That’s an incredibly long time in today’s NBA. Players who can hold those stats — being the best player on a team in the last six years or the best for seven of the last eight — are Denver’s Nikola Jokic, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Portland’s Damian Lillard and , respectively, Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony. Cities. Additionally, Utah’s Gobert. The first two are both two-time league MVPs, legitimate homegrown greats of the game. But the bottom three teams finally decided this season that it had been nearly a decade of trying and failing, and it was time for big changes. It’s probably no coincidence, either, that all three teams shuffled their front offices right before making their franchise-altering deals. Portland GM Neil Olshey fired, replaced by Joe Cronin. Minnesota replaced Gerson Rosas with Tim Connelly. Utah sent Dennis Lindsey packing and hired Danny Ainge over Justin Zanik. Sometimes, it takes new perspective to realize that the old way isn’t working. Minnesota sacrificed long-term assets to have a win-now window. Utah, having found that a supposed win-now window wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and having found that such windows are closing at an alarming rate, figured it would acquire these long-term assets while the acquisition was still good. And make no mistake: the window for a Gobert trade was closing. He just turned 30 last weekend. After three consecutive All-NBA nods, he fell to the league’s fourth-best center last year. And, more importantly, he’s just making a huge amount of money moving forward: $38.1 million in 2022-23, $41 million in 2023-24, $43.8 million in 2024-25 and $46.6 million in 2025- 2026. The salary cap will continue to rise, too, but there’s reason to worry that Gobert won’t be the same player when he’s 34, at a huge cost. (Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert (27) blocks Detroit Pistons guard Cassius Stanley (2) on his way to the basket in NBA action between the Utah Jazz and Detroit Pistons at Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake. City, Friday, January 21, 2022. Gobert is really awesome. He wanted, more than any player in the last 20 years of the Jazz, to win a title in Utah. It’s a walking defensive system, and far more important offensively than the casual fan realizes. He is also the league’s most prolific rebounder. However, what the Jazz had was not working and would never work. This was the right conclusion for Ange and company. But just dropping Gobert doesn’t really help. Return is important here. Make no mistake: The Jazz did not have a center player in this deal. There are no young players waiting for a contract extension here. There is no equivalent to what Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was in Paul George’s deal with LA. But there are legitimate ones 10 useful, valuable assets the Jazz get in this trade. Ten! • Malik Beasley scored 20 points per game in a handful of games after the Wolves acquired him at the deadline in 2020, then posted 19.6 PPG in 2020-21. He then went to literal prison in the offseason, serving 78 days after pleading guilty to a charge of threatening violence. He shot 45 percent from three after the All-Star break. He’s only 25. Could he help the Jazz as a shooter? You make a bet. Could the Jazz restore his value by playing him again as a more offensive focal point? There is a possibility of that too. • Patrick Beverley is downright underwhelming when he’s on the floor, making insane positive energy plays defensively and fouling at essentially the same rate … but that’s a skill set that, frankly, the Jazz could have used in recent years. Could they keep him? Sure. Could they trade him to the next team desperate for perimeter defensive toughness? For sure. • Jared Vanderbilt started nearly every game last year for the Minnesota Timberwolves who reached the playoffs as a 22-year-old. He was one of the best power-forward rebounders in the league. Then he combined that with legitimate stopper-level defense against the league’s top perimeter players: Guard LeBron James and Steph Curry. He can’t do much more than dunk on offense, not yet. Could you see if Will Hardy and his development staff can push him to new heights? Of course. Could you move him to any team in need of a young defensive wing? It would be absolutely worth it. (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) LA Clippers guard Patrick Beverley (21) reacts after being called for a personal foul during second round playoff action in Game 2 between the Utah Jazz and the LA Clippers at Vivint Arena , on Thursday, June 10, 2021. • Walker Kessler was named the best defensive player in college basketball last year. He’s a rim protector, a roll to the center of the rim, but with more mobility than these guys typically have in college. Sound familiar? Yes, he’ll be worse at it than Gobert, but he’s a rookie on a small contract for the next four seasons. Could the Jazz keep him as their Gobert-lite of the future? Yes. Could they choose to play a different style of defense and move him to another team that wants a big drop? For sure. • Leandro Bolmaro is a 2020 draft pick who didn’t play in the NBA until last season — but showed some things in his rookie NBA season. He reminds me a bit of Joe Ingles without the jump shot: He’s a great pick-and-roll playmaker with terrific vision at 6-foot-6, and also a tenacious, disruptive defender who gives it his all. But that ‘no jumping’ part is obviously the key. If the 21-year-old develops it, he will be one of the best players in the league. Without it, they will be on the sidelines. Could Jazz teach him? Maybe. Could they let some other team know? Of course. There are five interesting players there. Are they world conquerors? No. But four of them are young to very young and at some level promising. The other, Beverley, is known in court. Everything is highly mobile if the Jazz so choose. Next, we come to the design options. Three of the picks the Jazz get are completely unprotected: 2023, 2025 and 2027. The 2029 first-round pick they get is protected, but only for the top five. Finally, they have the option to trade draft picks in 2026. Will Wolves be really good next year? I’d bet on it. But the time period between 2022 and 2029 is just one Really long time for any number of disasters to befall the Wolves. Any or all of KAT, Gobert or Anthony Edwards could get hurt. Anyone can dislike Minnesota. Anyone could get upset with each other. Anyone can age or grow or decline in unexpected ways. It’s not like the Wolves are playing in Miami or Los Angeles, who can quickly rebound through free agency if problems arise. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the NBA, it’s to expect the unexpected. And when the unexpected happens at any time during the next seven years in Minnesota, the Jazz will benefit greatly. Even if for some reason the entropy doesn’t kick in, they’ll take five more swings at cheap, young, late-first-round upside — you know, the kind of swing that got them Gobert. Overnight, the Jazz went from having one of the NBA’s smallest chests of promising future assets to one of its largest. Yes, it cost them their talismanic center, the defining player of a decade of Jazz basketball. But because of this movement, much more is possible for the next decade.
