NBA Trades: Ranking the Top 5 Deals in Utah Jazz History
By Ryan Aston
4) The Jazz Move Heaven and Earth to Get Deron Williams; June 28, 2005
On the day of the 2005 NBA Draft, the Jazz moved the 6th pick, the 27th pick and a future first-round draft pick to the Portland Trail Blazers in exchange for the No. 3 overall selection.
After a disastrous 2004-05 campaign in which the Jazz finished fifth-worst record in the league, the silver lining was a high pick in the ’05 draft. However, the lottery saw them drop back to the to the No. 6 spot, just out of range for players they were targeting. With the writing on the wall, then-GM Kevin O’Connor went to work.
With an excess of assets in the coffers and capitalizing on the Blazers’ weird crush on Martell Webster, the Jazz sent three first-round picks to Portland for the No. 3 pick, which would become their franchise cornerstone in Deron Williams.
Now, say what you will about D-Will over Chris Paul. Obviously, one was a great player for six or seven years while the other is a Hall of Famer. Nevertheless, Williams still led the Jazz to their best seasons since the heyday of John Stockton and Karl Malone. Really, they were some of their best in team history.
And if he had remained with the Jazz (and healthy), who knows how things would’ve played out.
What we do know is that he made multiple All-Star teams (and was snubbed from a few others), won Olympic gold medals, averaged 17.3 points and 9.1 assists over five and a half years and played in 44 playoff games.
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