Utah Jazz: Lyles for Mitchell and the Top 7 trades in team history
By Ryan Aston
6) The Jazz hand the keys over the Deron Williams; June 28, 2005
On draft day in 2005, the Jazz trade the No. 6 pick, the No. 27 pick and a future first-round pick to the Portland Trail Blazers for the third overall selection, then use it to select D-Will.
Make no mistake about it, the 2004-05 campaign was kind of a disaster for Utah. Despite inking future All-Stars Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur, the Jazz finished with the league’s fifth-worst record. The silver lining there was a high pick in the ’05 NBA Draft. However, the lottery didn’t go their way and the Jazz ended up with the sixth pick.
In other words, they would be just outside the range for players they were really high on. So, then-GM Kevin O’Connor began to work the phones.
With an excess of assets at his disposal and with the Blazers’ weird crush on Martell Webste in full effect, O’Connor shipped three first-round picks to PDX for the No. 3 pick, which eventually became their franchise point-man in Deron Williams.
Say what you will about D-Will over CP3 in hindsight. Obviously, one was a great player for seven-ish years while the other is a surefire Hall of Famer. Nevertheless, Williams still guided the Jazz through their best seasons since the glory days of Stockton-to-Malone and Coach Jerry Sloan.
To this day, those years remain some of the best in Jazz history. Had Williams stayed in Utah (and stayed healthy), who knows how things would’ve played out.
What we do know is that D-Will played on multiple All-Star teams, was an Olympic gold medalist and averaged 17.3 points and 9.1 assists over five-plus years in Jazzland. He also played in 44 playoff games.
Next: Our friendly, neighborhood Spidaman