The NBA trade market saw some big news last night when the Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns announced a deal. However, the deal didn’t include any players going from one side to the next but just draft picks. The Suns sent their sole-remaining first-round pick in 2031 to the Jazz for three first-round picks.
The picks the Jazz sent have multiple conditions on them which virtually guarantee they’ll convey in the lower end of the first-round.
The 2025 pick will be the least favorable between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Cleveland Cavaliers‘ picks, which virtually guarantees them the Cavs’ pick which will likely convey between 27-30. The 2027 and 2029 picks will be the least favorable of the Cavs, Wolves, and Jazz first-round selections.
Let’s analyze the fallout of this trade and why the Jazz have potentially hit a home run here.
The Jazz Consolidate Quantity For Quality
The Jazz broke up their team in the summer of 2022 by trading away Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert to the Cavaliers and Timberwolves respectively for a return of 10 first-round picks. The trade has paid off in the short-term for both franchises, with the Timberwolves making it to the Conference Finals last season while the Cavaliers are the No. 1 seed in the league right now.
The picks that the Jazz have gotten from both franchises don’t seem to be guaranteed lottery selections. The Cavaliers have a young core that’s extended on long-term contracts, so they should remain contenders for years to come. The Timberwolves have more uncertainty, but the presence of Anthony Edwards promises to keep the team competitive for the next five years.
Unless all three teams are in the Draft lottery in 2027 and 2029, these picks will likely all be conveyed to Phoenix as late first-round picks depending on the success of any one of those teams.
What this trade has allowed the Jazz to do is keep all the upside in their control while removing a lower-value asset. If the Wolves have a disastrous season in 2027, the Jazz are still in the best position to benefit as they control the best pick that year. They’ll send the worst pick between themselves and the Cavs to the Suns while keeping the best in the top end of the lottery.
The Cavs and Wolves have a bright future due to the presence of ascending players. The Suns don’t have any future stars on their roster and are trying to get older by acquiring Jimmy Butler. They’re as all-in as one can be while not controlling any major draft assets for the next seven seasons.
The aging core and lack of future draft assets have allowed the Jazz to determine that the Suns will likely be in a worse position in 2031 than any of the picks they’re sending out. That’s a fantastic assumption and could pay off in a major way, although we have to wait six years to see that happen. Meanwhile, the Suns can get to work now.
The Suns Pushing To Land Jimmy Butler
The rumors of the Suns working with the Miami Heat on a multi-team deal for Jimmy Butler are too substantiated for everyone to write off. The Suns are deliberately making bad long-term views to push themselves into contention right now, so these newly acquired picks will likely be used to incentivize teams to get involved in a deal for Butler which includes Bradley Beal going elsewhere.
The Suns have to dump the remaining $110+ million over three years on Beal’s contract to a team, who will want draft compensation to agree on that. The Heat will not accept Beal’s contract under any circumstance, so it’s being rumored that the Milwaukee Bucks might be getting involved as the team that acquires Beal.
The Bucks can send win-now players to the Heat while potentially getting a draft pick from the Suns. They barely have any future picks themselves, so the value of a pick alongside a scorer like Beal could be a great short-term win-now proposition for them as well.
Breaking up one highly valuable first-round pick into three less-valuable ones gives the Suns a lot of flexibility in their trade dealings. They can send one to the Bucks for accepting Beal while another to the Heat for Butler. They can hold onto the third one for the future or even move that to facilitate a Jusuf Nurkic trade given the dead trade market in the center.
This deal will likely take the Suns in the direction they wanted it to, but the Jazz might be the biggest winners in the long term as the Suns are bound to face years stuck in NBA purgatory as an average franchise without the Draft assets to re-tool.
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