NBA: James Harden and 5 other players who most need a trade

3. Rudy Gobert – Utah Jazz

At some point, the Utah Jazz are going to have to decide what to do with Rudy Gobert. The All-World screen-assist champ, Gobert will be eligible for a supermax next offseason. That’s a contract that would pay him $247.3 million over five years, which is obviously a lot of money for a center in today’s game.

What happens when you have a player who is eligible for the supermax, but who you would be crazy to pay that much money? Usually, you trade him.

It doesn’t matter that the whole world thinks Gobert gave Donovan Mitchell Covid in March (and knowing what we know now, he probably didn’t and it doesn’t matter anyway). It doesn’t matter if things in the Jazz locker room have been less than rosy with Gobert for a while, and it doesn’t matter if all the rumors over the past nine months are false and Gobert loves his teammates and they love him.

It’s a dollars and cents issue, and from a business perspective, the Jazz should make a move before they find themselves in an ugly position where they must pay dearly to keep him or risk losing him for nothing when free agency begins next summer.