It's not surprising in the least that the Utah Jazz have gotten rid of Collin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson over the past few days. What has been shocking is how they got practically nothing for either of them in the process. It all points to the key mistake they made in the last three years: investing long-term money in a player archetype that simply isn't valued that much in the NBA anymore.
Sexton and Clarkson have a lot of overlap between them as players, though it wouldn't be fair to say that they were completely redundant as teammates. However, they are both score-first, undersized guards who are average playmakers at best, whose individual defense leaves a lot to be desired.
Warts and all, players like them are good enough to be part of a playoff rotation, but as evidenced by how their tenures in Utah ended, teams don't want to pay up for what players like them do anymore. When it was all said and done, Sexton fetched a worse player in Jusuf Nurkic while costing the Jazz a second-round pick, while Clarkson will be a cap hit as he plays for his next deal in the Big Apple.
For the record, because they can produce on a good team, it's not like Utah woefully overpaid either Clarkson or Sexton. It's just that the deals they offered were too long and perhaps a tad too expensive to entice any trade partners. Though to be fair, they gave Sexton that much to match salaries in the Donovan Mitchell trade.
While the talent is undeniable with those two, so are their flaws. Teams are hesitant to pay that much for players who can be exploited on defense and who aren't good enough to make up for the difference on the other end of the floor, even if that's their calling card.
This was mostly a mistake in hindsight for Utah. It was clear the Jazz thought either Sexton and/or Clarkson could be part of their next playoff team or dangled for assets. It is somewhat of a surprise that Sexton's trade value was that low, though Clarkson's contract extension with Utah was largely criticized from the moment it was announced.
Players like them have followed a similiar path this offseason
Guards like Sexton and Clarkson have more or less been simply dumped by their teams this offseason. When the Boston Celtics acquired Anfernee Simons for Jrue Holiday last week, they acquired assets along with Simons, despite Holiday being older, more expensive, and in decline, even though everyone knew Boston's priority was to get under the NBA's second tax apron when they made that trade.
It goes to show that Simons' value was low enough that Boston saw him primarily as a cheaper contract first and what he could do on the floor second. A similar deal went down with Jordan Poole. The NBA Champion regained his footing in Year 2 with the Washington Wizards, and they still dumped him to New Orleans anyway, despite being young with plenty of good basketball left in him.
The commonality between all of these players, besides their skillsets, is how much they were being paid. Poole and Simons were both receiving larger sums than Sexton or Clarkson, and yet their teams didn't bother to sell high on them.
Utah made a mistake investing long-term money with Sexton and Clarkson in hindsight, but this offseason has shown that they weren't the only ones. This is a product of the cap game simply changing everything. With any luck, this could factor into extension talks with Keyonte George and Isaiah Collier not too long from now.
This may have been a tough pill to swallow, but at least now, Utah has finally swallowed it.