My mad scientist’s (or crazed armchair GM’s) look at potential Utah Jazz trade deadline targets from all of the NBA’s other teams.
NBA trade deadline time is officially here for the Utah Jazz and the rest of the league’s 29 other teams. If there was any doubting that previously, it was nuked on Monday when news broke that the LA Clippers had dealt All-Star big man Blake Griffin to the Detroit Pistons.
Insanity abounds in the Association, with plenty more to come before the actual February 8 deadline.
For their part, the Jazz are playing the market Wolf of Wall Street-style. With the team holding multiple tradeable assets, Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey is undoubtedly listening intently to every trade call he receives. And that’s bound to be a crazy call volume.
But as much as they’re looking to sell a plethora of expiring deals and/or ill-fitting pieces, the Jazz are looking to buy, too. Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell are firmly in place as cornerstone pieces, but the rest of Utah’s roster is in dire need of a shake-up. Especially if the Jazz hope to sneak into the playoffs this season.
Yes, that’s still a possibility. Somehow.
So, with Lindsey and his brain trust looking far and wide for the next great Jazzman, I’ve decided to do the same. For today’s trade deadline exercise, I’ve gone through every other team in the NBA and identified a potential trade target for the Jazz with each one.
Now, there are a couple of caveats here. First of all, it takes two to tango and league rules apply. Even if a deal makes some inkling of sense for one or both sides, the odds of the parties each feeling that way and being able to execute a trade are less than amazing.
Secondly, we have to consider the fact that Gobert and Mitchell are untouchable and that just about every other team in the league has their own list of untouchable assets. So you’re not going to see any talk of the Jazz dealing for LeBron James here.
Finally, there are some teams that just don’t make sense as trade partners for the Jazz for any of a myriad of reasons. But, for the sake of the exercise, I’ve stretched to find an option on those teams that has some kind of method behind the madness (in a universe somewhere out there).
So, with the disclaimers out of the way, let’s get our deadline speculation on, shall we? Here are 29 Utah Jazz trade options from 29 NBA teams!
Next: Atlanta Hawks