Trade Season Preview: Utah’s Assets & Who Can Be Traded When

Did the Jazz make their big deadline deal already? (Photo via utahjazz.com)

With December 15 almost here, the NBA trade season is about to start in earnest. That is, except for teams like the Jazz, Bucks and Sixers, who have already taken bites at the proverbial apple.

Those three teams didn’t wait for mid December to make impact acquisitions on the trade market, functioning as the primary buyers in the three swaps that have been consummated since the start of the regular season. Philly added star wing Jimmy Butler,  while Utah and Milwaukee added rotation-quality vets in Kyle Korver and George Hill, respectively.

But for the rest of the league, options are about to open up. Roughly 20 percent of the league’s players will go from being off limits to tradeable this Saturday, and dozens more will have restrictions lifted in the weeks to follow. Basically, the menu is about to open up for teams looking for ways to improve their rosters.

Normally at this point of the year, I unveil my trade likelihood rankings for the Jazz. But with the team having just acquired Korver, that might prove to be the move for now. GM Dennis Lindsey will still answer his phone and pounce on any perfect opportunities that come up, but most of the club’s remaining pieces that have trade value are guys they still believe in. And since Lindsey has intentionally set the Jazz up with flexibility for the 2019 offseason, it seems unlikely that he’d OK any deal that eats into that spending power in a major way. Unless someone they would target next summer somehow comes available, the Jazz are likely looking for deals around the margin — if anything.

But there’s still plenty to discuss as it relates to trade season. So here’s your primer on who’s coming available shortly, what the Jazz have to work with, and educated guesses as to which Jazzmen are more or less likely to come up in conversations.

On the Market

Can be traded 12/15

Can be traded 1/15

Can be traded on other dates

Other trade restrictions

There are 84 players who can’t currently be traded, but who become fair game this weekend. For a full list of these players, expand the graphic to the right. The Jazz have one player on this list.

Most of these guys can be traded without any restriction starting on Saturday, but for 19 of them, they will have the right to veto trades — called an implicit no trade clause — after their general trade restriction lifts.

Another 19 NBA players are still off the market until January 15, though. This is because these players received big raises using their Bird rights. Again, the full list is on the right; click to expand. Utah’s Derrick Favors, Dante Exum and Raul Neto are all on this list because of their July contracts.

One of these players — Zach LaVine — can veto trades after January 15 because his offer sheet was matched by the Bulls.

Ten others have somewhat random dates when they can be traded. This is mostly because they signed their free agent deals later in free agency, so their

clock started later than the other players. In Kevin Love’s case, it’s because he signed an extension that exceeded the limit of extend-and-trade transactions, so he can’t be traded for six months from that July 24 agreement. One player in this group — Dwyane Wade — will have veto power on trades.

And there are some players who have other restrictions altogether. Seven have restrictions that extend beyond the February 7 trade deadline, so they can’t be traded until after the season (if at all). Eight recently traded players, including Korver, can’t be moved if a deal requires their salaries to be aggregated with other

players¹. And five players can be traded anytime, but because of pending rookie extensions, it would be extremely hard to work out the math on a potential trade.

OK, now you know who’s on and off the table.

Utah’s Goals

The Jazz like their roster and their near-term flexibility enough that they may leave well enough alone, having already acquired Korver in late November.

The club has long been rumored to be after some additional help from a big scoring wing — someone who can defend multiple positions and take some pressure off of burgeoning star Donovan Mitchell. Many expect them to target the likes of Khris Middleton, Tobias Harris or Klay Thompson when those three hit free agency next summer, and Otto Porter is a player in a similar mold who some think could made available by the front office of the underperforming Wizards.

If anybody on the Jazz’s wish list showed up on the trade block, I could see them trying to mobilize. Sure, they’d have to give up assets, but they’d get the inside lane on retaining the player, since they’d acquire the rights to re-sign the guy regardless of cost. Either way, they’d have to surrender some of their current roster to add a player of that caliber. Signing somebody this summer would require some cap gymnastics — cutting ties to free agents and/or non-guaranteed contracts. So you either surrender those assets now via trade or in July to carve out cap space. 

But let’s be honest: it’s unlikely any of those four become available. Thompson is an All-Star player on a title contender, Middleton is co-leading potentially the second-best team in the East, and Harris’ Clippers are unexpectedly in the thick of the Western Conference playoff race. Even Washington is normalizing a bit, making a fire sale for Porter or other Wizards seem less imminent.

So a move for an impact player is not very likely between now and the February 7 trade deadline. And that’s fine, as Utah seems to really like its core guys. They do have a combination of favorable contracts, though, if the right role player hits the market.

Assets

The main problem with Utah’s assets is this: in most cases, they like their guys as basketball players too much.

For example, Mitchell and Rudy Gobert are their best trade chips — and also almost completely untouchable. Joe Ingles is a huge part of their success. Ricky Rubio has embraced the team culture. Derrick Favors, while considered by positionally superfluous by some, is playing well and is now the longest-tenured Jazzman. Who do you trade when you like all of your guys?

They also technically have draft rights they could trade to second-rounders who haven’t debuted yet: guys like Ante Tomic and Nigel Williams-Goss. But those aren’t likely to be major assets.

Let’s take a look at the Jazz’s trade pieces, broken into categories.

Non-player assets. The most significant thing the Jazz have here are draft picks. The Jazz own all of their own firsts for the next seven years², and they also have an extra second coming from San Antonio in 2022³ and rights to swap seconds with Cleveland in 2024⁴. They do, however, owe their 2020 second-rounder to Cleveland⁵.

They also own three small traded player exceptions (TPEs) — essentially leftover amounts from when they traded Alec Burks, Joe Johnson and Rodney Hood that they can now use to absorb a player. Their three exceptions are in the amount of $3.98M, $3.71M and $2.39M, and they can accept players that make up to $100K over those amounts.

But these will be hard to use. You can’t bundle those exceptions to acquire a $10 million player, and you also can’t combine them with other assets. They can only be used to acquire a player (or players) who fit into a single exception, and the list of desirable players making more than the minimum⁶ but less than $4.1M is very small. That number shrinks further when you start scratching off players whose teams wouldn’t want to simply give them away in a trade.

Which is why most smaller TPEs expire unused. The Jazz’s $3.98M TPE will be good for another 11.5 months, while the other two effectively expire at the trade deadline.

Untouchables. Mitchell and Gobert are off the bargaining table. Unless something dramatic changes about those relationships — like a messy, public trade demand — Utah won’t even consider talking about those two in trade discussions.

Not untouchable per se, but not going anywhere. Ingles is an underrated part of the Jazz’s success, someone who’s likely more valuable to the Jazz in basketball terms than he’d be as a trade chip. He’s responsible for a huge chunk of the offensive creation, often guards the opponents’ best wings, and is the Jazz’s best volume 3-point shooter. I’d be shocked if he were dealt.

Royce O’Neale falls into this category for a similar reason. He’s having a disappointing sophomore season, but when you have a player who can impact games defensively like he does on a minimum contract, you keep him. And because Utah smartly inked him to a deal that can go as long as three years, they’ll also have full matching rights if it looks by 2020 as though he’s an important part of their plans.

Limited value on their own. Outside of O’Neale, Utah’s other low-cost depth guys probably don’t have the asset juice to be at the center of any trade package. If any of Raul Neto, Georges Niang or Tony Bradley get moved, it’s probably as an add-on to a deal.

The same is probably true of Grayson Allen, although he has more promise than the three mentioned above. His salary just doesn’t add a lot of juice to a deal, so it’s still unlikely he’d be moved on his own.

Expiring salary. Thabo Sefolosha and Ekpe Udoh are both smart veterans on modest expiring contracts. They don’t have a ton of trade value, but their combination of savvy play and ending deals could entice a team that needs to get off some small contracts as they prepare for 2019. Utah likes what both guys offer when they make it onto the court, but each is the third guy at his respective position, so it’s certainly worth exploring if the Jazz could parlay their expiring contracts into an interesting project or a guy who can contribute more.

The pieces. Five players remain who we haven’t talked about yet. And let be crystal clear about this: the Jazz like all of them! This is in no way a list of guys that should be viewed as expendable of on the block. But if an opportunity arises to add a quasi-star, starter or even a sixth man type, it’s likely going to cost Utah one of these pieces.

Korver is the least likely in this group to be traded, but he’s an asset. A lot of teams were sniffing around the sharpshooter before Utah snagged him from Cleveland. If Lindsey decided to flip him, he’d have some options. But what complicated things is that his salary can’t be combined with others’ in a trade until after January 29.

Believe what you will about Dante Exum’s recent struggle to find consistent minutes, but I still hear a constant hum of reassurance that the Jazz are believers. He’s currently working through some of the growing pains and inconsistencies that he might have gotten through earlier in his career if not for the injuries, but if Exum gets anywhere near his ceiling, that could really transform the Jazz. Because of that, the Jazz will hold on if they can — but I left him in this section because if a difference-maker becomes available, the Jazz might have to weigh including their Aussie prospect to beat other offers.

Jae Crowder still has a season and a half left on one of the NBA’s bargain contracts. It would look even sweeter if he started to return to career norms for shooting, but Crowder is a known commodity. It’s not often you find guys in the fringe starter/sixth man tier making that amount of money. He could be a chip, but on the flip side, he embodies a lot of Jazz values and seems to be a big part of the positive locker-room culture.

Same goes for Rubio. We all know what the liabilities are there, but the Jazz love his leadership and attitude. And when the Spanish Samurai is playing well, Utah hits another level as a team. That said, if the Jazz need to assemble salary and talent to go get a guy on their wish list, Rubio’s nearly $15 million expiring contract makes him a candidate. 

And that brings us to Fav. He must be tired of reading his name in this context, but the reality is that once again he heads into trade season with a combination of basketball value and contract favorability that will result in trade mentions. Like Rubio, he’s one of the few touchable Jazzmen with a salary that helps Utah piece together enough outgoing money to add a player in the $20M range (like Porter/Harris), which means he’ll wind up in a lot of fake trade machine deals. Include him in imaginary trades at your own risk, though; the reality is that he has continually saved the Jazz’s bacon⁷, and the starting lineup with Favors and Gobert is back to being really good overall.

So… Will the Jazz Make a Major Deal?

In the last 18 months, Utah has acquired Korver, Crowder, Rubio, Bradley and some guy named Spida via trade. They have been very active on the trade front.

Lindsey has proven shrewd in this area. He hasn’t won every individual deal he’s ever made, but taken on the aggregate, his deals have allowed him to shape the roster with players who fit the culture and identity of the team while keeping options open to add another borderline star.

If given a chance to pounce, he may finally move his chips in and go after one of those guys he covets. Otherwise, he’ll keep his powder dry for 2019 while looking for smaller moves that improve the rotation around the margins. Don’t be surprised if the next two months feature only minor roster tweaks — or none at all.