Utah Jazz: Trade Speculation Arises After Latest Derrick Favors News

Following the recent news that Derrick Favors will miss tonight’s contest against the Milwaukee Bucks, many have begun to speculate about his future with the Utah Jazz.

There’s no question that one of the most disappointing members of the Utah Jazz this season has been Derrick Favors. The six-foot-ten big man looked as if he was transforming into a consistent double-double threat last season and was one of the key cogs for the Jazz both offensively and defensively.

This season, however, not only has he dealt with a nagging knee injury, but even when he’s been on the court his presence has been hardly noticeable. Favors is averaging just 9.3 points and six rebounds per contest and has missed a total of 16 games this season.

And according to recent reports, Favors will miss game number 17 tonight as he’s been ruled out for the game against the Milwaukee Bucks despite coming in off of three days rest.

This is disheartening news, especially based on the fact that Favors was a late scratch in last week’s game against the Grizzlies as Coach Snyder claimed that Derrick had “no life” in his legs during pre-game warm-ups.

With several fans under the assumption that due to the fact that Favors was back in the starting lineup it meant his health was improving, this was undoubtedly a surprising and frustrating setback.

Nevertheless, Favors clearly hasn’t been himself all season, so perhaps it’s wise for the Jazz to continue to take it easy with him so that he can hopefully make a total recovery and be back in action by the time playoffs start.

However, Favors’ status for tonight has also sparked some speculation on social media about ulterior motives to resting the sixth-year big man. Perhaps it’s simply the hysteria involved with the trade deadline nearing, but some have wondered if a trade involving Favors could potentially be in the works.

While this could very well benefit the Jazz given the lack of production they’ve had to suffer through with him so far this season, I don’t find that very likely at all. More than anything, for the same reason that the Jazz would want to move him, Favors hasn’t shown enough this year to really garner anything in a trade.

This tweet from ESPN’s Tim McMahon best summarizes the Jazz’s dilemma with Derrick Favors:

Given that he has looked unhealthy all year and recently sat out against the Grizzlies, it doesn’t seem the least bit farfetched that this is just the next wave of injury woes for both Derrick Favors and the Utah Jazz and that there’s absolutely no trade in the works whatsoever. Finding valuable takers for him at this point seems pretty unlikely.

Still, there’s no questioning that with Favors puttering this season, the Jazz are suffering from an extreme lack of depth in the frontcourt. Trey Lyles and Boris Diaw have largely under-performed this year, particularly on the defensive end as was brutally apparent in the loss to Memphis.

Also, neither of them can play the back-up center position effectively as Favors is able to do when healthy. Therefore, when Favors is out or struggling (which has essentially been the case all season) the Jazz are extremely weak down low whenever Rudy Gobert isn’t in the game.

Therefore, while Favors’ absence tonight is more than likely due simply to further injury woes, if the Jazz truly hope to win now they could very well need to look to make a move in the frontcourt, whether that transaction involves Favors or not.

Ideally, they could perhaps trade him to a team in rebuild mode that is excited about the big man’s potential and willing to overlook some short-term hiccups, but given his injury history, that seems like a pretty big gamble and it would be hard to believe any team would give up any key talent for him.

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So it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the struggling and injury-plagued Derrick Favors. But while speculation and rumors may be running rampant on social media at the moment, all we know for now is that he most certainly will not be in action tonight.