Why Utah Shouldn’t Make A Trade This Year
The Utah Jazz can make some big moves during the trade deadline. Should they pull the trigger or hold off and grow with their current roster?
You’ve got to love the NBA because every two months they have a different event to keep you hooked.
After the opening night tipoff, Christmas Day games, and the All-Star Game, but just in between the playoffs, and ultimately the Finals, is the NBA trade deadline. Right now there is no bigger subject that the trade deadline and that’s because history tells us that there are big moves in the brewing that no one’s expecting.
The trade deadline is where good teams become great. It’s also where good teams become worse.
Two perfect examples happened to the same franchise, the Dallas Mavericks. In 2008, Dallas wanted to make a huge splash during the trade deadline.
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They accomplished their mission as they traded everything but the kitchen sink including DeSagana Diop, Trenton Hassell, Maurice Ager, Keith Van Horn and two first-round draft picks (2008 and 2010) to the New Jersey Nets for Jason Kidd. Three years after the trade, Dallas won their first championship and Kidd shortly thereafter retired as one of the top five point guards of all time.
To contrast, in 2014, the same Dallas franchise made a trade for another pass-first point guard in Rajon Rondo. Dallas gave Rondo the Kidd treatment as they gave up Jae Crowder, Jameer Nelson, Brandan Wright, a 2015 first-round pick and a 2016 second-round pick to the Boston Celtics. Dallas never got near the best out of Rondo and he left in free agency.
To make matters worse, he’s now leading the league in assists for the Sacramento Kings.
The bottom line is that trades are such a big risk that sometimes it’s not worth making moves. Sometimes they can work incredibly well (if the player is truly deemed worthy) and other times it doesn’t quite pan out. For a team full of young players that is fighting for a playoff spot, does it seem wise to give up a lot of their long-term window for short-term success?
The Exception, Not the Rule
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We’ve
in depth as to why the Jazz should trade for the point guard of the Atlanta Hawks,
Jeff Teague. However, is trading valuable young players the right move to make?
For the last two weeks, we’ve heard a number of names being thrown in the trade fire including Carmelo Anthony, Blake Griffin, Hassan Whiteside, Lance Stephenson and Teague. Should Utah join the Golden State Warriors, Oklahoma City Thunder, and San Antonio Spurs and relax during the trade deadline?
The only way that making a move for Teague would work is if it gave Atlanta an expiring contract like Trevor Booker‘s, Trey Burke as a replacement guard, and most likely a first-round pick. In reality, that’s the only way a trade could work.
Atlanta would get younger, they’d have a first-round pick, they’d also have a starting point guard in Burke, and a talented hustle player like Booker for a potential playoff run. However, the going rate for point guards is highway robbery. Rondo got two first-round picks, as did Kidd, even Goran Dragic required three first-round picks.
Additionally, Atlanta would have to require Trey Lyles in any trade. Having a 20-year-old rookie who just made the Rising Stars Challenge wouldn’t be smart to give away.
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Again would the risk be worth the reward?
The Alternative
Instead of even thinking about trading, it could be in Utah’s best interest to see how this team operates when all of their pieces are functioning together. Outside of the injuries to Alec Burks and Dante Exum, Utah still has a lot of firepower on their team because they’ve been able to draft properly and collect a lot of depth.
Lyles would be a starting rookie power forward for a lot of the teams that passed up on him in the draft; instead, he’s been relegated to learning from two of the best bigs in the game in Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert.
Adding them to a healthy team for the most important stretch of the season was perfect timing. Having another budding future All-Star in Gordon Hayward playing the best basketball of the season right before the playoffs is even better timing.
Right now Utah’s in the eighth spot in the Western Conference and they’ve got an opportunity to make the playoffs. Does it make sense to disrupt the chemistry of the team if they’ve shown they’ve figured out a way to start winning?
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When you’ve got the third-best defensive team in the league, who would want to play that in a seven-game series?