The retooling that people have been waiting a few years for the Utah Jazz to undergo has finally occurred this NBA offseason. Danny Ainge is continuing the trend of joining a front office and then purging the coaching staff and roster.
Quin Snyder stepped down as head coach earlier in the offseason with Boston Celtics assistant coach Will Hardy taking over the job. Then, at the onset of free agency, they began reshaping the roster.
The first trade they completed flew a little bit under the radar, as Royce O’Neale was traded to the Brooklyn Nets for a 2023 first-round pick. That trade was announced minutes after Kevin Durant requested a trade from the Nets and Brian Windhorst followed it up with excellent storytelling on ESPN.
Windhorst insinuated that the Jazz was gearing up to make a big trade and he ended up being correct. Rudy Gobert was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves for a package that includes five players, four first-round picks and one pick swap. Three of the picks are unprotected while one is top-five protected.
LATEST NBA NEWS AND TRADE RUMORS: Utah Jazz Not Convinced Donovan Mitchell Is Franchise Player?
It was quite a haul for Utah and attention quickly turned to their other All-Star, Donovan Mitchell. While the Utah Jazz said that they want to hold onto and build the roster around Mitchell, teams have not stopped calling about making a trade for him.
“After the Gobert trade, a league source told The Tribune that more than a handful of teams called the Jazz to inquire about the availability of Mitchell — and the Jazz’s front office shut them all down. Those conversations, the Jazz felt, were league executives trying to pounce on a perceived opportunity to trade for Mitchell cheaply.”
LATEST NBA NEWS AND TRADE RUMORS: Utah Jazz Not Convinced Donovan Mitchell Is Franchise Player?
Donovan Mitchell is certainly not going to come cheaply in a trade. If they were able to get four draft picks, essentially five as one of the players was the No. 22 overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft Walker Kessler, they will ask for even more for the dynamic combo guard.
Gobert turned 30 recently while Mitchell is going to be turning only 26. That, in addition to Mitchell being closer to the kind of player teams, are looking to build rosters around now, will only make him more expensive to acquire in a trade.
LATEST NBA NEWS AND TRADE RUMORS: Utah Jazz Not Convinced Donovan Mitchell Is Franchise Player?
It has been floated around that they could ask for every available first-round pick a team has in return for Donovan Mitchell, such as the eight the New York Knicks own. That price likely won’t be met, but you have to start somewhere in negotiations and the Utah Jazz is going to start them as high as possible, should they even hold any trade talks.
