Who doesn’t love big NBA trades?
I mean, other than Mavericks fans.
Jazz fans would love one right about now.
The entire league is still trying to anchor their Nikes to the court after the floor-shifting Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis deal, an LA-Dallas trade that pretty much shook and shocked everyone in and around the NBA — and baffled and ticked off darn-near every Mavs fan. With the trade deadline looming on Thursday at 1 p.m., Sacramento followed up that biggie with its own, sending De’Aaron Fox to San Antonio, where he’ll pair with Victor Wembanyama, in return for Zach LaVine, who will rejoin DeMar DeRozan, in addition to three first-round draft picks, in Sac-town.
Compare that with what the Jazz are doing, or rather what they are not doing, namely, getting better. No, these are the dark days when the Jazz do not want to improve. They want to do what they can to get worse. Sooner or later, they’ll have to make some trades in an effort to adorn whatever, whomever they get in the draft because even the best, most fortuitous of selections need adornment. The Spurs are a first-rate example of that, considering they were smart enough to be lousy and lucky enough to be in position to draft a generational talent like Wembanyama a couple of years back. Consider Fox a strong step forward to make San Antonio a playoff team, alongside the big man, for years to come.
Meantime, what are the Jazz up to?
Before we address that, a quote from Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka is worth noting, particularly in connection, theoretically at least, to the Jazz. After the aforementioned big trade, Pelinka talked about his team’s roster being yet incomplete, saying for real championship contention it needs more, it needs a big man. “The urgency is ever present,” he said. “From the first day I started taking this job until I sit in the chair right now, there’s always an urgency to win championships. That’s what the Lakers set out to do. That’s the expectation of our fans, and we’re going to put in the work to constantly try to do it.”
Hmm. Makes you wonder, what kind of urgency do Jazz execs feel? What’s the expectation of their fans? Yeah, it’s different when your club has won 17 championships and can sign top free agents, leaned up against the Jazz’s zero titles. But consider San Antonio, which has won its share of championships. It’s a nice city, but hardly a garden-esque destination spot.
Are the Jazz bosses snoozing, out swinging their new sets of clubs over at Pebble Beach, lowering their handicaps? Whistling while they don’t work? Living by the mantra put forth by every NBA executive who fails to boost his team? You know the one: “Some of the best deals you ever make are the ones you don’t make.”
If that’s really the case, the Jazz are on a roll. They’re burning it up, baby, going nowhere fast.
They are rumored to be interested in moving one or two or three of the few guys on their roster who might actually be capable of helping other teams, players like John Collins and Collin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson. Walker Kessler might be a longer shot. That’s a fellow they’d prefer to retain for when they strike gold, if they ever strike gold, in coming drafts. No Jazz player is untouchable (though Lauri Markkanen is, by virtue of his contract, untradeable this season), but the Jazz would like to hold onto what sparse authentic valuables they have, as long as it enables them to keep losing and stay in line for a young difference-maker they can draft who can save them from what they’ve become.
The latter usually comes first, not the other way around, because advancing from bad to mediocre, even edging toward moderately ordinary, drops roadblocks in the favored way forward and upward through the draft. In other words, get what might make you great before clinging too tightly onto what makes you sort of OK. Which is to say, chip away, chip and ship away at your run-down hovel before dressing it up too much. Do the little things that will arrange useful beat-up tables and chairs and secure secondhand curios and dinged accoutrements into place and position where they can be utilized in preparation for a brighter day, without jeopardizing it, as more significant additions, big-ticket furniture yet to be selected and purchased is delivered.
For the latter to happen, the 18-wheel van will have to be properly filled, backed down the Delta Center ramp with a whopper of a draft pick or draft picks. Meanwhile, the Jazz live — and die — mostly with what they’ve got, walking through markets, shopping for trinkets and toadstools, collecting and placing those doodads, those lesser items, framing and hanging the photos and paintings on the walls, positioning baubles and nicknacks that make a house temporarily in disarray a home.
That’s what they were doing with their trade on Saturday with the Clippers, swapping out forward/center Drew Eubanks and point guard Patty Mills for center Mo Bamba, who they waived, and forward P.J. Tucker, a second-round pick in 2030, and cash. As part of a multi-team deal to move Jimmy Butler to Golden State, Tucker has reportedly been turned into Dennis Schroder, who may or may not suit up for Utah this season, and another second-rounder.
The Jazz have exchanged an orange shag carpet for a lime-green refrigerator. Same with getting in on the Doncic-Davis deal, being the third team, acquiring two second-round picks and Jalen Hood-Schifino. They also, before that, traded an assortment of three future first-round picks to Phoenix for an unprotected first-rounder in 2031.
So it goes.
Tinkering and fiddle-faddling in the short term, as the long term — you can hear Jazz fans pleading and praying, “lordy, lordy, not too long” — requires, no, demands major renovation. That’s where the Jazz are, urgency or not, mixed metaphor or not, as this year’s trade deadline approaches and blows on by, the Jazz front office treading neck-deep in insignificance until significance arrives.
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