4) Jazz Move Enes Kanter in a Three-Team Deal; February 19, 2015
As part of a three-team trade, with the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Detroit Pistons, Utah acquired Grant Jerrett, Kendrick Perkins, the rights to Tibor Pleiss, a conditional first-round draft pick in 2017, as well as a second-round draft pick in 2017.
OKC received Enes Kanter and Steve Novak from the Jazz, as well as D.J. Augustin, Kyle Singler and a second-round draft pick in 2019 from the Pistons. Detroit got Reggie Jackson in the deal.
Depending on how you look at the Kanter trade, it’s either a franchise-defining moment or an admission that the team completely missed the ball on a top-three pick. Either way, the return on the deal was pretty terrible in hindsight.
Jazz fans may not love Kanter at this point, but the fact remains that no less than two teams were willing to give him a max contract when he hit the open market. So the Jazz essentially got an insta-waiver in Perkins, a non-NBA player in Jerrett, a failed project in Pleiss and a draft pick for a “max player”.
Still, the Rudy Gobert ascension that the trade made possible has altered the course of the Jazz franchise for the next decade. Gobert can now be counted among the league’s elite big men and the Jazz find themselves on the precipice of a playoff return.
If the whole point of a trade is make your team better, this one hit the nail on the head. Even if it was addition by subtraction.
Next: The Big Reboot