convince those guys it's worth signing up for another long-term go-round? Will they cleave to the lessons of the 2011 Mavericks, or decide something here is irreparably broken?

As good as the Clippers have looked at times, they've appeared equally discombobulated and disinterested at others. For a team that boasts some of the league's most exciting players, they can play oddly joyless basketball. Talented as they remain, it's hard to shake the feeling that the Clippers have already plateaued.

"We're right on the borderline," head coach Doc Rivers famously said before last season began. "I have no problem saying that. I'm a believer that teams can get stale. After a while, you don't win. It just doesn't work. We're right at the edge. We just have to accept it."

Nearly two years later, the Clippers are no further from that ledge. Another dispiriting playoff performance could send them toppling over it.

Toronto Raptors

Since the start of the 2013-14 season, no Eastern Conference team has won more regular-season games than the Raptors. Give the bulk of the credit for that to point guard Kyle Lowry, who has steadily built himself up into one of the game's 10 or 15 best players, and arguably the most important player in franchise history.

Lowry's also hurt right now, with no timetable for a return, and with his 31st birthday and unrestricted free agency both beckoning. If he doesn't return at full strength (or at all) for the postseason - or if, for whatever reason, the Raptors bow out in the first round regardless - will the front office think twice about maxing him out through his age-36 season? Or, perhaps more pertinently, will Lowry think twice about sticking around? For that matter, will Serge Ibaka? And what's to be done with comparatively minor but still functionally vital role players like Patrick Patterson and P.J. Tucker?

Those decisions are all interconnected. To wit: if Lowry's gone, does it make sense to pony up for Ibaka (let alone Patterson and Tucker)? Does it make sense to retain both Lowry and Ibaka at a collective price point that figures to run at least $50 million per year, which would mean something like 75 percent of the cap going to those two and DeMar DeRozan alone? How far into the luxury tax is ownership willing to go to keep this core together? Those questions will become particularly difficult to answer if the Raptors flop in the playoffs, whether that means losing to a mediocre team like the Hawks or Pacers in the first round, or getting their doors blown off by the Cavaliers in the second.

There'll be no room for half-measures for the Raptors this offseason. They're not replacing Lowry with anyone as good as Lowry in the short term, so they'll either be swallowing a contract that might eventually turn sour in order to maximize a competitive window (however modest its ceiling may be), or they'll be stripping things down and pivoting into an entirely different development cycle. Which doesn't seem like much of a choice at all. You don't just punt the kind of stability and certainty the Raptors have engendered the past few years without having a better plan in place.

Meanwhile, there aren't many other teams out there that figure to have max cap space, be in need of a point guard, and be able to offer Lowry a more stable or competitive situation. Unless things go really bad this April (like, 2015 swept-out-of-the-first-round bad), it's tough to see him bolting Toronto to sign with, say, the Pacers, or Nuggets, or even his hometown 76ers. A first-round win and a competitive second-round series should be enough to convince both sides to re-up.

The way the rest of the puzzle would fall into place around Lowry is a crucial (if secondary) concern. But unless or until we see what this team looks like whole, and what it can accomplish when the games matter most, the picture is going to remain murky.

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