Will the Utah Jazz regret a quiet NBA trade deadline?
The NBA trade deadline came and went, and the Utah Jazz barely participated. Granted, they made a single deal, sending an injured Joe Ingles to the Portland Trail Blazers in exchange for Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Juancho Hernangomez.
It was a slightly confusing turn of events. There was widespread speculation that the Jazz should be in the market for a 3-and-D wing. Neither of the players they acquitted fit that description.
Utah Jazz fail to shore up defense
As it stands, the team’s 110.48 Defensive Rating ranks 12th in the NBA. That’s almost impressively low for a squad that features Rudy Gobert in the middle, with Hassan Whiteside backing him up.
It speaks to the caliber of perimeter defenders on this team. As we’ve said countless times: Royce O’Neale can’t do it alone. Bojan Bogdanovic, Mike Conley and Donovan Mitchell are all high-end offensive players, but none are plus defenders.
One may have expected the Jazz to pair Ingles’ (now) dead money with either a pick or a prospect to bring back a defensive upgrade on the wings. They did not. Juancho Hernangomez’s -1.2 Defensive Box Plus Minus (DBPM) is substantially lower than Ingles’ 0.4 mark this season.
Utah Jazz acquire another low efficiency gunner
Another issue we’ve pointed to consistently this season is the fit between Donovan Mitchell and Jordan Clarkson. They’re both undersized volume scoring guards who don’t maximize each other’s abilities.
This Utah Jazz front office decided to rectify that by adding…another volume scoring guard.
At 6’6, at least Alexander-Walker can’t be described as undersized. Still, he holds more intrigue than actual production in his third year in the NBA. It feels like an odd decision to bring a guard into the league’s most three-point dominant attack who’s shooting 31.1% on 6.1 three-point attempts per contest this season.
If you thought Mitchell and Clarkson struggled to coexist, wait until Alexander-Walker finds his way into the fold.
The Utah Jazz missed opportunities
It’s easy to look from the outside and say what a team should have done. We are not privy to any of the discussions the Utah Jazz did or did not have.
Still, it feels like they could have done more. Torrey Craig has long felt like a good target for this team. The Suns acquired him for Jalen Smith and a second-round pick. Had the Jazz offered better draft compensation, it feels likely that the rebuilding Pacers would have preferred it to Smith.
Josh Richardson found his way from the Celtics to the Spurs at the cost of Derrick White. We’d hope the Jazz at least offered Jordan Clarkson and a pick or young player in exchange for his services.
It’s possible that the teams who traded those players weren’t interested in what the Jazz had to offer. It’s just unfortunate to see this team walk away from the trade deadline without improving in widely identified key areas.
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None of which is a reason to hit the panic button. The Utah Jazz remain one of the best teams in the National Basketball Association. It’s just hard to say that, after the deadline, they got