The Utah Jazz don’t have many picks to play with at the trade deadline, but a look back through recent history suggests moves can still be made. (This story is part of a collaboration between saltcityhoops and sltrib.)
The Jazz don’t have many picks to play with at the trade deadline, but a look back through recent history suggests moves can still be made
However, Utah’s cupboard of future draft picks — the primary assets a championship-contending outfit like the Jazz typically use to pry good players from other, worse teams — is fairly empty. It’s not “moldy ketchup sandwich” bare, but the Jazz are going to need to get creative in order to bring something to the trade deadline potluck. Let’s take a look at what they have, and a little background on how they got there.
Utah can also trade the option to swap their 2023 and/or 2025 pick selections with a trade partner’s picks in such drafts.The Jazz have five negligible-value second-round picks: Memphis’ 2022, their own 2025 and 2026, Memphis’ 2026, and the worst of Oklahoma City’s, Houston’s, Indiana’s, or Miami’s second-round picks in 2027).
This is the closest analogue we probably have in assessing Utah’s 2026 pick; it occurred so recently , and the pick is nearly identical to Utah’s best available pick—being a few years away and of a team set up to be good in the long term. Denver acquired a flawed, but solidly starter-level, athletic wing. The early returns were fabulous, both statistically and in practice, in the limited time Denver had all of Gordon, Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic and Michael Porter Jr. on the court together.
Goran Dragic was a year removed from a stellar season that normally earns an All-Star selection, but the Western Conference had a glut of backcourt stars that kept him out. Hilariously, the Phoenix Suns rewarded Dragic’s great season by adding Isaiah Thomas in the offseason to cut into the minutes of Dragic and fellow excellent guard Eric Bledsoe, resulting in dismal performances from all three ballhandlers to start the year.
This isn’t meant to be a re-litigation of that trade, though. Since this trade involves several bits of draft compensation, it’s harder to isolate the value of a single pick or swap. However, if you can put your 2019 goggles on, you can see that the Rockets had to cobble together several far-out draft assets just to upgrade from “legendary starter and reliable playoff performer with injury and age concerns” to “flawed All-Star capable of occasional MVP-level performance.
That this was a sign-and-trade depresses what we think of Butler’s value as a star player in a trade. Miami was really trading for the opportunity to sign Butler in free agency. Richardson was the real prize for getting Philly to play ball, and the opportunity to acquire Butler at all was worth spending a relatively weak first-round pick to clear some cap. The Clippers may have had Miami over a barrel a little in this respect, but the 2023 pick was not considered an untouchable asset.
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