Jazz Swap Vets for a Laker Pick With High Upside

February 10th, 2023 | by Dan Clayton

Veteran leader Conley (left) is headed to Minnesota, along with young reserve Alexander-Walker. (Trent Nelson, Salt Lake Tribune)

For a rebuilding NBA franchise, the goal should be generating assets and options. The assets that matter the most to a team attempting to assemble its next core are the ones with a non-trivial chance of yielding a star-level piece.

The Utah Jazz have prioritized those premium chips over simply amassing the largest number of raw draft picks. The logic behind that is simple, and mirrors the way we think about players: a bunch of third- and fourth-tier players don’t add up to a superstar. Nobody in their right mind is trading Giannis Antetokounmpo for five Donte DiVincenzos, even though the “wins above replacement” metric of five Dontes adds up to one Giannis. The A-level superstar is the scarcest, least replaceable commodity in the NBA, so an asset that could yield that is better than a whole pile of assets that almost certainly won’t.

That logic guided the Jazz in their summer dealings, in which they piled up a league-high eight incoming first round picks that are either guaranteed to convey or very lightly protected. And it was again the thinking behind a Wednesday deal that gave Utah its ninth incoming pick — in addition to the six picks of their own they possess in the next seven drafts.

The deal brought Utah a top-4 protected pick from the Lakers in 2027. The cost to get that premium asset feels high if you are focused mostly on maximizing 2022-23 results, but none of Mike Conley, Malik Beasley or Jarred Vanderbilt figured to be a major part of the club’s future coming out of the rebuild. By sending Conley to Minnesota and the latter two to Los Angeles, the Jazz netted a better single asset than if they had traded them in separate deals. (Utah also acquired — and reportedly will release — Russell Westbrook, and also added deep reserves Damian Jones and Juan Toscano-Anderson. The trade also cost Utah two second-rounders and Nickeil Alexander-Walker.)

Conley’s market was limited to contenders with ball handling needs, and his remaining guaranteed salary made him close to a neutral asset. There was never any indication that the Jazz could net better than a couple of second-rounders and expiring matched salary in a Conley deal. Vanderbilt is also unlikely to have netted more than some seconds on his own. Beasley — or the Beasley-Vando duo — might have commanded a first with significant protections, but many of the teams rumored to be pursuing Beasley could only match salary if they included some undesirable contracts.

Instead of taking a pile of seconds with maybe a single heavily protected first, the Jazz sought an asset that gave them the highest chance of adding a difference-maker down the line. They prioritized a tier A (or maybe A- given the light protection) asset over multiple tier D assets, and in the process they avoided salary commitments that would limit their options. Westbrook’s expiring contract sets them up to have $50 to 60 million in cap room, in addition to 15 draft picks, a 25-year-old All-Star, and other promising young talent. Utah can build this out a lot of different ways from here.

That L.A. pick will convey as long as ping pong balls don’t put the Lakers in the top four slots of the 2027 draft; if they do wind up there, the Jazz will instead get the Lakers’ second-rounder that season. The protection on the pick lessens the chances that it’s an absolute home run, but teams rarely send unprotected picks for anything less than a star. And L.A. couldn’t agree to kicking the pick out if it fell in the protected range, because doing so would render their last tradeable draft pick (2029) unusable due to the league’s rules on trading future firsts.

In other words, this was about as well as the Jazz were going to do with those players. Their options essentially were:

  1. Turn their nose up at the light protection and instead deal those players for a handful of assets with a very low likelihood of producing a foundational piece.
  2. Hang onto the players in question, though their value would likely not get any higher as they head toward the final years of their contracts.
  3. Make the deal and bring a potential top-10 pick to the franchise’s war chest.

Doing anything other than #3 would have amounted to cutting off the nose to spite the face. It’s equivalent to storming out of a nice steakhouse because you’re upset that they up-charge for the loaded mashed potatoes side dish, and heading to splurge at a Taco Bell instead. Just eat the damned steak. Stuff costs what it costs, and you were already willing to pay for a nice dinner when you walked in. Surely $50 worth of steak is more enjoyable than $40 worth of cheesy gordita crunches.

All told, none of the pills Utah had to swallow to get a hold of that premium asset were really that bothersome, including taking Westbrook’s contract. Only about $16M of Russ’ salary for this season is still owed anyway, minus whatever he might surrender in a contract buyout. The Jazz were asked to take Jones and JTA so the Lakers didn’t have to eat salary to accommodate the 1-for-3 deal. Whatever. I can’t imagine the Jazz have serious expectations for those two, but taking them back also isn’t a massive cost. Alexander-Walker was the 12th man on a .500 team, and unlikely to get a new deal from the Jazz this summer.

Then there are the Jazz second-rounders. Honestly, that’s the only part of the package I scratched my head at initially. But when you work backwards from the 2027 first-rounder, it’s honestly not all that troubling that the Jazz had to throw in seconds:

  • The pick was only available if the Lakers got what they were after.
  • The Lakers were unlikely to provide that pick without D’Angelo Russell in the deal.
  • That meant the Jazz needed Minnesota’s involvement to get the pick for Conley/Beasley/Vando.
  • Minnesota likely needed something to go from DLo-to-Conley, given that the former is nine years younger, is owed less guaranteed money going forward, scores twice as much and shoots better across the board.

Plus, the Jazz hardly need their second-rounders anyway. With 15 firsts in the next seven drafts, they’re already not going to roster all those selections.

Ultimately, the Jazz may have been coerced into accepting some conditions they were less than wild about; but they did it because taking their business elsewhere would have meant getting a far less valuable asset than what they netted here.

It’s widely expected that they’ll buy Westbrook out. They’ll get to see more of what young prospects like Collin Sexton, Ochai Agbaji and Walker Kessler can do. And then in 2027 — unless they move that pick first — there’s a chance they’ll get a really good payoff for betting on the come.

Some other quick observations:

No other deals

After making a splash by trading four players on Wednesday, the Jazz wound up not making additional deals before Thursday’s 1pm MST deadline, despite some interest in veterans Jordan Clarkson and Kelly Olynyk.

A lot of the teams connected to Olynyk in rumors found other avenues on Thursday. Boston gave up seconds and an expiring contract to acquire the much cheaper Mike Muscala. Golden State shaved millions off their tax bill while bringing Gary Payton II home. Miami made a minor move to offload salary, and is expected to be a buyout market player.

The Jazz also value Olynyk and how he enables the Jazz to play an organized brand of basketball. Same goes for Clarkson, whose ability to break down defenses with the ball in his hands is valuable on this roster. Both those guys might have value later, but I get the sense the Jazz are also fine. They don’t want a situation where the culture deteriorates because there are no grown-ups in the room, as has happened in other rebuilding environments. Plus, Clarkson’s affinity for Utah makes them think they could potentially get a new deal done so he can help the group transition to the next era. If he signs elsewhere instead, then the Jazz can maximize their cap room. I get the sense that Utah’s brain trust is OK with either scenario, even though the preference is to retain him at a reasonable number.

Another factor that led to a quiet Thursday for the Jazz is that some of their supposed targets stayed put. Atlanta held onto John Collins, ostensibly signaling that the new regime there thinks they can patch that relationship and get the young forward back to his previous production levels. OG Anunoby stayed put, although it’s unclear if the Jazz were every in the mix there. In terms of young reserves Utah was connected to in rumors, Obi Toppin and Nassir Little didn’t move.

Clearing the way

The Jazz also get to see more of players like Sexton and Agbaji, who I think are the real winners here. Sexton is going to have the ball in his hands a lot; he and Clarkson are the only Jazz players who can get into the paint whenever they want, and the Jazz want to see if they can start to hone his court vision and decision-making. Agbaji will inherit a larger role with Beasley gone. The move also slides Talen Horton-Tucker up the depth chart, but he wasn’t playing a ton of minutes to begin with.

With more minutes being allocated to developmental projects, expect a rougher 26-game close than what they might have experienced had they kept those vets. They were never going to make a trade aimed primarily at manipulating this year’s win total in either direction; they’re more focused on a few years out than on whether this year’s team finishes with 33 wins, 39 wins or 42 wins.

But consider that the Jazz are 15-23 since their 12-6 start. That’s a 32-win pace, even before this trade. That’s why it probably made sense to prioritize things other than this year’s results. 

If a side effect of the trade is that the Jazz’s lottery odds get a boost, that’s OK too. They won’t tell Will Hardy to stop coaching to wins, but suddenly a finish in the 6-8 range (pre-lotto) is pretty feasible. The Jazz are currently 2.0 games better than the Lakers, whom they just helped to reload. They’re a game better than Toronto, which made a trade to get better, and Washington, which has been playing well. Chicago is a half game back but has no motivation to be bad since they owe their pick. The teams to watch are Indiana (2-13 over their last month) and OKC (who have leveled off since a 9-4 stretch).

Looking forward

The exact amount of Jazz cap room this summer depends on a bunch of pending decisions and negotiations. But either way, they project to have max space.

There are a lot of ways to use cap space. I doubt the Jazz will go after marquee free agents in July, but they could use that room to acquire good players via trade, or rent their cap space to other teams in exchange for stuff that could be useful down the line. If a legit star becomes available at some point, the Jazz have picks and the financial flexibility to get in on any conversation. But it’s a lot more likely that we’ll need to have patience as the Jazz weigh their options over time.

Everything the Jazz do right now will be about setting themselves up to be competitive in two, three, four years. Cap space gives them options.

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