Danny Ainge has earned a reputation for ruining plenty of teams he trades with. It's why Draymond Green dissuaded Golden State from trying to trade for Lauri Markkanen. Ainge did it again this past offseason, though, ironically, he wasn't trying to rip them off. While the Utah Jazz were just trying to rid themselves of an expendable player, they inadvertently ended the Clippers' playoff contention era once and for all.
The Jazz agreed to send John Collins to the Clippers in a deal that didn't net much - only Kyle Anderson, Kevin Love, and a second-round pick - so it's not like Utah was out to win anything. They simply wanted to cut ties with Collins to open up more time for some of their younger players.
If anything, this looked like a steal for the Clippers after the season Collins had, and he hasn't been terrible for the Clippers. 12 points and 4.8 rebounds while shooting almost 51% from the field is a step down, but LA isn't depending on him as much as the Jazz and the Atlanta Hawks used to.
So why has this deal looked so bad for the Clippers? Well, besides the fact that they are now 5-16, which could be a problem for the Jazz, they gave up Norm Powell in the deal, who was not only coming off a borderline All-Star campaign last year, but has only continued his awesome play in South Beach.
Powell's play was tremendously helpful to the Clippers last year when Kawhi Leonard was out with his annual injury. They traded him, then signed Bradley Beal, believing he could replace Powell's production while Collins could shore up their frontcourt.
Gigantic yikes.
And it wouldn't have happened without the Jazz's involvement.
The cruel irony of the fallout from this trade
The Jazz made this trade believing full and well that they were going to be worse from it while the Clippers believed they were going to be better. With the season about a quarter of the way done, the Clippers are on track to be even worse than the Jazz when it's all said and done.
That's not necessarily something Utah would have wanted, but that's just how things may play out because it's hard to see how LA salvages this situation. They can hope Kawhi will get healthy, but they've been doing that since the 2020s started and he hasn't come through for them.
It goes to show. As bad as things have been for the Jazz over the past few years, their situation could be so much worse. For everything that has gone wrong, they aren't in danger of giving the Thunder, the reigning NBA champions, the No. 1 pick. They might give them the No. 9 pick, and while that's not preferable, Utah still has a promising future.
The same cannot be said about the Clippers.