The biggest headline for the Utah Jazz this offseason is that they cleaned house. It felt inevitable when this last season ended that Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson, and John Collins would be on different teams, and here we are. However, among the moves they made to clean house, the most confusing one was trading Sexton for Jusuf Nurkic.
With most of the offseason's moves already done and away with, Fred Katz explained on "The Zach Lowe Show" why he doesn't understand the deal from Utah's perspective at all. Katz went into more detail explaining why it doesn't make sense from Charlotte's perspective, but asked some good questions about Nurkic's fit in Utah.
For example, is Nurkic backing up Walker Kessler and Kyle Filipowski good for him, or Utah, for that matter?
The Nurkic trade was the indirect confirmation that Utah was going to trade Collins, and it didn't take long for them to fulfill that prophecy. Still, along with Kessler and Filipowski, Nurkic will likely be behind Lauri Markkanen and Taylor Hendricks as well in the Jazz's frontcourt rotation.
It made sense to trade Sexton, and despite Katz's objections, he deserved to be on a team that will try to win next season, like the Hornets. But in the Jazz's case, they've signaled that Nurkic will be on their opening night roster, but it's hard to figure out when exactly he will see time.
The only rstionale is that by virtue of circumstance - Sexton's skillset simply isn't valued in today's NBA while big men like Nurkic are despite the former being the better player - gives Utah the opportunity to potentially raise Nurkic's trade value around the deadline.
The only other plausible rationale is that the Jazz are hoping to work Hendricks back into the rotation slowly. Nurkic might be the bar for him to surpass before they have him back as a permanent fixture in their rotation. If that's the case, did they really have to give up a second-round pick to do that when simply signing a veteran on the market for the veteran's minimum would have accomplished the same thing?
Utah was better off giving Collin Sexton the Jordan Clarkson treatment
While the Jazz found a trade partner for Sexton, they didn't have the same luck with Clarkson, who they bought out and saved themselves some money in the process. All things considered, they made out better with how they resolved the Clarkson situation than with Sexton.
While Sexton is currently the better player, the Jazz got a worse player who is superfluous and will cost over $19 million along with a second-round pick. It's not like that's the worst fate in the world, but alternatively, they could have bought out Sexton, saved some money, and didn't have to sacrifice an asset to do it.
That would have been much better than overcrowding the frontcourt. It wouldn't surprise anyone if Nurkic is either traded or bought out mid-season, which will only beg more questions on why they traded him in the first place.
The writing may have been on the wall about Sexton for some time, but it shouldn't have led to this much confusion.