Danny Ainge made a bold claim this offseason, telling the fanbase and media that he was going to be going after major names to improve the roster. With talents like LeBron James, Paul George, James Harden, and others hitting the free agent market, and guys like Jimmy Butler, Darius Garland, and Devin Booker possibly available via trades, there are a lot of names to go out and get to make the Utah Jazz a top team in the West.
While the goal is to land a major name or two, the Utah Jazz have three picks in this year's draft, the 10th pick, the 29th pick, and the 2nd pick in the second round (32nd overall). Will the Utah Jazz opt to trade any of those picks if it means moving up in the draft or trading for a major name?
Well, anything is possible but it's also possible that they keep all three picks from this year's draft. Utah Jazz VP of Player Personnel, Bart Taylor, has made it clear that there are no current plans to trade those picks, telling KSL.com;
""I get that question a lot Not just from media people but around the league. The most basic answer is yeah. Right now we don't have any trades that we've executed on to trade them. We're gonna have conversations around our picks. We're definitely open to discussing them with everybody around the league.
...But as of today, we have all three picks. So the way we operate is that we have to select them. Everyone wants to know, 'What are you going to do with all three picks?' Until someone offers us something that we like, we're going to pick them.""
The Utah Jazz should look to keep their picks this year and use future picks and young players to be the basis of any draft-day trades. Especially if means upgrading at certain spots. The Utah Jazz would be clearly better off with a backcourt of Devin Booker and a re-signed Kris Dunn than they would with Collin Sexton and Keyonte George. So it would behoove the Jazz to consider trading guys like George over their current first-round pick.
By trading George for more established players, you can then draft to fill holes around the reshaped roster. If you opt to trade the pick, you'll end up having to either find guys who can play with the younger players and who can help them raise their game, or make even more trades to further rebuild the roster.
Either way can work, it's really all dependent on how high of a ceiling you think the young players have.