From Aaron Gordon to Russell Westbrook, what 5 recent NBA trades can tell us about the value of the Utah Jazz’s future draft picks

Editor’s note: Mark Russell Pereira is a writer for Salt City Hoops. This story is part of a collaboration between SCH and The Tribune that seeks to create more dialogue and community for Utah Jazz fans.

As we move closer to the NBA’s Feb. 10 trade deadline, Utah Jazz fans’ appetite for the team to make a lineup-shaking trade is reaching voracious levels.

However, Utah’s cupboard of future draft picks — the primary assets a championship-contending outfit like the Jazz typically use to pry good players from other, worse teams — is fairly empty. It’s not “moldy ketchup sandwich” bare, but the Jazz are going to need to get creative in order to bring something to the trade deadline potluck. Let’s take a look at what they have, and a little background on how they got there.

How the Jazz got to this point

Utah can’t trade a first-round draft pick until 2026, but even that carries some caveats. The Jazz traded their upcoming 2022 first-rounder as part of the Mike Conley acquisition, and the first-rounder relinquished last summer to dump Derrick Favors’ contract will most likely convey in 2024. The pick owed to Memphis is top-3 protected in 2022, so it is virtually certain to convey this summer. The debt to OKC can be conveyed as early as two years later, but is top-10 protected in 2024. It’s not crazy to imagine that pick being retained if everything goes wrong for Utah between now and 2024, but will probably go to Oklahoma City then. For this exercise, we will assume those picks convey in 2022 and 2024.

If it plays out that way, Utah has its 2023 and 2025 first-round picks, but cannot trade them by virtue of the NBA’s Stepien Rule — no team can be without first-round draft picks in consecutive years. I always love bringing up the history of this rule because it’s hilarious: Ted Stepien, who owned the Cavaliers for just four years in the 1980s, made so many short-sighted trades of the Cavs’ first-round picks that it sunk the Cavs’ future. The NBA responded with this rule, to save the owners from themselves. The Jazz can trade draft picks (in either round) as far out as 2028, but in order to trade their 2028 first-rounder, Utah would need to remove the protection on the 2024 pick owed to OKC or spell out specific conditions in a new trade. For example, if Utah actually falls from grace into a top-10 pick in 2024, then it pushes out the OKC obligation to 2025, and per the Stepien Rule couldn’t trade a first until 2027.

Since 2028 is the last year that a pick can currently be traded, Utah must essentially offer the first-round pick unprotected. This is because the pick can’t be stated to convey in 2029 if any protection comes into play. Utah could offer alternative compensation if the protection hits, but that’s infeasible at the moment: Utah doesn’t have a 2028 second-rounder and “cash” would be an exceedingly unacceptable fallback from “first-round pick.”

And since picks can only be traded seven drafts out, the 2028 would have to be offered unprotected (or the receiving team would have to agree to extinguish that debt or accept alternative compensation if the pick is not conveyed that year).

The Jazz could theoretically acquire additional picks in those drafts to give them more flexibility, but that is unlikely as Utah looks to add rotation players, not future rookie picks. They could also trade the option to swap their first-round picks in 2023 and 2025, but, as a good playoff team, such swaps don’t carry much value. They could also technically offer a team the right to unilaterally defer their acquisition of a Utah draft pick. For example, a Jazz trade partner could receive Utah’s 2026 first-round draft pick, with the option to defer to Utah’s 2027 first-rounder instead. These types of deferrals are rare, and even more unlikely to be given up so far into the future, but any explanation of Utah’s complete draft capital would be incomplete without mentioning its possibility. It’s the cream of tartar in the back of the spice rack that you purchased seven years ago for a single recipe and have since completely forgotten its existence.

Utah’s available second-rounders are pretty thin, too. The Jazz traded away their own second-round picks in — deep inhale — 2022, 2023, 2024, 2027, and 2028 as part of a myriad of salary dumps and the Jae Crowder trade. The Jazz have their own second-rounders in 2025 and 2026 still on hand, but technically can only promise them conditionally since theoretically they would replace the first-rounder in the Memphis deal if it’s not conveyed by 2024. They have negligible value anyway. Finally, Utah is extremely fortunate to have the least favorable of Oklahoma City’s, Houston’s, Indiana’s, or Miami’s second-round picks in 2027.

Which picks can the Utah Jazz still trade?

To sum it up quickly (and ignoring minor caveats), here are the draft assets the Jazz have available to trade:

First Round Picks:

• The Jazz can currently trade a 2026, 2027 or 2028 first-round pick.

• Utah can also trade the option to swap their 2023 and/or 2025 pick selections with a trade partner’s picks in such drafts.

Second Round Picks:

• The Jazz have five negligible-value second-round picks: Memphis’ 2022, their own 2025 and 2026, Memphis’ 2026, and the worst of Oklahoma City’s, Houston’s, Indiana’s, or Miami’s second-round picks in 2027).

What other trades can tell us about pick value

The second-rounders are bad trade garnish, and first-round pick swaps with Utah aren’t enticing, but any of these may serve as tiebreakers if the Jazz are competing with other trade seekers.

So since the only draft assets of real tradeable value are Utah’s far-out first-rounders, what exactly is the value of a distant first-round pick? How is their value affected when protection—even very light protection—is added? Let’s take a look at five recent trades that included similar picks:

2021: Nuggets add Aaron Gordon

To acquire Aaron Gordon from the Orlando Magic, Denver traded its 2025 first-round pick, top-5 protected. (Denver already owes a lottery-protected pick to Oklahoma City in 2023, so this obligation could push out further than 2025 if Denver falls in the lottery over the next few years—not a completely ridiculous possibility.)

The Nuggets also sent R.J. Hampton and Gary Harris to Orlando. At the time, Hampton was the 20th pick in his rookie season, but hadn’t cracked the rotation on a good Nuggets team and hadn’t shown much promise when he did play. Still, Hampton qualified as a young, big guard with real promise who simply hadn’t immediately popped. Gary Harris solely served as salary matching in the trade as a sad case of a wing who was suddenly washed-up (and maybe a little worse, as he had an additional year remaining on his now-bloated deal).

This is the closest analogue we probably have in assessing Utah’s 2026 pick; it occurred so recently (at the 2021 trade deadline), and the pick is nearly identical to Utah’s best available pick—being a few years away and of a team set up to be good in the long term. Denver acquired a flawed, but solidly starter-level, athletic wing. The early returns were fabulous, both statistically and in practice, in the limited time Denver had all of Gordon, Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic and Michael Porter Jr. on the court together.

I’ve seen some folks mention Utah’s Jared Butler (40th pick in last year’s draft) as equal in value to Hampton, but I think that is incorrect. While each player fits the mold of “lead guard with promise who hasn’t shown anything in the NBA,” the two players are separated by 20 selections. Even if one feels that Butler was a steal and drafted too late for his talent profile, the fact is that the 30 NBA teams collectively valued Butler as roughly pick 40, and that value hasn’t changed from the wider league’s perspective. Strictly asset-value speaking, Hampton was probably be valued a full tier above what Butler would be considered today.

In short, Denver needed to attach a viable, worthy first-round prospect to their far-future pick to acquire a starter-level, sub-All Star wing.

2015: Heat get Goran Dragic

We’re diving a little deeper into Trade Deadlines of Yore for this example, but this is a good trade that shows the return of slamming a six-years-away, unprotected first-round pick onto the table.

Goran Dragic was a year removed from a stellar season that normally earns an All-Star selection, but the Western Conference had a glut of backcourt stars that kept him out. Hilariously, the Phoenix Suns rewarded Dragic’s great season by adding Isaiah Thomas in the offseason to cut into the minutes of Dragic and fellow excellent guard Eric Bledsoe, resulting in dismal performances from all three ballhandlers to start the year. Dragic promptly demanded a trade, but his value was still high; he was rightfully sought after by competing contenders. However, Dragic was on an expiring contract, due for a big free-agent contract in the following offseason, and he made it known which teams he would or would not re-sign with. This depressed the number of teams willing to make an offer to Phoenix for Dragic.

The Miami Heat’s offer ended up winning out, sending a top-7 protected 2018 first-round draft pick and an unprotected 2021 first-rounder (plus salary flotsam) to Phoenix for Dragic. 2021 was six years away, and Miami was already dealing with the twilight of Dwyane Wade’s career. Miami’s prospects in 2021 were in no way promising in either direction, and yet its distance from the time of the trade meant that Miami had to add a second, high draft pick to get a starter-level player that was a free agent in four months. It’s a very close corollary to what Utah would have available on the market if they offered up their distant picks completely unprotected — an extraordinarily risky proposition.

2019: Rockets land Russell Westbrook

Certainly a hilarious trade to reflect on in 2022, as now-Laker Russell Westbrook has seen his efficiency — and utility — crater every year since 2019, and then-Rocket Chris Paul has evolved into a token MVP vote-receiver who just led his Phoenix Suns to the NBA Finals. But, at the time, the Rockets (and many others) viewed Westbrook as a tier above the oft-injured and older Paul, to the tune that Houston sent Oklahoma City two first-round picks (2024 and 2026, each protected 1-4) and two pick swaps (2021 and 2025) to land the arguably inferior player.

To be fair, the two players weren’t that much different at the time, and Houston was ostensibly just paying for a higher ceiling out of their point guard position, and plausibly a healthier and longer tail of production. It was very difficult at the time to foresee Paul playing this consistently until 36 — even the thought of Paul opting out of his final year of his contract was considered ludicrous.

This isn’t meant to be a re-litigation of that trade, though. Since this trade involves several bits of draft compensation, it’s harder to isolate the value of a single pick or swap. However, if you can put your 2019 goggles on, you can see that the Rockets had to cobble together several far-out draft assets just to upgrade from “legendary starter and reliable playoff performer with injury and age concerns” to “flawed All-Star capable of occasional MVP-level performance.” That’s a relatively minor—but not insignificant—jump, and it still cost two first-round picks (and swaps) since the picks were nowhere close to vesting. This is the exact issue the Jazz face if they want to make a substantive, juicy upgrade to their core rotation, as opposed to a fringe improvement.

2019: Heat bring in Jimmy Butler

This one is more complicated as far as assets and teams involved, but if we break it down to its core components we can get a clear value of the draft pick involved. Miami acquired Jimmy Butler from Philadelphia, and sent out a slew of assets to Portland, the LA Clippers and, of course, the Sixers. Butler was a free agency due for a massive new contract, so Philly was fortunate to receive the young and promising Josh Richardson from Miami to facilitate the sign-and-trade.

Miami had to work some cap machinations to legally acquire Butler, though, and called up Portland and LA to help. Portland grabbed an expensive, but useful center in Hassan Whiteside (and still was able to ship disappointing Meyers Leonard to the Heat).

The Clippers were days away from landing Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, but at that point were happy to grease some trade wheels that wouldn’t affect their pursuit of those stars. In order to clear Moe Harkless’ contract off Miami’s books, at the time a reasonable ~$11 million, the Heat sent a 2023 lottery-protected first-round pick to the Clippers.

That this was a sign-and-trade depresses what we think of Butler’s value as a star player in a trade. Miami was really trading for the opportunity to sign Butler in free agency. Richardson was the real prize for getting Philly to play ball, and the opportunity to acquire Butler at all was worth spending a relatively weak first-round pick to clear some cap. The Clippers may have had Miami over a barrel a little in this respect, but the 2023 pick was not considered an untouchable asset. That it was lottery-protected means the pick was probably considered equivalent to a decent 2nd round pick that vested sooner.

2019: Warriors offload Andre Iguodala

After Kevin Durant left, the Golden State Warriors were faced with a necessary pivot to save money and make the double sign-and-trade with the Brooklyn Nets for D’Angelo Russell work. The salary cap casualty was Andre Iguodala, a still-useful player set to make $17.1 million in 2019-2020. By trading Iguodala, and then working out a later trade of D’Angelo Russell, the Warriors were also able to barely duck the luxury tax. Not paying the luxury tax was an extremely valuable proposition for the Warriors, who delayed repeater penalties as a result. The price to get the Memphis Grizzlies to take on Iguodala’s salary (and, hilariously, never ask him to actually play basketball), was a 2024 first-round pick (top-4 protected).

It’s one of the most significant salary dumps in recent memory, but it’s still just a salary dump. Iguodala still had marginal utility as a back-end rotation piece. In any event, as the Jazz seek to add talent, it’s worth noting that an equivalent first-round pick is little more than a thank you card to a team willing to take on your bad salary. If that pick were a player, Memphis wouldn’t exactly be asking for a star youngster in order to digest the Iguodala contract.

So, we can see that a first-round pick that vests several years in the future still has real value in a trade, but it is not a blue-chip asset on its own. Teams have to give a little “more” to make a trade for a quality player. The above examples show that combining two good, not great, assets with modest-to-high ceilings can put a team into the market for a starter, but that also depends on the competition of other trade partners.

It is extremely reckless to trade a first-round pick in 2026 or beyond with no protections, and I don’t think Danny Ainge/Justin Zanik are reckless. It’s likely, then, that Utah would at least attach top-4 protection to keep Utah in the running for the premium draft picks in those years. Such a pick looks to have the rough equivalent of a very late first-round pick for this year’s draft, which makes sense factoring in the present value of the pick.

As you add more protection, that value probably craters to a mid-tier second-round pick this offseason. Again, a useful asset, but not an attractive prospect to the acquiring team, and likely not competitive with other teams looking to trade for the same targets as the Jazz. Spilling the 2026 and 2028 picks unprotected could very well get Utah in the market for a borderline All-Star, but there aren’t any indications such players (like Bradley Beal) are available for a trade, and the trade targets that are a tier below (like Jerami Grant or Harrison Barnes) are probably not worth the risk of surrendering first round picks with no protection at all.

The other consideration working against the Jazz is that opposing general managers need to feel secure in their roles to feel confident they’ll be around in 2026 and beyond to actually see through the selection of these far-future draft picks. A general manager who feels like they are on the hot seat will not be keen to trade a good player for a pick they are unlikely to draft themselves—they will prefer immediate draft assets to exercise now and improve their organizational standing. This doesn’t close off these teams as trade partners entirely, but there are plenty of team decision-makers with tenuous job security that weaken the value of long-term Utah picks on the overall market.

The Jazz have precious few draft assets to wield in a trade. Here’s to hoping they are used wisely in this ever-closing championship window.