Utah Jazz: Four trade possibilities for struggling center Ed Davis
Khem Birch
2019-20 Salary: $3 million
Both Ed Davis and Khem Birch have one year beyond this one on their contract, although Birch’s is about $2 million cheaper in 2020-21. However, the Magic are another team that, like the Spurs, some think may make significant moves at the deadline to alter their current roster and strategy. If they do so, the Jazz might very well be able to get involved to see what opportunities surface.
Khem Birch looked like a promising young piece that was blossoming quite well last season, thus he was signed to his current two-year contract. However, despite significantly increased playing time this season, Birch hasn’t been able to up his productivity to match. Despite logging over eight minutes more per game, he’s shooting far worse than a year ago and putting up less points per contest.
Therefore, the Magic may very well be open to moving him, especially if it means landing a reputed and experienced role player like Davis. Again, while it’s true that Davis’ numbers look horrible so far this year, his reputation as a valuable player is quite well known and could still be attractive to several teams that believe they can better utilize him.
Not only that, but the Magic have been a middling to poor rebounding team, so perhaps they’d be encouraged by what Davis could bring on the boards as well. Orlando also could use a veteran big man to be a helpful influence on some of their younger bigs like Nikola Vucevic and Mo Bamba, so in that regard Ed Davis may be viewed as helpful.
On the Jazz side of things, I could see some feeling apprehensive about Birch and thinking that if you’re going to go to the trouble of adding him, you may as well just play Tony Bradley instead. I definitely can understand that line of thinking, but I also still believe Birch could be a nice piece.
He’s shown some good promise in his young NBA career and is pretty similar to Alex Len in the pick-and-roll with 1.04 points per possession as the roll man and a shooting percentage of 60 percent in those situations. He’d certainly be an upgrade over what Davis has been able to muster thus far in Snyder’s system and would help add center depth to a team that is thin at that spot.
It should be noted that due to restrictions, Birch can’t be dealt until January 13th, but this would still give the Jazz and Magic plenty of time to strike up a deal prior to the deadline.
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In short, the challenge in moving Davis is that it is dependent on a team still believing in him despite his poor start in Utah. Quite frankly, I believe his struggles have been more an indication of fit than him being a negative roster piece, so there’s still a chance the Jazz could get value out of him.
If they can do so, any one of these four guys would be intriguing while Davis could also give back something of need to each of the aforementioned teams. It feels almost like a necessity that the Jazz move on from him at this point, but we’ll see if anything gets done between now and the February 6th trade deadline.