Bridging the Gap On Mitchell’s Value Using Star Trades

Mitchell playing in Madison Square Garden could become a more regular occurence if the Knicks and Jazz can bridge a gap in trade negotiations. (Seth Wenig/AP via sltrib.com)

More than a week has passed since ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski set Jazz Nation on fire by revealing that the Utah Jazz had changed course and were more earnestly entertaining offers for three-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell.

During during an impromptu Salt City Hoops podcast that evening, Dan Clayton put me on the spot, asking if I thought Mitchell would be dealt. While I expected a move would be made eventually, I didn’t think it would happen immediately, and indeed, one week later, Mitchell remains a member of the Utah Jazz. Lest this sound like a cocky victory lap, by the very next day I was pretty sure I was wrong.

So what has happened in the past seven days?

Most of the trade discussion has focused on the Jazz and the New York Knicks, which makes sense for multiple reasons. Mitchell is a local product who grew up a Knicks fan, and he has been linked to the Knicks since before the draft. The Knicks organization has been preparing to bring a star (or two) to New York, only to see several potential targets agree to stay with their teams. Flush with young players, an impressive array of future draft picks, and a little ballast to match salaries, the Knicks are ready to deal — and Mitchell is amenable to calling Madison Square Garden home.

All that’s left is the small matter of agreeing to terms that work for both sides.

Most reporting on the Jazz-Knicks negotiations had focused on the rumored range of assets the Jazz reportedly requested from the Knicks in exchange for Mitchell. The lists – there have been a few versions – generally included a king’s ransom of first round picks (anywhere from five to seven), a smattering of pick swaps, and two or more of the Knicks’ young players (in addition to veterans to match salary).

On Tuesday, for the first time, we got a window into the Knicks’ thinking, when The Athletic’s Tony Jones spoke with ESPN 700’s Spence Checketts. “The Knicks are not averse to putting in five first-round picks,” Tony shared, “but they want four of those to be protected picks that are most likely going to land in the 20s. The Jazz want the Knicks’ picks. The ones that are unprotected.”

In addition, Tony repeated the assertion that New York did not wish to include RJ Barrett in the trade, which supposedly is fine with the Jazz. He added that the Knicks do not want to trade Quentin Grimes, and while Tony didn’t say this, I’ve read elsewhere that the Knicks (or at least their fans) don’t want to deal Obi Toppin. Some view Toppin as a a replacement for Julius Randle, who may need to be dealt in the near future if the Knicks have Mitchell, Jalen Brunson and larger future RJ Barrett contract on the books.

I’m certain that Jazz CEO Danny Ainge and GM Justin Zanik will never make a deal that doesn’t include some of the most desirable assets, whether that’s a rotation player or two, or some of the Knicks’ own unprotected picks. To use an analogy, if Utah’s brain trust has done the equivalent of listing Mitchell’s contract on eBay, they’ve also set a very high “reserve” price.

The apparent gap between the two parties really got me thinking: just what is the value of Donovan Mitchell?

Trading Stars

Thankfully, much of the legwork was done for me in the form of a tweet thread from John Schmeelk (@Schmeelk), who laid out the details of other trades involving top-25 NBA talent. I encourage you to read it in its entirety, but the Jazz will likely focus their valuation case on four of the six examples in the thread:

Paul George and James Harden, both older but more accomplished players when they changed teams than Mitchell is at this juncture, were each moved for four unprotected first-round picks. The George deal also brought the Thunder an additional protected first-round pick, as well as promising young Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, while the Rockets’ Harden haul also included four potential pick swaps. This was despite the players having significantly limited their former teams’ leverage with trade demands and restrictive lists of preferred destinations, and each had less time left under contract than Mitchell does now.

The Pelicans’ trade of Anthony Davis to the Lakers was similar in that Davis was only under contract for one more year and would only agree to a contract extension with two teams, severely reducing his number of potential suitors. He was considered more accomplished than Mitchell is now, but like Mitchell, he was in his mid-20s. New Orleans received three essentially unprotected first-round picks and a pick swap, in addition to a trio of prospects in Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart.

Most recently, the Jazz traded Rudy Gobert to the Timberwolves. Gobert has been selected as an All-Star the same number of times as Mitchell, but his curriculum vitae also includes four All-NBA inclusions, perennial All-Defensive team nods, and three Defensive Player of the Year trophies. He is also five years older than Donovan. In exchange for the Stifle Tower, Utah received three unprotected first-round picks, an additional lightly protected selection, and one pick swap. The draft rights to recent first round pick Walker Kessler were also included, as well as a collection of players on expiring or inexpensive contracts.

The summary of those four players’ returns looks like this:

• George: 4 unprotected + 1 protected + 2 swaps + 1 promising player = 7 building blocks*, 57% unprotected picks
• Harden: 4 + 0 + 4 + 0 = 6 building blocks, 75% unprotected picks
• Davis: 3 + 0 + 1 + 3 = 6.5 building blocks, 46% unprotected picks
• Gobert: 3 + 1 + 1 + 0 = 4.5 building blocks (more if you add any of the incoming players), 67% unprotected picks

*It feels wrong to call a pick swap a building block, because the value can be very limited. That said, they make up a significant part of some deals, particularly the Harden trade, so it feels like they should be included somehow in the total count. I’ve counted them as half of a building block. In my opinion they should always be a minor portion of a star trade, and primarily used when a team doesn’t have other options. In most star trades I’d consider a second-round pick as a decent alternative.

If the Knicks use any players in this thread in an attempt to reduce the Jazz’s asking price, they will focus on Jrue Holiday (two unprotected picks, two pick swaps) and Dejounte Murray (two unprotected picks, one protected pick, one pick swap), but that probably won’t fly. Holiday was older than Mitchell, and neither player can equal Donovan’s three All-Star appearances. Today’s Mitchell is more valuable than 2020’s Holiday or today’s Murray.

To me, Mitchell fits in with the top group, probably right between Davis (who had a better resume with more All-Star appearances and had made thee All-NBA teams at the time of his trade) and Gobert (who also had a stronger history thanks to his All-NBA, All-Defensive and DPOY recognition, but he’s also four years older).

While I’d start the bidding higher (as Ainge and Zanik reportedly did), I’d put Mitchell’s value at five and a half building blocks (a new and very rudimentary metric that I literally just made up), give or take, with over half that total – let’s say three to start – expected to be unprotected first-round draft picks.

Get the Knicks on the phone, send them a link to this explanation, and let’s make a deal, right?

But wait, there’s more (maybe)

I feel comfortable that Mitchell’s value is in the five-to-six asset ballpark, although there will still be a lot of work to determine which assets those are, whether they currently belong to the Knicks or another team.

But there’s one more way that compensation could be adjusted.

By necessity, a trade with the Knicks and probably many other teams will include at least one player going to Utah for salary matching purposes only; for the Knicks it’s either Evan Fournier or Derrick Rose, and could potentially be both. Neither player matches a post-Donovan Mitchell Jazz timeline, but each possesses an moderately expensive contract the Jazz may have to swallow.

Rose, in particular, will be 34 years old when the season starts, and will likely have little interest in sticking around for a rebuild in Salt Lake. The Jazz could try to relocate him, but the list of veterans they are trying to accommodate is getting quite long. Because Rose only has one guaranteed year remaining on his contract, there’s a chance the Jazz would be able to buy his contract out at a slight discount for the second time, cementing the legacy of Jazz legend Derrick Rose.

Fournier is younger than Rose, but is owed nearly $37 million over two guaranteed years, making it harder to execute a buyout and even more painful to waive. Not only does he not fit the on-court timeline, but the extra contract year also impacts the cap sheet next offseason, something the Jazz probably want to avoid for several reasons. If the Jazz take Fournier in a trade with the Knicks, they will likely want to move his contract no later than the 2023 offseason.

Neither Rose nor Fournier has anything to do with the value of Mitchell, but the inclusion of either player in a Mitchell swap might alter the required return in the deal. I guarantee that if New York traded these players into space to sign Mitchell as a free agent, they would pay a hefty fee for the salary dump. The Knicks know this well, having just sent out a variety of assets to clear $28 million in cap space to sign Brunson as a free agent.

Why should that be any different in these circumstances?

Beyond Mitchell’s base value, the Jazz should look to be compensated for taking on players that may be considered dead salary, whether that means Rose’s $15 million, Fournier’s $37 million, or if they were dealing with Miami, Duncan Robinson’s $64 million.

A few potential examples:

• If the Jazz were to accept both Rose and Fournier in a trade with the Knicks, they would be on the hook for $51 million in unwanted salary. That aligns pretty nicely with the $49 million the Thunder absorbed in 2020 when they added Al Horford, a move that cost the Sixers two first-round picks. The Jazz might then ask for a total of seven or eight assets (5-6 for Mitchell, 2 for taking on $51 million).
• Another option is the same deal as above, but with the Jazz shipping Rudy Gay’s contract to New York. Gay’s $13 million owed largely offsets Rose’s guaranteed salary, reducing the incoming unwanted salary to $39 million. That could still be worth two incremental first-round picks, perhaps with protections tweaked slightly in favor of New York. Alternatively, the teams could agree to one first-round pick and one or two second-round picks.
• One of the base deals of which I’m most fond is Fournier, Toppin and Grimes for Mitchell. Absorbing Fournier’s $37 million in future salary probably adds one or two assets to the price, so the Jazz require seven to eight building blocks to make this deal, but Toppin and Grimes are promising enough to count as two of them. A resulting deal might look like three unprotected picks, two protected picks, one pick swap, plus the players mentioned above, for a total of seven and a half (5.5-6 for Mitchell, 1.5-2 for taking Fournier’s salary).

I’ll stop there, because I can’t explore every potential iteration of a Jazz-Knicks swap, but in general, I only look at two Knicks players as assets for the purposes of this discussion: Toppin and Grimes. I might consider Immanuel Quickley and Miles McBride as half to three-quarters of an asset, but that doesn’t mean the Jazz front office agrees.

The TL;DR version is this: Donovan Mitchell alone is worth roughly five to six building blocks, half of which should be unprotected first-round picks, with additional assets if unwanted, dead salaries are included in the deal.

The ball’s in your court, Knicks and Jazz.

Which court? Madison Square Garden, Vivint Arena, or a neutral court somewhere halfway in between?

I don’t know and I don’t care.

Just get it done, because I feel like this is the way we’re headed at some point, and there’s no time like the present.