The Knicks reject latest Utah Jazz trade idea for Donovan Mitchell

The Utah Jazz over the past few days have seemingly accepted the inevitable, and moved towards trading their second All-Star, Donovan Mitchell, and the most logical landing spot, to the point where Brian Windhorst sees the most as inevitable is Mitchell’s home town team, the New York Knicks. The negotiations for Spida have now been ongoing between the two sides, and it looks like the Utah Jazz will have an insane haul of picks ready to go for the future after already trading Rudy Gobert, and what the Knicks will offer the Jazz in return for Mitchell.

There are other teams that can offer similar players for Mitchell, but the Jazz are after as many picks as they can possibly get, and the only team that can give them what they want, and that’s the Knicks, so even if negotiations go on for the next few months, all signs point to Mitchell heading home before the 2022/23 season. The latest news on DeAndre Ayton now being un-tradable until January rules a few other teams out, so now, it looks like Danny Ainge has been forced to deal with just one team, and will spend the next few days and weeks trying to get as much out of New York as possible.

While New York are still the favourite, the Knicks rejected the Jazz’ latest trade proposal for Donovan, which was reportedly Immanuel Quickley, Obi Toppin, Quentin Grimes, Miles McBride and six future first round picks. The Knicks young core depends heavily on the energy and passion that Toppin, Quickley and Grimes bring, and while six first round picks may end up being the return for Mitchell, the Knicks won’t give up most of their young core to make this happen.

Over the coming weeks, expect negotiations to continue between the two sides, but if the Jazz want a record haul of picks, as many expect them to get more picks in return than the Rudy Gobert deal, they’ll need to lower their expectations on the player return from The Big Apple.