The Utah Jazz made a surprise move when they brought back Georges Niang yesterday. More than that, though, the plan is to keep him for the long haul (i.e., the rest of his current contract). With Niang on the team, it also confirms what the Jazz plan to do with Kevin Love (if it hadn't been clear already): he's as good as gone.
Insert a ginormous "Well, DUH!" from the entire Jazz fanbase, as that has pretty much been the case since the moment the John Collins trade was announced. Love is a veteran who is on his last legs in the NBA and has no place playing for a team like the Jazz.
Trading for Niang puts the Jazz's roster at 16 players, meaning someone has to get the boot. It goes without saying that the likeliest candidate is Love. The only question remaining on that front is how exactly the Jazz get rid of him. Either Love will get bought out or Utah will find a trade partner for him.
His deal isn't terribly expensive, but teams may not want to trade anything for a guy whose release feels pretty inevitable. It's not like Utah couldn't afford to simply waive him, as even with Niang on their books, Utah still has a pretty inexpensive payroll overall.
Why it might take a while for Utah to get rid of Love
Even though the Niang trade makes this elephant in the room become all the larger, the one reason why Utah hasn't pulled the trigger on anything is because of the two-month restriction that came with acquiring Love. While he can be traded on his own, he can't be aggregated with another player until September 7.
Utah has nothing to lose by waiting until that date comes, so that's probably why he's still a Jazzman. Love doesn't have much trade value even if his contract doesn't exactly eat up much of the payroll. It's possible that they are waiting until they can trade Love with someone else in a different deal before training camp comes along.
It would explain why they didn't just automatically waive him when they first acquired him. Even if the plan isn't to keep Love, there's no reason to simply eat the deal when the alternative of throwing him in a separate one will be an option not too long from now.
Everyone knew Love wouldn't spend one minute in a Jazz uniform. While bringing Niang back makes that all the more obvious, it's a matter of when they'll get rid of Love and how they'll do it.