Jazz Stand Pat: Breaking Down the Deadline-Day Deals That Weren’t

Despite rumors that these two might swap cities, Rubio remains a Jazzman. (Rick Bowmer via grizzlies.com)

It certainly wasn’t the trade that the Utah Jazz’s fans thought they’d get. After substantial hubbub and speculation about how Utah might add another piece to their roster, the only trade the Jazz made at the trade deadline was to swap an anxious roster of guys looking over their shoulders for 15 athletes who know that Salt Lake City will remain their home for the immediate future.

In other words, the Jazz stood pat on Thursday.

But it wasn’t for lack of trying. Various media reports indicate that general manager Dennis Lindsey was aggressive leading up to the league’s Thursday deadline for in-season trades. The Jazz know they’re a key move or two away from having a very interesting and dynamic roster, one capable of challenging even the star-driven hegemonies that currently stand a tier above them. Most elite teams have two, three or even four top-40 players; Utah currently has one in Rudy Gobert, although Donovan Mitchell is close and trending in the right direction. Still, Utah knows it needs that third borderline star to really contend.

So Lindsey worked the phones during a hectic week of trades, but ultimately the price tags attached to his targets were just beyond the club’s comfort level. So, for now at least, the Jazz again opted for continuity and slow upward progress over a sudden, glitzy move that might have required too many future-focused assets.

Take Wizard-turned-Bull Otto Porter, for example. The Athletic’s Tony Jones reported nearly a week ago that the teams had spoken at least preliminarily about a Porter trade that would have centered around Utah’s Derrick Favors. But the salary difference between the two forwards would have required Utah to send another player with Favors, and we can deduce that the two sides couldn’t agree on what a fair extra piece would be. The Wizards likely asked for a player like Dante Exum or Jae Crowder, while Utah may have envisioned sending someone like Thabo Sefolosha and a small salary instead. Or Washington may have wanted draft compensation, which the Jazz may have been hesitant to give, positing that they were providing both cap relief and a player they knew the Wizards have had interest in. We don’t know which of these scenarios played out, but based on public reports, it’s fairly logical to assume it was something along those lines.

And in the end, Washington opted for a pure rebuilding package anyway. They dealt Porter to Chicago for a second-round pick and two young forwards who aren’t guaranteed money next season: Jabari Parker’s contract has a team option, and Bobby Portis will be a restricted free agent. So if either plays well enough to restore his value, Washington could control his destiny and bring him back, but if neither one does, they can have salary relief instead. Trade value is in the eye of the beholder, and Wiz president Ernie Grunfeld clearly preferred to have those options with a pair of young forward to whatever Utah’s Favors-and-stuff package looked like.

In fact, what might have worked against Utah consummating the deal this week was their lack of true rebuilding assets. Sure, the Jazz are flush with expiring salary and value veterans, but a team looking for a reset often wants a different kind of return: good draft picks and good young players still on rookie contracts. 

The Jazz were never going to trade Mitchell, their only rotational guy on a rookie contract, so the next closest thing is Exum, though even he is already on his second deal¹. He’s the one real asset a rebuilding team might be interested in, but the Jazz are encouraged by his progress as an off-the-bounce creator and still believe he can be an important part of their future. He was requested by other clubs in at least one deal, reports indicate, but Utah didn’t oblige.

And aside from Exum, Utah is light on that type of asset. Their draft picks will fall in the 20s for the foreseeable future, and most of their affordable contracts (outside of Mitchell) are tied to reserves and veterans. That might have been an issue in some trades.

For example, even if the Jazz wanted to make a play for shooting big man Nikola Mirotic², they didn’t really have the in-between assets to get him. Giving up the promising Exum on a favorable contract would be too much for a short-term rental on Mirotic, yet Utah’s lesser assets wouldn’t have competed with what the Pels ultimately got. And again, the package they scored — highlighted by FOUR second-rounders and the young Stanley Johnson, a nice player but one they’ll have to pay this summer — sounds more like a rebuilding trade than what the Jazz could throw at them.

A straight Favors-for-Mirotic swap works on paper, but New Orleans appears to have preferred the rebuilding route³

Similarly, the Jazz might have made a run at former Clipper Tobias Harris, a dynamic scorer who can play both forward spots. But L.A. moved him for multiple firsts, including an unprotected 2021 Miami pick that could become extremely valuable. Even if Utah tried, their own draft cache doesn’t include anything like that.

But enough about Porter, Mirotic and Harris. We all know who the most talked-about Jazz target was.

Jones has been reporting about a potential Mike Conley trade since last week. The Jazz were excited to learn that Conley was available, and viewed him as a player who could take some pressure off of Mitchell and instantly lift the Jazz to contender status. They reportedly assembled a Ricky Rubio-centric package that included the expiring salary Memphis supposedly sought, along with a 2019 first rounder.

Per Jones’ reporting, Memphis kept prodding the Jazz for more. Again it’s not hard to guess what they wanted: likely another first rounder or one of Utah’s 20-somethings on favorable deals, like Exum or Crowder. The Jazz wouldn’t budge on those requests, but eventually upped their offer to include “mutliple picks” (meaning they likely added a second-rounder).

In Conley’s case, we don’t get the luxury of comparing likely Jazz offers to the winning track package — because the Grizzlies ultimately changed course and kept their star guard in Memphis.

But this much seems obvious: by the time the deadline rolled around, Utah’s was probably the best offer on the table. Other suitors had moved onto other plans by then or were scared away by Memphis’ gutsy counters. By 1:00 p.m. MST, the Jazz were likely the only team still in play with the expiring salary Memphis sought⁴ and multiple picks on the table.

When you’re the winning bidder at a live auction, you don’t suddenly start upping the bid right before gavel comes down. Yet that appears to be what Memphis wanted Utah to do: bid against themselves. It may have been a flinching contest, but neither party flinched. So Memphis now has the complicated task of reintegrating a player who appeared to have gotten emotionally ready to move on, and the Jazz will continue on without Conley.

It seems likely that the Jazz could have gotten Conley by surrendering Exum or another first. Whether or not they should have is another question entirely. Exum still has the potential to be an important piece as Utah aims to ascend the league’s power structure. He’s one of two current Jazz men who can consistently puncture the defense without a screen, and his defensive abilities are real. His decision-making and finishing have been shaky at times, but Utah feels like he had turned a corner before he rolled an ankle last month.

Getting Conley would have given the Jazz a nice boost. But owning your draft picks and having good young players locked in for cheap is how you stay good. In the end, it’s probably a good thing that Lindsey didn’t get caught up in a bidding war against himself. Sometimes, the way to win a trade negotiation is to not get fleeced.

It’s also fair to wonder if Conley would have had quite the same impact in Utah as he had in Tennessee. Memphis Mike handles the ball and initiates the offense on 50, 60, 70 plays per game. Put him next to Mitchell, though, and you’re likely getting 40% of THAT version of Conley, and 60% some other version who spots up from the corner or attacks off the catch when defenses choke the middle on Mitchell’s drives. That version of Conley is likely very valuable, too, but it’s worth noting that Mitchell’s presence means the Jazz wouldn’t be getting the fully unleashed Conley as we’ve known him for the past few years. 

Multiple plugged-in people say that there were never really any legs to the 3-team scenario where All-Star Kyle Lowry landed with the Jazz. And Utah never had the right assets to make a serious run at Jrue Holiday.

So for now, the Jazz are still the Jazz — all 15 of them. And that was always a possibility. Lindsey entered the week knowing that if the right deal didn’t materialize, he could instead head into the offseason with the option of creating upwards of $40 million in cap space. They can try again with their trade assets in June or July, or they can use cap space to hunt for an impact player — via free agency or by absorbing a salary when teams start doing cap gymnastics.

And in the meantime, Utah is still a really good team. Sure, they get frustrated at times with Rubio’s inconsistency. Sure, Favors’ role is limited by the reality that Quin Snyder only likes to run him for a few minutes each half next to franchise cornerstone Rudy Gobert. Neither of those realities changed on Thursday. But the Jazz are still 60-30 since January 24, 2018, a sample size of just over a full season’s worth of games. They’re a top-four Western Conference team in terms of Net Rating, Simple Rating and CARMELO.

They still need that third guy before they’re legitimate contenders. And they’ll still be hunting for one. But for the time being, they’ll go back to seeing how far this version of the Utah Jazz can go.