Utah Jazz: Replacing Derrick Favors with Nikola Mirotic would be a huge mistake

The Utah Jazz should be open to being aggressive this summer even if it costs them Derrick Favors. But if they do so by swapping him for Nikola Mirotic, it will be a colossal mistake.

When it comes to growing attached to Utah Jazz players and being open to the organization making moves to better the team even when it involves dealing players I really like, I do my best to keep a level head and an open mind. Such has long been the case for me regarding Derrick Favors. Though I’ll unabashedly admit that he’s one of my favorite Jazzmen and a guy I would be sad to lose, I’ve long been of the mindset that if it makes sense for the Jazz to part ways with him to improve, then they should do it.

After all, there are questions about his fit alongside Rudy Gobert. There is a bit of a redundancy considering that he could be a starting center pretty much anywhere else. The Jazz also could potentially very much benefit from a true stretch-four player in Quin Snyder’s offense – something which Derrick Favors is not. And, last of all, Utah’s only real hope for finding cap space this summer would be to let him go.

With all that said, there are a lot of reasons why trading Favors or letting him walk to sign someone else could be considered a hard but necessary sacrifice for the Jazz. However, in order for the Jazz to do so, they need to have a valid and realistic reason. It needs to be for someone who can really move the needle and change the Jazz in a dynamic way.

For example, although the odds of it happening are nearly impossible due to the tricky nature of sign and trades, if Utah was somehow able to finagle Tobias Harris away from the Philadelphia 76ers by parting with Favors, there’s a real and strong argument that such would be worth it. There are other more realistic free agents out there that could have that case as well.

However, there is one particular free agent that has been connected to the Jazz several times previously and has surfaced yet again that I believe they should avoid like the plague. The player I speak of is none other than Nikola Mirotic, who The Athletic’s Tony Jones tweeted out on Wednesday is once again a possibility for the Jazz this offseason.

We’ve heard Mirotic’s name come up several times recently, including at the trade deadline in both of the past two years in possible trades for Derrick Favors. Now that Mirotic is an unrestricted free agent, it’s most likely that he would be added by the Jazz declining the second year of Derrick’s contract and using that cap space to sign him instead.

It would be a pretty clean and feasible transaction. But I also am of the opinion that it would be a horrible idea.

If you want a lengthy breakdown if why I’m not a big fan of the Jazz going for Mirotic and why I’d stray away, go ahead and check out this article here that I wrote right after his abysmal playoff performance against the Toronto Raptors where he was essentially played off the court.

For now, I’ll merely summarize. First off, he’s not the three-point shooter that everyone seems to believe he is. Yes, he can catch fire at times and is undoubtedly a better stretch-four than Favors. But that might literally be the only area where he has the edge over Derrick. And as just a career 35.9 percent three-point shooter, he really isn’t much to write home about. Consider that he went just 28.9 percent this past postseason and that’s even more discouraging.

Which segues into another point – while Favors has been known for rising to the occasion in the postseason and elevating the Jazz to new heights, Mirotic has done just the opposite, often shrinking in postseason play as his streaky shooting takes over and his complete absence of defense is completely exposed. While Favors has willed the Jazz to two playoff series victories in the past three years, Mirotic didn’t even leave the bench in the final three quarters of action in the Eastern Conference Finals versus Toronto.

In other words, while the Favors-Gobert fit is still questionable, Derrick is far better than Mirotic in a vacuum, has a lot more Jazz DNA in terms of his energy, hustle, relentless work ethic, reliability and decision-making and his defense is better to an unbelievable extreme.

In short, Favors provides much more bang for his buck and has proven himself significantly more than Mirotic has in his NBA career.

Not only that, but we have yet to see what the Favors-Gobert combo can do with a point guard who is actually a scoring and shooting threat. The disadvantage caused by the trio of non-shooters in Gobert, Favors and Ricky Rubio was nearly impossible to overcome. But counting Favors out before seeing what he and the Stifle Tower can do with Mike Conley running the offense could be a huge mistake.

Favors has been superb for the Jazz in about every imaginable way, especially in the playoffs, and letting him go before he’s had a shot to showcase what he can truly do and before giving him a chance to perform with Conley could very well be a crucial error. If that was done to replace him with someone like Mirotic, whose potential fit with the Jazz has been wildly overstated the past couple seasons, it most definitely would be.

So while I’m all for the Jazz continuing to weigh their options and being aggressive this summer, even if it includes parting ways with one of my all-time favorite Jazzmen in Derrick Favors, they better only do so if it’s for just the right opportunity.

Replacing him with Nikola Mirotic would be just the opposite of that. At best, it could turn out to be a lateral move thanks merely to the additional spacing. But in all reality, based on the shortcomings Mirotic has shown so blatantly, it could actually be a crippling downgrade.

If I could advise the Utah Jazz of one thing this summer, it would be to stay away from swapping Favors for Mirotic at all costs.