What if the Utah Jazz decided to trade their best player Gordon Hayward, before he exercised his player option and left as a free agent? How might the team look different today?
Back in January of 2016, Zach Lowe of ESPN wrote a column about the Utah Jazz and the big decisions they needed to make on their future. At the time, they had several young players gearing up for an extension to their contracts.
Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors were both in their post rookie deal extensions, though that would soon end for Hayward in 2017 and Derrick in 2018.
Rudy Gobert was in his third year of his rookie deal and eligible for a monster extension due to his transformative presence on defense. Rodney Hood was playing excellent in his sophomore year, looking like a steal for being picked 23rd overall.
Then there was Dante Exum and Alec Burks, who were dealing with nagging injuries at the time but still had promising potential. Burks was in the midst of a four year / 42 million dollar extension, and Exum was just trying to prove he belonged in the league.
Last but not least was Trey Lyles, who I shone the spotlight on last week for his promising rookie season. At the time Draymond Green and that style of versatile bigs was hot on the NBA market, and the Golden State Warriors were destroying nearly every team they faced.
As soon as these rookie and post rookie contracts expired, all seven of these players would inevitably due for a raise, especially with the salary cap exploding due to the NBA’s multi-billion dollar deal with the media for broadcasting rights.
Zach Lowe pulled this quote from Hayward himself that rattled a few Jazz fans, including me.
"Hayward understands that financial realities could break up a team on the rise. “I’m constantly thinking about that,” he said. “Contracts are so short now. A lot of our guys are on their rookie deals, and they’ll come up for extensions. It all might determine whether or not I stay in Utah.”"
To me that was my first inkling that Gordon wasn’t going to retire a Jazzman, and that he had his eyes set on another NBA destination.
So Zach came up with a trade proposal that would send Gordon back to his college coach Brad Stevens, and utilize his all-around skillset with the up and coming Boston Celtics.
Boston would have gotten a borderline All-Star that was still improving to pair with Isaiah Thomas. The Jazz would have received the rights to the Brooklyn Nets’ unprotected 2016 first round pick.
His argument was that the Jazz could put a rain check on a max contract payday for Hayward, and get a more realistic shot at grabbing a top-10 NBA player through the draft.
At the time, Ben Simmons was looking very enticing as a potential franchise player. His passing skills and dexterity for his size drew comparisons to LeBron James, although his jumper needed a lot of work.
Let’s pretend for a minute that the Jazz and Celtics pulled the trigger on this deal.
The Jazz likely would have taken Amir Johnson to make the salries work, and missed the 2015 playoffs from suddenly losing their best player.
The unprotected pick from the Brooklyn Nets ended up landing at third overall, which the Jazz probably would have used to pick Jaylen Brown.
On draft night they tried their best to dangle the third and 12th overall picks, in addition to Dante Exum in an attempt to trade up and select either Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram.
They wanted a potential superstar to come out of this draft night, but they make due with Jaylen Brown and Taurean Prince. Utah rolls into the 2016-17 season with a depth chart looking like this:
C Rudy Gobert, Amir Johnson
PF Derrick Favors, Trey Lyles
SF Joe Ingles, Taurean Prince
SG Rodney Hood, Jaylen Brown, Alec Burks
PG Dante Exum, Raul Neto
The Jazz go 39-43 and barely miss out on the playoffs, making little progress in the rebuild they started four years prior. Dennis Lindsey and the front office that summer decide to make a major shakeup to the roster.
They trade Derrick Favors and Alec Burks, the two longest tenured player on the roster, along with Rodney Hood and a couple of future second round picks, in exchange for the point guard of their dreams.
They decide to take a chance on the 29 year old Mike Conley in hopes that he will pair really well with Rudy Gobert and their prized former third overall pick Jaylen Brown.
During 2017-18 Quin Snyder gives plenty of playing time for the second year pro Jaylen Brown, but the offense runs through Mike Conley for the most part. He thrives from being “the man” with his array of floaters, step back jumpers, and pull-up triples with complete trust from Snyder.
The pick and roll chemistry with Gobert doesn’t exactly have the smoothest start, but by the time the 2018 playoffs arrive it finally clicks between Mike and Rudy.
They end up winning 47 games and barely win the tiebreaker with the Minnesota Timberwolves to earn the eighth and final playoff seed in the Western Conference.
Mike and Rudy do their thing with the pick and roll and start to expose Clint Capela as a rim protector, but out of nowhere in this playoff series comes Jaylen Brown!
He steps up to score 18 points per game and gives his noblest efforts to guard the MVP-caliber James Harden.
The Jazz end up pushing the Rockets to game seven, something nobody expected them to do as such a young team. But early in the second quarter, they lose Mike Conley to a pulled calf muscle, and their chances of winning go down with their beloved point guard.
Entering the 2018-19 season, optimism is brimming for Brown as he gears up for his third season. Could he and Rudy Gobert do what Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal did in Wade’s third year as a pro?
That is, winning a championship of course.
The most interesting battle for a spot in the starting lineup is between Trey Lyles and Royce O’Neale, who had made a surprisingly good season considering he was only a training camp invitee just a year earlier.
Lyles held down the starting spot throughout the course of the 2017-18 season and fit beautifully next to Rudy Gobert on offense, but showed little to no improvement to his game after his promising rookie season.
There were also rumblings of Lyles being a cancer in the Jazz locker room, particularly because of his disdain for Quin Snyder holding three-hour long practice sessions.
With his rookie deal expiring at the end of the season and the Jazz front office growing weary of Lyles, he gets traded in exchange for Mike Muscala from the Philadelphia 76ers.
Jaylen Brown doesn’t quite make the leap many hoped he would in his third year, but still manages to marginally improve to 17 points, five boards, and two dimes per game. Utah wins 51 games and nabs the fifth seed in the Western Conference playoffs.
Unlike the previous year where the Jazz were able to force a game seven against the Rockets, James Harden cooks the Jazz up in a quick five game elimination.
So the Jazz enter the summer of 2019 with a decision to make on Jaylen Brown and a potential max extension. The two sides fail to agree to a price, and decide it’s best for Brown to test restricted free agency in 2020.
As soon as the season starts however, it looks like a big mistake on Utah’s part. Brown starts the season scorching hot breaking 20 points per game and arriving just in time for the Jazz to stay competitive in the Western Conference.
Despite the arms race occurring in the Western Conference with the (temporary) dismantling of the Golden State Warriors, Utah is able to maintain their ground as a top five seed throughout the majority of the season.
The novel coronavirus really impacts the Jazz more so than other NBA teams due to the impending decisions on Brown and Rudy Gobert.
The Jazz front office was really hoping to see one successful playoff run with the core of Gobert, Brown, and Conley before making a decision for their future contracts, especially with Rudy.
And this catches us up to the present day. In conclusion, this “what if” scenario comes down to a debate between Donovan Mitchell and Jaylen Brown.
Nope. I think Brown's ability on defense is a much bigger gap than the difference between them on offense. https://t.co/mY1DOrj5Wk
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) May 13, 2020
The two guards are only 47 days apart, and have bright futures ahead of them. Brown has been developing on a Boston Celtics team surrounded by better scorers than himself, and until this season hasn’t had very much opportunity to shine.
This couldn’t be further from the truth for Mitchell, who in less than two months into his rookie season became the primary scoring option on his team.
Mitchell bests Brown in pure scoring ability and playmaking as well, but Brown makes up for that gap with his excellent defense.
In conclusion the Jazz probably wouldn’t be very far off from where they are today had they decided to trade Hayward for the Brooklyn Nets’ unprotected first round pick in 2016.