Did the Utah Jazz just fail the NBA trade deadline?

It’s not a statement, but a question we’re asking after Utah Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey elected not to make any moves at the NBA  trade deadline.

Trade season has officially come to a close in the NBA following the league’s February 7 deadline for deal-making. And the Utah Jazz, who by all accounts pushed hard to acquire the Memphis Grizzlies’ Mike Conley, ultimately opted to stand pat. Now, they’ll tackle the playoff race with the same crew they’ve rolled out for the last two months.

Utah’s decision not to tinker with its roster is a divisive issue for the Jazz faithful. On one side, you have the loyalists that are just happy to still have longtime Jazzman Derrick Favors and fan-favorite floor general Ricky Rubio in the fold. On the other, a vocal contingent of armchair GMs that would tell you you’re getting worse if you’re not getting better.

I think it’s safe to say that regardless of which camp you lie in, you probably like Favors and Rubio and would say that the Jazz are a competitive team as constituted. However, do the naysayers still have good reason to be up in arms over Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey’s inability to get a deal done?

Did he and the rest of the Jazz brain trust just fail the trade deadline? It may be a question without an obvious answer.

Here’s what we know…

The Jazz reportedly called the Washington Wizards on Otto Porter, but — according to The Athletic’s Tony Jones — the Wizards’ asking price was high and talks stalled. When it came down to it, though, Washington traded Porter to the Chicago Bullls for Bobby Portis, Jabari Parker‘s expiring contract and a second-round pick.

That’s hardly a king’s ransom for a career 40-percent 3-point shooter who’s putting up 16 points, seven rebounds and two steals per 36 minutes this season and just entering his prime.

They were also said to be pursuing Nikola Mirotic, per The Salt Lake Tribune, but seemingly lost out on the sharpshooting big man (who was dealt from the New Orleans Pelicans to the Milwaukee Bucks) after going all-in on a possible Conley deal.

Regarding Conley, Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace definitely wasn’t willing to part with his star point-man for a handful of magic beans. Word on the street was that Memphis wanted to receive multiple first-round picks as part of any potential deal.

That’s obviously a huge demand, especially for a player on the wrong side of 30 with a history of injury and an annual salary that ranks among the top 10 league-wide. Considering those factors, it’s not hard to see why teams would balk at pulling the trigger on a Conley trade.

Having said that, it was reported that the Grizzlies did ask the Jazz about Dante Exum as a potential compensatory piece during trade talks (per Jones) but were rebuffed. Exum, in my estimation, continues to have massive potential as a player; he may even have an All-Star ceiling. But has the Jazz’s belief in him reached an irrational level?

So far, the former No. 5 overall pick has proven more adept at sitting behind the bench in street clothes as the result of one injury or another than progressing on the court. As of this writing, Exum has been out of commission for a month. And over the course of his five years in the league, he’s appeared in just 52 percent of his team’s games.

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If including Exum in their trade offer would have gotten a deal done, it might have been worth doing. On the flip side, you could put him in the deal, flop on Conley for any of a number of factors and be forced to stand idly by as Exum breaks out in Memphis.

Ultimately, Lindsey may just have decided that he’d have a better shot at significantly improving his team for the long-term this summer.

At that point, the Jazz could always re-engage the Grizzlies on Conley if they’re convinced he’d be a difference-maker. More importantly, they could potentially free up more than $30 milllion to chase players like Tobias Harris, Khris Middleton, Kemba Walker, Mirotic and others in free agency.

If you’re being reasonable, you also have to give Lindsey and company the benefit of the doubt. We, the hoops-loving masses, are only privy to a tiny fraction of what actually went down at the trade deadline. There’s no telling what exactly Jazz brass did or didn’t do to improve the roster or how willing other teams were to play ball.

You can’t make moves just for the sake of doing so, either.

Also — Lindsey’s track record kind of speaks for itself at this point. He swindled the Denver Nuggets out of two All-Star type players in Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, has fielded a roster that will likely win 50ish games for the third straight year and has advanced to the West semis in back-to-back playoffs and, in case you’ve forgotten, he did already swap Alec Burks for Kyle Korver this season.

The Jazz offense has improved by leaps and bounds in the wake of that deal.

In the end, we may not know how the Jazz did at the 2019 trade deadline until this summer at the earliest. If the Jazz whiff on the open market, Exum doesn’t pan out and the team’s overall progress stagnates, we’ll have our answer.

But it’s also possible that Lindsey knows a thing or two about running a franchise. Crazy notion right?

In any event, whether your mantra is “In Dennis we trust!” or “Fire the man!,” I’d hold the phones on issuing judgment at this point in time.