Minnesota Sports Forum

Camden wrote:One thing to note is that the Utah Jazz traded their two franchise pillars -- a 25-year old three-time All-Star in Donovan Mitchell and a 30-year old four-time All-NBA, three-time Defensive Player of the Year, and three-time All-Star in Rudy Gobert -- and received zero "blue chip" prospects or rather young players with certain star potential.

They did receive some intriguing young talent in Ochai Agbaji, Walker Kessler, and Jarred Vanderbilt, no doubt, but they're more unproven with tempered expectations than some of the other notable young pieces that have been moved in recent blockbuster deals, such as Brandon Ingram (Anthony Davis), Lonzo Ball (Davis), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Paul George), Andrew Wiggins (Kevin Love), etc.

I find it interesting that when it's all said and done the Jazz might come away from both trades without a bonafide star prospect and zero lottery picks from Cleveland or Minnesota. Consider that Utah traded their proven stars to both teams who already had young cores and are early in their window to compete/contend. It's at least conceivable that they just dealt Mitchell and Gobert for seven picks in the 20's and some young role players.

Can you bring up a good point/perspective

Obviously they probably wanted to get young talent but they also seemed willing to go the pick route so I think there was some intention to go that way. Of the players they got back, Sexton may not be a star I think he is a guy that has a chance to be a pretty good player and if so the contract he is on could be a pretty good value.

I do like adding draft picks and assets and young players BUT I have also said on this forum about multiple sports that at some point there can be a diminishing return on having lots of young players/assets. I think we saw that in this draft a couple times. Meanwhile the Wolves did a pretty solid job of getting the most out of their multiple picks this year which I thought was pretty good. We will see if Utah can select good players and or get good returns on the assets they received in these deals.

Cavs are going to be really good this year. Mobley is going to be one of the best big man in the future. Allen is very effective and solid at his role. Garland and donovan are going to get you buckets and a great fit on offense. They also have 2 solid vets in love and rubio coming off the bench.

The Jazz will have their own first round picks as well, so all those other picks will be useful in maneuvering in the draft if the ping pong balls don't fall their way.

So I've watched/read a good amount about the trade today. Can someone explain to me how the media thinks the Cavs stole Mitchell and the wolves got fleeced by jazz.

Both trades involved 5 picks (wolves have protection on 1 pick that the Cavs don't), Cavs gave up arguably 3 players who have more value than any player the wolves gave up. This trade put the Cavs in maybe a contender territory, same as the wolves. Cavs didn't trade their top 3 assets, the wolves didn't trade their top 3 assets. All stats throughout the years have pointed to the Jazz were bad when Mitchell played and gobert sat.

I like both trades but super confused why one trade is a great trade and one trade is one of the worst trades in history?

Someone help me

PorkChop wrote:The Jazz will have their own first round picks as well, so all those other picks will be useful in maneuvering in the draft if the ping pong balls don't fall their way.

Yep. I think the Jazz are well positioned with young players and draft assets. As you noted they'll have their own first round picks in each of the next seven drafts and at least the first few will likely be lottery picks - probably high lottery picks. In total, the Jazz have 15 first round picks over the next seven years. They also now have some talented young players in Sexton, Markkanen, Agbaji, Kessler, and Vando. Note also that the Jazz will get value for Bogdanovic, Conley, Clarkson and Beasley - four players likely to be traded before the February trade deadline. So I expect the Jazz to add more first round picks and/or some second rounders. They'll have lots of opportunities to hit the mark in future drafts and trade up in those drafts.

lipoli390 wrote:

PorkChop wrote:The Jazz will have their own first round picks as well, so all those other picks will be useful in maneuvering in the draft if the ping pong balls don't fall their way.

Yep. I think the Jazz are well positioned with young players and draft assets. As you noted they'll have their own first round picks in each of the next seven drafts and at least the first few will likely be lottery picks - probably high lottery picks. In total, the Jazz have 15 first round picks over the next seven years. They also now have some talented young players in Sexton, Markkanen, Agbaji, Kessler, and Vando. Note also that the Jazz will get value for Bogdanovic, Conley, Clarkson and Beasley - four players likely to be traded before the February trade deadline. So I expect the Jazz to add more first round picks and/or some second rounders. They'll have lots of opportunities to hit the mark in future drafts and trade up in those drafts.

I agree with you that they are in a good spot and an organization like the Jazz can do this because they have been competitive for so long but it only takes a couple of draft misses for the rebuild to fail. Only Sexton I see being on the Jazz in 3 years

monsterpile wrote:

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:How much better than Sexton is Mitchell? I'm not asking to troll or anything, but I don't get the sense that the gap is THAT big, though I haven't seen Sexton play all that much. But the stats, size, and from what I can tell, style of play are fairly similar. Mitchell clearly has another possible gear in terms of taking over a game (that duel with Murray still blows me away). But this could turn out to be pretty nice for Utah if Sexton pans out.

Good point on the size, doper. For Cleveland, weren't they kind of souring on having an undersized backcourt with Sexton and Garland, and now they'll basically have a similarly sized guy replacing Sexton, right? I mean Mitchell's thicker than Sexton and Sexton has the injury concerns, but if size was really a concern for Cleveland, this seems like a bit of a head-scratcher. Then again, if you can get an All-Star . . .

I like Sexton for the 4 years 72 million he signed for.

Honestly I think the Jazz did pretty well in this trade. I would consider Ochai Agbaji basically a first round pick so they got 4 first round picks plus sexton plus Markkenen plus the pick swaps. It will be interesting to see who actually ends up playing for Utah but they might not be underlying horrible night in night out. They will lose plenty of games but they will have some talent. Sexton is probably kinda thrilled to be there. In addition even some of the guys they keep might be trade assets going forward. This whole thing may not work out but if I was a Utah Fan I would be feeling about as good as I could trading away 2 players like Mitchell and Gobert.

There are some people that said this was a no-brainer for the Cavs. I'm not sure about that. Mitchell is more is Qatar scorer than anyone they had before but idk if this was a the right move for them.

Meanwhile the Knicks I guess were not willing to give up TOO much for Mitchell. I think that might be a good thing to see if you are a Knicks fan.

If there was one team that could've and should've pulled off this trade, it was the cavs. They have Mobley and Allen to back up the offensive output from those guards.

The EA Sports GM in me loves the Jazz position by trading for massive amounts of 1st round draft picks and swaps and going full rebuild while having 2 picks on average per year in the 1st for the next 7 years, as well as the flexibility it gives to trade for players or to move up for coveted draft slots (though you still can't trade non-lotto picks and expect to get a blue chip draft pick).

With that said, I think this also adds added complexity to the Utah GM position going into the next several years. It's not like they can use all those picks realistically, and then also have their 2nd round picks. There's only so many spots on a NBA roster and if they aren't careful, they'll need to start fire sales on those picks. Perhaps I'm a doomsday-er on that suggestion, but it's not as simple as pick a player. Additionally, when (not if) they start to target a move-up and/or a trade for a veteran, the other team will know how many assets they have and likely try to hold out for extra assets since they'll be able to easily absorb them. Then you have the situation of salary cap.

Super interesting situation they've got there in Utah, and I'll be very intrigued to see how they handle it.

kekgeek1 wrote:So I've watched/read a good amount about the trade today. Can someone explain to me how the media thinks the Cavs stole Mitchell and the wolves got fleeced by jazz.

Both trades involved 5 picks (wolves have protection on 1 pick that the Cavs don't), Cavs have up arguably 3 players who have not value than any player the wolves gave up. This trade put the Cavs in maybe a contender territory, same as the wolves. Cavs didn't trade their top 3 assets, the wolves didn't trade their top 3 assets. All stats throughout the years have pointed to the Jazz were bad when Mitchell played and gobert sat.

I like both trades but super confused why one trade is a great trade and one trade is one of the worst trades in history?

Someone help me

I agree with you.

I think Mitchell's youth is a significant factor of why some people value him more. He is also making like 10 million less a year than Gobert. Personally I think Gobert is the better player but he turned 30 a few weeks ago and is a big so there is some concern he won't be the player he is now at some point. In theory Mitchell could still get better. For the Wolves they don't really need offense so the trade works for them. As someone else point out the Cavs have a potentially awesome defensive frontcourt so even if Mitchell's D (and Possibly Garland) isn't good that may be just fine.

Sexton is probably the longest term value player the Jazz got back in either deal but for the Cavs he was probably easy to give up in this deal. They were playing hardball with him trying to get him on a value contract and Sexton was likely hesitant to sign that especially when he didn't even know what his role was going to be with the Cavs having some guard depth. Now he is going to Utah and may be an actual piece of their rebuild. The Jazz also took on more long term salary in this deal than what they did with the Wolves. That's not a bad thing since the players they got back are useful but it's something to consider. I'll add that the Cavs the last few years have given up draft Capital to acquire various players and quite frankly it's worked out most of the time. They probably deserve the benefit of the doubt. Of course Tim Connelly is pretty highly regarded so it's kinda weird that he didn't get that for the Gobert trade but anywho.

lipoli390 wrote:

PorkChop wrote:The Jazz will have their own first round picks as well, so all those other picks will be useful in maneuvering in the draft if the ping pong balls don't fall their way.

Yep. I think the Jazz are well positioned with young players and draft assets. As you noted they'll have their own first round picks in each of the next seven drafts and at least the first few will likely be lottery picks - probably high lottery picks. In total, the Jazz have 15 first round picks over the next seven years. They also now have some talented young players in Sexton, Markkanen, Agbaji, Kessler, and Vando. Note also that the Jazz will get value for Bogdanovic, Conley, Clarkson and Beasley - four players likely to be traded before the February trade deadline. So I expect the Jazz to add more first round picks and/or some second rounders. They'll have lots of opportunities to hit the mark in future drafts and trade up in those drafts.

I was skeptical about the value they will get for some of those guys and that was only fueled by what they got for Beverly. I'll be surprised if they get much of anything for Conley because of his salary this year and next. They may even consider the possibility of deciding to just keep Beasley next season because after the Cavs trade they may not have that much cap space to utilize in one way or another. Clarkson's has a player option for next season. I was thinking he was an expiring deal. I think one thing that works against the Jazz is teams know they will have to move guys because they have a lot of guys on the roster. They will have to cut worthwhile players if they aren't moved a few weeks from now. Yes teams could outbid each other but all these guys have a decent chunk of salary that a team will have to match. That's going to be tricky. I do think they will get some value from at least one of these players that I absolutely agree are likely to be moved but I think there is a chance it ends up being a pretty underwhelming return overall. I think Bogdonovic is the guy I could see a team giving up something decent for. Also the Jazz will want to stay under the Lux tax. They don't have a ton of breathing room right now according to sporttrac.