The Utah Jazz haven't typically been ones to help out the Los Angeles Lakers. They were the third team that helped facilitate the Luka Doncic trade. However, they haven't typically been ones to help the Lakers' title quest. However, one proposed trade would basically give the Lakers exactly what they need: an All-Star big man in Lauri Markkanen.
Bleacher Report's Andy Bailey outlined a three-way trade between the Jazz, Lakers, and Miami Heat in which the following would happen.
Lakers get: Markkanen
Heat get: Austin Reaves, Svi Mykhailiuk
Jazz get: Terry Rozier, Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent, Dalton Knecht, Lakers 2026 first-round pick, 2031 Lakers first-round pick, 2031 Heat first-round pick
Bailey explained why the Jazz would do this, and the rationale is not surprising in the least.
"The objectives here are pretty clear for Utah. This deal makes the Jazz worse in the short term. That's good for lottery odds. The basketball gods may not have been kind to them this summer, but maybe they'll reward perseverance with the first pick in 2026.
"The better chance to win that selection is the short-term win. Long term, it always helps to have more picks, and this framework gives them three (by re-routing Reaves to the Heat)," Bailey wrote.
That's not the only reason why the Jazz would make a trade like this.
The deal also clears the runway for more development for younger forwards like Ace Bailey (this year's fifth pick), Taylor Hendricks (whose sophomore campaign was cut short by injury after just three games) and even Kyle Filipowski (who may have enough perimeter skill to play a little alongside Walker Kessler).
Just for clarity, the first condition in any potential Jazz-Lakers trade where the Lakers improve from it would involve making that 2027 first-round pick the latter already owes the former become completely unprotected. That's the first thing to know about any hypothetical trade between the two of them.
Now, it's already hard enough to see the Jazz trading Markkanen to the Lakers because even if they get more picks out of it, the quality of those picks would not turn out great, as pairing Doncic with Markkanen would further raise their ceiling to a title contender.
However, there's another reason why the Jazz won't trade Markkanen period.
His EuroBasket play has been too good for the Jazz to trade him now
A contrarian will say that because of how good Markkanen has been in the EuroBasket tournament, now is as good a time as ever for the Jazz to trade him. However, it's for that same reason that it's the opposite.
Markkanen has looked every bit a like a star to build around for Finland. He looks like the exact player Utah had no hesitation to extend last year when given the chance. Trading him now may not be the best move if the Jazz start to show some progress this year, even if they still aren't expected to win that many games.
Plus, the Jazz have made it clear that they do not want to increase their quantity of picks as much as they want to improve the quality of them. Trading a star like Markkanen for picks makes sense, but that can all be for naught if the picks they get back for him don't really improve the team long-term.
While pretty much everyone will say the Jazz would never trade Markkanen to the lakers, and that is very true, the bottom line is that it doesn't matter what team gets Markkanen in a hypothetical trade because Utah's not trading him period.