It's no surprise that the Utah Jazz would trade Collin Sexton this offseason. However, what is a surprise is the package they just got for him. With the trade package the Jazz just received for Sexton, they are making it absolutely clear that they have every intention to tank next season.
ESPN's Shams Charania revealed that the Jazz have traded Sexton for Jusuf Nurkic. Not only that, but it was Utah who had to include an asset to get the deal done.
Just in: The Utah Jazz are trading Collin Sexton and a 2030 second-round pick to the Charlotte Hornets for Jusuf Nurkic, sources tell ESPN. pic.twitter.com/k5hFMBSlYn
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 29, 2025
Sexton is still a young player with plenty of good basketball left in his game who can score 20 points or more on any given night. Nurkic was once a solid starting center on a playoff team, but that was years ago, and he hasn't been nearly the same player since.
Nurkic was notoriously so bad in Phoenix for a season and a half that they salary-dumped him to Charlotte. And now the Jazz traded the better player and a draft asset to get him? The only rationale is that, despite what Austin Ainge said when the Jazz hired him, the plan is to, in fact, go all in tank next season.
Getting Sexton off the team makes sense because now it opens up time for some of their young guards, including Isaiah Collier, Keyonte George, and the newly drafted Walter Clayton Jr. That will give them more time, which should lower Utah's ceiling next season since Sexton is much more proven than they are.
What it means is, even though the Jazz will play Lauri Markkanen more - if he's still on the team - they plan to lose many games anyway. While the package isn't exciting at all, it is exciting that Jazz fans will see what their young guards are all about.
Plus, this also means that Jordan Clarkson should be next. At least, it should.
But there seriously wasn't a better deal than that?
The rationale for why Utah would trade Sexton makes sense because the writing was on the wall for some time now. But no one was offering a better deal than that for him? Plus, now they have an even bigger logjam in their frontcourt than they did before, as Nurkic is going to demand minutes in a contract year.
Sexton should have had a market. Maybe not a strong enough market to net another first-round pick, but strong enough that Utah wouldn't have had to attach anything with him. Nurkic's contract isn't as negative as it once was, but before today, it was downright laughable to suggest that he had more positive value than Sexton does.
This should also prompt many to question why Utah couldn't get a deal done earlier. It was all but confirmed before it was official that Sexton was not in Utah's long-term plans, so if that was the case, why not trade him back when his trade value was likely higher?
In the long-term, this isn't a huge deal since it was expected and it helps Utah embrace their youth movement more, but it still goes down as terrible asset management. Sexton definitely deserved a better situation, and he will get that in Charlotte on paper, but he was good enough that it's impossible to agree that this was the best trade out there for him.
The Jazz didn't get screwed over here by any means. Sexton's player archetype clearly doesn't have much value, and worst comes to worst, Nurkic is out of there next season. However, it really feels like there could have been a better way to resolve this situation.