Utah Jazz: 25 years of the best (and worst) trade deadline deals
By Ryan Aston
As Utah Jazz fans look forward to a trade deadline that could potentially net the team Mike Conley, I’m looking back to the best and worst deadline deals from the last 25 years.
The 2019 NBA trade deadline is just days away on February 7 and, perhaps more than in years past, the Utah Jazz are reportedly being uber aggressive with attempts to improve their roster. Mike Conley, Otto Porter, Nikola Mirotic and others have all been mentioned as being on the team’s radar and Jazz fans are hyped.
On the home front, the futures of franchise favorites Derrick Favors and Ricky Rubio are seemingly hanging in the balance.
That said, if there’s one thing the franchise hasn’t been historically, it’s a renegade band of hot-shot, deadline-day wheelers and dealers. In fact, over the last 25 years, the team has completed only nine major trades during the final countdown to the Association’s deal-making deadline.
And I use the term “major” pretty loosely here.
Still, some of the moves that altered the team’s course the most were done on the eve of the trade deadline. So, as Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey carefully weighs the pros and cons of potential deals ahead of February 7, I’m using the opportunity to rank the deals of deadlines past.
There’s only one qualifier in play here — I’m only counting trades completed by the team within 48 hours of the actual deadline. So, for all my fellow oldies out there, Utah’s February 3, 1995 trade to re-acquire Blue Edwards from the Boston Celtics in exchange for Jay Humphries wouldn’t make the list.
Yeah, that was super obscure.
Nevertheless, we’re talking trade deadline deals and how the Jazz have fared with them over the past quarter-century. So, without further ado…