Utah Jazz Mail Bag: Donovan Mitchell, Danny Ainge, Juancho Hernangomez and more

We’re in the heat of the NBA offseason and there’s not a lot going on in the league right now, but that doesn’t mean there’s a lack of burning questions on fans’ minds.

So, it’s time to open the mail and answer some questions from the Utah Jazz.

In fact, I think the Jazz were very patient with this roster, and while they had the best 2020-21 regular season record, they’ve been a lackluster playoff team for six straight years and it was clear the current roster wasn’t one that was going to win

Danny Ainge was hired in December 2021 and given the freedom to make tough roster decisions if needed.

That doesn’t mean he was impatient. I could have walked in and decided that a little shakeup was all the team needed, but obviously Ainge, along with everyone else with a seat of power within the Jazz organization, believed this team had run its course, and I agree. agreement.

Regular-season success is good, and it feels great when it’s happening, but there’s no denying that following up on that success with an unceremonious exit from the playoffs in the second and first rounds said more about what this team was. really capable of making any of his accolades from the regular season.

I got more questions from Donovan Mitchell than any other type of question, and it’s understandable.

I will try to answer many of them here as succinctly as possible.

Personally, I think the Jazz will trade Mitchell before the start of the 2022-23 season. There’s always a chance a deal won’t get done, but I think the optics are such that completing a trade will make life a lot easier for the Jazz than if they don’t.

Will it be against the New York Knicks? Another team? Will a deal involve multiple teams? I’m not sure.

If forced to guess, I’d say New York is the most likely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a deal involved a third team to maximize asset quality.

I don’t think it’s just the Jazz that are waiting to figure everything else out after a Mitchell deal. I think there are a lot of decisions in the league that depend on the eventual situations of Mitchell and Kevin Durant being finalized.

But, to answer the previous question, yes, a lot of what happens with the rest of the roster will depend on what happens with Mitchell. I’ll talk about that a bit more in the next question and answer.

Surely there was interest in staying with Juancho Hernangómez before. signed with the Toronto Raptorsbut there are other things at play here besides having an interest in some roleplayers.

First, the Jazz had to make sure there were enough roster spots to bring back the players in the Rudy Gobert trade and any other potential future trades.

Currently, the Jazz roster consists of 14 standard players and one two-way player, and that includes all the players the Jazz received from Minnesota.

If the Jazz complete a Donovan Mitchell trade, they’ll bring several players back, and that will likely require removing even more weight from the roster.

That could include some fringe players or trades for some of the other veterans like Bojan Bogdanovic, Mike Conley and Jordan Clarkson.

Sure there was interest, but the Jazz have to remain flexible, and if they’re going to fire Mitchell, there’s no need to waste Hernangomez on a team they intend to lose.

Part of the beauty of basketball is that it’s not always beautiful.

If the Jazz enter a full rebuild season where tanking is a priority, I understand that it will be hard to watch and enjoy.

You will have to try to change your fanaticism for a while. You’re not going to be looking for wins over tough opponents or looking at playoff standings.

Instead, you root for teams the Jazz get picks to lose from, and you lose big. You encourage finding diamonds in the rough from undrafted rookies and keep an eye on the development of players like Jared Butler, Walker Kessler and anyone else the Jazz ends up with.

You have to find joy in the fact that you can probably get cheap tickets to see the games and that suffering through a year of rebuilding will be worth it.

Think ahead. Imagine how good you’ll feel driving a storied Jazz team that can win a title and how fondly you’ll remember the tough years.

Think of the kids who watch their first NBA games with a sinking Jazz team and how fondly they will remember the bad team that was the first.

It’s the little things, but that’s how you have to approach it.

It was pretty obvious the Jazz didn’t need to recruit a backup center. It couldn’t have been more obvious that the Jazz needed wing defense and depth, and drafting Azubuike was a misstep, no question about that.

I think drafting Butler was more of a blueprint for the future, thinking about what the Jazz might have needed in a post-Conley world, so I don’t see it as a huge mistake.

But it’s impossible to say whether the Jazz would have been vastly different had they drafted Desmond Bane (or any other player) instead of Azubuike.

Would that have been the only thing that brought the Jazz to the top? I hesitate to say that is true.

I think there were other roster-building issues and shortcomings that led to this Jazz team not working out, and it’s hard for me to imagine a draft pick making a difference in recent years.

Bane is great for the Memphis Grizzlies, but Ja Morant is the biggest piece in that equation and Bane is great because of how all the pieces fit together. It’s possible the Grizzlies will have the same success with another player not named Bane.

I don’t think the only mistake in the draft is the only culprit in the Jazz missing their title shot with this team, but it certainly didn’t help.

There will likely be some light competition between Azubuike and Kessler if the Jazz don’t add another center to the roster.

What’s more important about who gets that starting job is that it will likely indicate who the Jazz are interested in developing at a higher rate.

It’s impossible to predict who will take the biggest step in their development over the next year, but I can tell you who needs to.

This upcoming season is very important to Butler. If the Jazz are completely rebuilding, it will give Butler all the opportunities he needs to become a legitimate NBA player, and if he doesn’t move forward, it would be a very bad sign and have a huge impact on his career. .

Players whose salaries were combined in the Rudy Gobert trade cannot be traded together for two months after the trade, but can be traded individually.

Therefore, the salaries of Patrick Beverley and Jarred Vanderbilt cannot be combined to trade for another player until September 6 (two months after the official trade that brought them to Utah from the Minnesota Timberwolves), but Beverley can be traded individually to any player. equipment on your own. and the same goes for Vanderbilt, Beasley and Leandro Bolmaro.

Having said all that, negotiations and deals are made before they can really be made all the time in the NBA, so technically the Jazz could make a deal in principle that combines the player salaries received in the exchange of Gobert and then just not officially. run the operation until September 6.