Utah Jazz: Available players that could be pursued in a trade

Ersan Ilyasova

Much like was the situation with Kent Bazemore, the Atlanta Hawks are very likely going to be open and willing to dealing just about anyone on their roster that isn’t a young and promising prospect. Therefore, it came as little surprise that Ersan Ilyasova was one of the guys that Woj mentioned in his recent piece.

Ilyasova isn’t a jaw-dropper by any stretch of the imagination, but he does have merit as a veteran stretch-four that could be a nice fit for the Jazz alongside Rudy Gobert. He’s converting on nearly 40 percent of his three-point attempts this season and is more versatile on both ends of the floor than he gets credit for.

The risk involved with Ilyasova is that he is an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season. Therefore, Utah probably wouldn’t be wise to trade for him unless they felt certain that they could re-sign him at the conclusion of the year. He is only making $6 million this season and probably could be retained at about that same amount, but there’s still risk involved if Utah gives up assets for someone who may not stick around.

Not only that, but I don’t think that Ilyasova would make the team that much better. He’s not all that much different from a Jonas Jerebko type and unless Utah does the deal simply out of a desire to get something out of a guy that’s going to leave in free agency anyway, I don’t see them being too eager to move on a deal for Ilyasova.

Once again, the Hawks may be willing to take some guys off of Utah’s hands, but I don’t believe that Ilyasova will exactly fit what the Jazz are looking for.