It was confirmed the other day that the Philadelphia 76ers were willing to trade No. 3 to the Utah Jazz for No. 5 as long as Paul George was in the deal. There is some appeal to a trade like Utah's end, and there is a way they could agree to take George. However, the only way they would is if there is no pick exchange. Instead, the Sixers would have to give up No. 3 in the deal, with No. 5 staying in Utah.
The Jazz could give the Sixers their get out of jail free card by absorbing George, but if that's what the latter wants, they're not getting the No. 5 pick out of it. The Jazz should be more than happy to dangle other draft assets or young players to Philly, but their goals on Draft Night should be to get another high lottery pick if they can, not trade up in a loaded draft class.
Now, if it were for the No. 2 pick, maybe they would agree to a swap. But because the prospects after No. 2 are good, but not quite the sure thing Cooper Flagg or Dylan Harper are, there's no sense in the Jazz trading up for a prospect at No. 3 who may not be better than whoever gets picked at No. 5. But getting both would definitely be worth the trouble of absorbing George.
Because they're in a rebuild, Utah is one of the few teams that can afford to absorb George while developing their young players. He's coming off a terrible year, will likely get worse, and his contract is a pretty big one to swallow. With the Jazz embracing their youth movement, they wouldn't have to worry about that.
Plus, if George by some miracle actually looks more like his old self, the Jazz can either dangle him to an interested party - think OKC with Chris Paul in 2020 - or maybe pair George with Lauri Markkanen and see where it takes with them along with their exciting youth movement. With Utah's current timeline, they should be ready for anything.
But it's for that same reason that the Sixers likely wouldn't do something like this. They may try to stay optimistic that George's first season as a Sixer was simply an outlier, try to run it back with the No. 3 pick, and go from there. If they think that's not the case, they may try to get rid of George, but not at the expense of giving away a high lottery pick from an aforementioned loaded draft class.
That could explain why talks haven't gone anywhere
After Andy Larsen revealed the trade talks between the Sixers and Jazz involving George, shortly afterward, he clarified that none of those talks (or any of the other rumors he mentioned) have any serious traction as of now.
Welp, got aggregated today.
— Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) June 18, 2025
I’ll say this as a point of clarification: while all of the possibilities I mentioned (Sexton to Dallas, LAL interest in Kessler, PHI interest in a pick 3/5 swap) have been discussed, they haven’t gotten into the serious stages to my knowledge.
Now, draft night is less than a week away, so plenty can change between today and June 25. Whether the Jazz or Sixers are serious about becoming trade partners by then, this wouldn't have been mentioned if neither had considered it.
It will all depend on what compromise either side would agree to.