It is time for the Jazz to trade for some distressed assets

It is a late October night and the Utah Jazz are in Salt Lake City for their 2024 home opener. The crowd inside the Delta Center is energized. There is a palpable buzz. NBA basketball is back.

And then the player intros begin.

Who takes the floor that night for the Jazz? Will Lauri Markkanen hear his named called? What about Keyonte George? Taylor Hendricks? Walker Kessler? Jordan Clarkson? John Collins?

Or maybe its Andrew Wiggins? What about De’Andre Hunter? Tyler Herro? Kevin Huerter?

Yes, that’s right. It is time to talk potential Jazz trade targets.

This article won’t be a discussion of All-Star or All-NBA targets, simply because few of those types of players are available at this point in the offseason cycle, and if they are they will only be had for an exorbitant price.

After all, the New York Knicks were only able to pry Mikal Bridges from Brooklyn for … Bojan Bogdanovic and FIVE first-round picks.

Could the Jazz overwhelm a team with a great trade offer? Sure, but given Danny Ainge’s track record in Boston and now Utah that doesn’t seem all that likely.

No, the trades that the Jazz will most likely pursue this offseason will be for distressed assets — players who have either shown good-to-great potential and failed to capitalize or maintain momentum and/or players who haven’t shown much more than potential but the Jazz believe they can get them to fulfill their promise.

Why these targets? Well they’ll be cheaper to acquire — in theory — and if they turn out, those players then could be prime fodder for an All-Star level trade later on. Think Isaiah Thomas becoming Kyrie Irving for Boston.

Utah tried a trade like this last year, in fact, when it acquired John Collins from Atlanta for Rudy Gay and a future second-round pick.

That trade didn’t exactly work out for the Jazz — Collins didn’t rehabilitate his image nor improve his value across the league — but this was exactly the kind of trade a team in the middle of a rebuild and without a true No. 1 star should pursue.

So without further ado, here are some players the Jazz should try to acquire this offseason, if only to move on from them in a year or two.

Deandre Ayton

The collective meh let out by everyone reading this has been heard and recognized.

Deandre Ayton? Really?

The answer is yes. He is quite clearly a distressed asset who still has unique potential.

After a year in Portland, the former No. 1 pick’s value has never been lower. Sure the Trail Blazers say they are interested in how Ayton looks with their young core going forward, but the team just drafted Donovan Clingan out of UConn and Ayton is owed $34 million in each of the next two seasons.

Try to extend him and the Trail Blazers are potentially looking at paying Ayton upwards of $50 million by 2026-27.

From the Jazz’s perspective, though, Ayton has to be intriguing. For one, he is only 25 (he turns 26 this month) and is a legitimate 7-footer in a league that is trending toward size and lots of it — at least until the next Steph Curry shows up.

There’s also the fact that Ayton has shown capable in his young career, when he was with Phoenix early on.

Would the Jazz be able to turn Ayton into a punishing rim running center? Probably not. He clearly hasn’t been willing to be that player in his career.

But could a year or two in Salt Lake City make Ayton look like a promising walking double-double again, rather than an empty stats player? There is reason to hope that.

Plus, his rim protection would be valuable to a Jazz team that was abysmal defensively last season and will probably be even worse going forward.

Help Ayton develop even a passable corner 3 and all of a sudden he looks unicorn-ish, and teams are going to be willing to pay through the nose for unicorns, especially as players such as Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren develop further.

There is a reason six centers were taken in the first round of the 2024 NBA draft, and of those at least four, but arguably five, either have or are expected (maybe hoped) to develop a 3-point shot.

If all else fails, Ayton will be an expiring contract after this upcoming season, and with the recent changes to the collective bargaining agreement, expiring contracts are going to have value that they haven’t had for the last five years or so.

“Want to get under the second apron?” the Jazz can ask opposing teams. Give us a player making $34 million who has multiple years left on their contact, plus a pick for our time and effort, and you can get Ayton and his expiring contract and swiftly be back on your way to being able to build a team again.

Would the acquisition of Ayton hurt the development of Walker Kessler and/or Kyle Filipowski? It’s possible, but it is also possible that the Jazz would have to trade one of those players to acquire Ayton and/or give up a draft asset, but the potential return on Ayton would make it tempting.

De’Andre Hunter

There was a time not too long ago when De’Andre Hunter was viewed as a core piece of the Atlanta Hawks and a burgeoning star at the league’s most important position.

Listed at 6-foot-8, 220-plus pounds, Hunter was a high lottery pick (No. 4 in the 2019 draft) for a reason, boasting tantalizing potential on the wing.

And at only 26 years old, he has gotten better — statistically — every year he has been in the NBA, shooting a career-best from 3-point range last season at 39%, while averaging 15.6 points per game.

Yet, Hunter no longer looks like a star in the making, at least in Atlanta. Despite teasing All-Star potential at times, he hasn’t taken that leap in four years in the NBA. He hasn’t really taken any sort of leap, though he has been a solid NBA player.

According to multiple reports both at last season’s trade deadline and this summer, Hunter is available to be acquired, with really only 22-year-old forward Jalen Johnson an “untouchable” for the Hawks.

Throw in Atlanta’s selection of Zaccharie Risacher with the No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft and Hunter looks ready to be had and the Jazz have the assets to make the move.

Hunter is the best of both worlds type of distressed asset acquisition for the Jazz. For one, he fits alongside Lauri Markkanen very well and fills a position of need for Utah, which lacks serviceable wings.

If Utah can get him to reach even a little of his potential, the Jazz would have to be thrilled. An All-Star level wing next to Markkanen would be frightening, particularly one with the defensive potential of Hunter.

With three years left on his current contract — which will pay him a total of $70 million — Hunter is locked up on a solid deal, one that will only get better and better with time.

If Hunter is who he is, and no further development happens in Utah, he would still be an excellent addition. Wings of the 3-and-D variety are extremely valuable in the NBA, and if Hunter tops out as a solid-to-good one he will still be worth a significant haul on the trade market. Look no further than what New York gave up for Bridges.

Hunter won’t come cheap, to be fair. The Jazz would probably have to take on another player and contract that they wouldn’t want to — maybe a Clint Capela — and Atlanta almost surely would want significant draft capital and/or a promising young player in return, too.

It is worth that sort of risk though, as Hunter has the potential be an All-Star caliber wing in Utah, and if that doesn’t work out he will still have real value later.

Hunter has long-term potential in Utah, but could also be included in a package for a true No. 1 option. He is the type of acquisition that Utah and Ainge would be able to do a lot with.

Kevin Huerter

Huerter is similar in some ways to Hunter, his former Hawks teammate.

An intriguing wing — Huerter is listed at 6-foot-7, 190 pounds — who is still only 25 years old, he is the type of player that many NBA teams covet.

Huerter isn’t close to the defender that Hunter is, but as a scorer/shooter he is proven at the NBA level. He is a distressed asset largely based on this past season in Sacramento, where he shot the worst percentage of his career from behind the arc (36%) while also attempting the fewest 3s per game since his rookie season.

He shot only 44% from the field overall, a step back from the previous two seasons, and struggled to stay on the floor, appearing in only 64 games.

The onetime clear starting shooting guard for the Kings, Huerter’s hold on that appears to be all but gone after Sacramento acquired DeMar DeRozan over the weekend.

With only two years left on his contract, which pays him $16 million this upcoming season and $17 million the next, Huerter isn’t expensive, and with his frame represents an intriguing wing prospect still.

Huerter’s most significant weakness is defense, and while he probably won’t ever be a good one-on-one defender, if he can become a solid team defender his value would improve dramatically, as there is little concern about his scoring ability, even with the dip in productivity last season.

Why should the Jazz make the move?

As mentioned with Hunter, Utah has a hole on the wing. Plug Huerter into that role temporarily and there is a good chance that he becomes as prolific a scorer as he’s ever been in his career, and if the Jazz improve at all on the defense end with Huerter in the lineup, his ability to start for any number of NBA teams becomes more and more real. Give him the chance to show off some playmaking chops and Huerter becomes even more intriguing.

Will Huerter ever approach All-Star potential? Probably not, but have a good season or two in Utah and he can prove himself a starting caliber shooting guard again, exactly the kind of player that an Eastern Conference team hoping for quick improvement — think Detroit, Charlotte, or Washington — may be willing to acquire in a couple of years in exchange for a young prospect or draft pick who ultimately is more intriguing for the Jazz long term.

Huerter doesn’t have as much boom or bust potential as an acquisition as Ayton or Hunter, but he is the type of player to buy low on now in hopes that you can sell high later.

Tyler Herro

This name is likely to engender a similar reaction to that of Ayton, and it makes sense as to why.

Herro has been tied to Utah for a while now — be it when Donovan Mitchell was on the trade market and now with the noise surrounding interest in Markkanen as the primary asset Utah would get in either trade — and on that basis he was not worth it for the Jazz to acquire.

Acquired on his own, though, and not as part of a superstar trade, Herro to Utah actually would make a lot of sense — short term or long term.

The 24-year-old — listed at 6-foot-5 — has three years left on his current contract and is slated to make between $29 million and $33 million each of those years.

He is, pretty inarguably, one of the best shooters in the NBA. Last season he attempted eight 3s per contest and made 40% of them. He shot 86% from the free-throw line, and the year before that he led the NBA in free throw percentage at 93%.

It isn’t just his shooting, though. Herro has improved as a playmaker every year he’s been in the NBA, handing out a career-best 4.5 assists per game last season, and he’s proven a solid rebounder for a guard as well, regularly grabbing four to five rebounds every night.

The two glaring deficiencies in his game are efficiency (he shoots a lot of midrange jump shots) and defense.

Defense, as of right now, is clearly not a priority for the Jazz, which would allow Herro time to develop into an adequate team defender. With his size, adequate seems reasonable, too.

As for efficiency, Herro has too often in his career been tasked as the primary option offensively in Miami when he is clearly suited to be a secondary scorer and playmaker.

With the Jazz, Herro would slot in behind Markkanen in the pecking order as a scorer and wouldn’t be the primary ball handler/playmaker with Keyonte George and Isaiah Collier now on the roster at point guard.

That would allow Herro to settle in as a secondary playmaker, which he is well-suited to do, and the scoring burden would be off him. The result — hopefully for the Jazz — being improvement in efficiency.

If Herro improves as a defender, becoming league average, all of a sudden he’s viewed as one of the better shooting guards in the NBA.

If he improves his efficiency he’s arguably a top-10 shooting guard, and if he can improve his playmaking further on top of all that, there is a real argument that Herro has the potential to be one of the best shooting guards in the league.

Potential is the reason to acquire Herro. In a couple of years, his contract won’t appear nearly as onerous, and if he develops at all in Utah his value would be significant for teams across the league.

While he likely won’t ever be a superstar, an All-Star appearance or two isn’t out of the question for Herro, and as proven many times in league history, even a one- or two-time All-Star in his prime is worth a pretty penny on the trade market.

Even if everything goes wrong with Herro, there is still reason for optimism. His contract is large enough to be a significant trade chip when it is expiring, and he will still be in his mid-20s at that point, a proven scorer in the NBA.

Also, he’s struggled with injuries, meaning if he misses time, the Jazz’s draft odds will only improve, and if he plays he likely doesn’t impact winning enough unless he takes a significant leap.

Throw in the fact that the Heat wouldn’t want Utah’s prospects or draft picks, but probably an immediate contributor like Collin Sexton or John Collins, and there are plenty of positives when it comes to acquiring Herro.

Why take the risk?

There are plenty of other distressed assets around the NBA currently, and some the Jazz probably could look into. Others, though, it seems best to avoid, players such as D’Angelo Russell and Andrew Wiggins.

Russell, it seems, is what he is at this point — an inconsistent scorer who rarely affects winning in a positive way. Wiggins, meanwhile, has proven himself a vital part of a championship team, but the former No. 1 pick has been too inconsistent for any team to be willing to take a real chance on him again.

For every Isaiah Thomas, there are many more John Collins’ on the rehabilitation market, but with where the Jazz are in their rebuild, taking a risk or two is exactly what is needed, especially with the team being unable to fully tank and secure a top pick in either of the last two drafts.

Currently, Utah is one of just two teams in the league that is below the minimum floor in salary that must be reached, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Utah is $16.5 million below the $126.5 million floor).

An extension for Markkanen would solve that, but right now the Jazz have the flexibility and opportunity to be creative, maybe by trading for a player they can flip in a few years for someone much better.