The Utah Jazz, Pick Swaps, and How to Rebuild a Contender

Back when I was in college, I spent a summer working at a brokerage firm that specialized in futures and options.  In my first week I had to learn all about those investments and pass the Series 3 exam so that I could legally participate in whatever the firm was doing, like speculating about the price of oil and telling everyone it was bound to plummet, or maybe skyrocket, I forget which.

I remember almost none of what I learned back then.  One thing I do recall, however, is that an option is “in the money” when there’s a benefit to exercising it—when it allows you to buy something for less than it’s worth or sell something for more than it’s worth [buy low! sell high!]—and “out of the money” otherwise.

What does that have to do with Utah’s ongoing rebuilding efforts?  A lot, actually.  Like most teams in their situation, the Jazz are largely focused on acquiring draft assets, including both draft picks and the right to swap draft picks (“pick swaps”), in return for their stars and veteran role players. 

A pick swap is essentially an option.  It’s worth exercising, or “in the money,” if the pick you have the right to take from another team is better than the pick you’d be sending back. 

As a general rule, the expected value of each pick swap is very low.  The team trading away an All-NBA player, All-Star, or even a solid starter or 6^th man for draft assets typically projects to be out of the playoffs and drafting in the lottery for at least a few years, whereas the team getting any of those players is usually a playoff team—perhaps a title contender—with a pick projected somewhere in the 20-30 range.

As a result, most pick swaps aren’t exercised.  They project to be “out of the money,” often by a significant margin.  A recent analysis found that 60% of pick swaps have been entirely worthless and never conveyed, with upcoming swaps likely to bring that number higher. 

For example, in the 2023 draft OKC has the right to swap picks with the Clippers as a result of trading away Paul George three years ago.  By the odds I’ve seen, the Clippers were initially pegged to win 27 more games than OKC this year (52.5 vs 25.5 O/U), and that spread has grown larger following the news of Chet Holmgren’s season-ending foot injury.  There is almost no chance that OKC will be swapping those picks.

In contrast, the Jazz have a unique opportunity.  Thanks to the Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell, and Royce O’Neale trades, Utah already has a large collection of picks from other teams that are expected to land toward the bottom of the first round, and those picks can be swapped just as easily as Utah’s own first rounders. 

The Jazz can therefore generate some significant expected value by obtaining the option to swap picks in 2023, 2025, 2027, or 2029—all years when they have 3 first round picks at their disposal.  Those swaps would be far more likely than most to land “in the money” and be worth exercising.

While one or two of those swaps may amount to nothing, I think the Jazz would be wise to prioritize lightly-protected pick swaps over heavily-protected or otherwise very late first rounders (i.e., what trading a good role player typically gets you) given their situation. 

That maximizes the chances of Utah landing lottery picks, and especially high-lottery picks, which is what they really want as a rebuilding team—even though they’ll gain fewer picks this way. 

To illustrate why Utah should prioritize quality over quantity in the draft at this point in the rebuild, let’s turn back to OKC.  The Thunder have hoarded picks, and lately it’s become particularly evident that this strategy is likely to bleed value on the back end because the NBA’s 15-man roster limit remains the same regardless of whether you have 5 picks in the draft or zero.  You can’t keep using 4-5 picks per draft for long before you face severely diminishing returns or it becomes counterproductive.

This summer OKC wound up (i) dealing 3 protected first rounders for a single pick that wasn’t even in the top 10, (ii) giving up a late 1^st rounder in this draft plus taking on a bunch of dead money for a protected future pick likely to also end up in the latter part of the first round, and (iii) waiving Isaiah Roby to make roster space despite Roby being a cheap and fairly promising 24-year-old stretch 4/5.  Though sub-optimal, each of those moves is defensible given the roster crunch and the fact that no amount of late first rounders and second rounders can be traded for a high-lottery pick or foundational player.

Pick swaps alleviate the roster crunch issue by delivering better picks as opposed to more picks.  You’d still rather have the pick outright all else being equal, but by replacing the pick with a couple swaps you can offer much more upside to both parties. 

The benefits to the team trading away pick swaps are three-fold:

1. No net loss of picks
2. The swaps may result in little to nothing actually given up, and it’s largely within your control by being good (as opposed to the perverse incentive to tank associated with giving up protected picks)
3. It affords you far more flexibility than trading away a pick, especially a protected pick

That third point is why I think pick swaps will continue to become more prevalent.  Let’s say you deal a lottery-protected pick in 2023, becoming top-12 protected in 2024, then top-10 in 2025 and top-8 in 2026, otherwise converting to 2^nd rounders in 2026 and 2027—a fairly common type of trade these days.  You’re then hamstrung in being able to make further trades due to the Stepien Rule, which prohibits dealing yourself out of the 1^st round of consecutive future drafts.  You can’t trade a 1^st rounder outright until 2028, and combined with the conditional 2^nd rounders, that’s 7 picks you can’t trade just because you dealt a single protected pick.

In contrast, you can trade your first rounder the year before or year after you gave up swap rights.  You can even trade your first rounder THE SAME YEAR you gave up swap rights, with the understanding that the pick you’re giving up will be the lesser of your own pick and the pick that can be swapped for it.

For a team that either has already traded away first round picks or one that’s trying to maintain the flexibility to deal those picks in order to pull off something bigger, pick swaps are especially useful.

Without further ado, here are some deals involving pick swaps that I’d be looking to make in Utah’s position:

(1) Jordan Clarkson to the Sacramento Kings for Richaun Holmes and pick swaps in 2023 and 2025

Following the Sabonis/Haliburton trade, the Kings played Sabonis exclusively at center and relegated Holmes to a low-minute bench role.  Holmes has been an averageish starter for a few years and has a reasonable contract, but center is the deepest position in the league and the Kings have plenty of adequate backups.  They’re looking to deal him as a result, and they’ve been mentioned among the teams interested in Jordan Clarkson.

Embed from Getty Images

Clarkson appears to be the most in-demand of Utah’s veteran role players because he’s very good in his sparkplug 6^th man role and his salary is much easier to match than Conley or Bogdanovic.  I’m sure the Jazz could get a first rounder from a contender, but I think they’d be better off with a couple odd-year swaps from a middling team instead. 

I have to believe that any 2023 swap would be at least top-2 protected because no team wants to face the possibility of losing Victor Wembanyama or Scoot Henderson in exchange for a 30-year-old role player, but I think that the Kings would agree to very light protections here (top-2? top-4?) as they make a concerted playoff push. If either of the swaps falls into the protected range, then the Kings would add an unprotected 2027 swap. 

(2) Bojan Bogdanovic to the New York Knicks for Evan Fournier, Utah’s 2024 2^nd rounder [previously traded to NYK], and pick swaps in 2023 and 2025

We all know that the Donovan Mitchell trade talks with the Knicks fell through after endless speculation that the deal was bound to happen, yet the Knicks are still often mentioned as a suitor for Bogdanovic.  They could use his outside shooting in a frontcourt rotation that is very much lacking in that regard.

Fournier never seemed to fit well last year, and the Knicks would also prefer Bojan’s short-term contract as they try to position themselves for a mid-season trade or free agency next summer.

I think there’s somewhat less of a market for Bojanovic than Clarkson because his larger cap figure ($19.6M versus $13.3M) makes salary matching more of a challenge, so let’s say that the Knicks’ pick swaps are top-5 protected and remain top-5 protected in 2027 and 2029, as applicable, if any fall into the protected range and a replacement swap needs to be added. 

The Jazz can expect to be bad for at least the next 2 years, giving them all the more reason to want their 2024 2^nd round pick back.  High second-round picks tend to have a decent chance of sticking in the league.  Utah also currently only has 1 pick in the 2024 draft, which could conceivably be the draft where the entry age drops from 19 to 18 and the draft pool is larger.

It also makes a lot of sense to combine these two trades:

Utah would then receive the 3 most favorable picks out of (i) their own, NYK, SAC, MIN, and PHI (or BRK if lower) in 2023 and (ii) their own, NYK, SAC, MIN, and CLE in 2025, with the Knicks receiving the 4^th best pick and the Kings receiving the least favorable pick.  The Jazz can also send Leandro Bolmaro to either the Kings or Knicks, as they each have an open roster spot for him and Utah doesn’t.  Either team can add him while keeping the trade legal.

(3) Mike Conley and Rudy Gay to the Los Angeles Clippers for Marcus Morris, Reggie Jackson, and pick swaps in 2027 and 2029

I doubt there are many teams interested in Conley due to his age and salary, though the Clippers are an obvious match.  They want to win NOW, and they don’t have a point guard on the roster who’s a reliable shooter or starting-caliber player at this stage in his career.  Conley fills that void.

In each of the past 2 seasons, Conley has hit 40%+ from 3 on high volume, to go along with a 3:1 AST/TO ratio and roughly 7 assists per 36 minutes.  Statistically he remains a top-10 point guard or close to it, whereas Reggie Jackson was woefully inefficient last year and John Wall has missed 2 of the last 3 seasons and wasn’t near Conley’s level the year that he played.

I view the Marcus Morris for Rudy Gay part of the trade to be a mild positive for the Clippers as well.  With Kawhi Leonard expected to be healthy entering the season, there shouldn’t be many guaranteed minutes for Morris despite him starting every game last year.  He should be behind not only Kawhi but also Paul George and probably each of Robert Covington, Terance Mann, and Nic Batum in the battle for minutes at forward.  His volume scoring is less important in lineups alongside Kawhi, Paul George, and Norman Powell, and he offers less in other areas of the game than the alternatives while being paid the most, with $33.5M guaranteed over the next 2 years.

Rudy Gay has more utility as a small-ball center than Morris.  He has longer arms and is a superior rebounder and rim protector, while spacing the floor in much the same way.  Most of the advanced stats peg Rudy Gay as the better player overall, contributing to the assessment that the Clippers would benefit on both ends and gain several wins from the deal.

The Clippers don’t have any 1^st round picks to trade or swap until 2027.  They owe the Thunder their 1^st rounders in 2024 and 2026 plus swap rights in 2023 and 2025, but that isn’t much of a concern for the Jazz. 

Utah can get pick swaps in 2027 and 2029, leaving the Clippers the ability to deal their 2028 pick to add one more piece at the deadline if need be. 

Those swaps could be quite valuable, and in my opinion are much more likely to convey than the 2026 Wolves swap or the 2028 Cavs swap that the Jazz received in their prior deals.  While the Clippers are a legitimate contender if healthy, they’re also one of the league’s oldest teams.  Both of their stars are in their 30s and have had persistent injury concerns, making it well within the realm of possibility that the Clippers will be a lottery team a handful of seasons from now.  In contrast, the Cavs and Wolves have multiple young stars who are under team control through those swap years.

The key for Utah is increasing the pathways to getting top picks, or to borrow another term from the finance world, it’s diversification.  They want to control the future picks of as many teams as possible, increasing the likelihood that one or two of them will bottom out and give the Jazz the lottery picks they covet.  They don’t care if those top picks come from the Wolves, Cavs, or some third, fourth, or fifth team. 

If the Jazz really want to commit to this strategy, they could put their young role players on the block as well and deal Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley to Miami for Duncan Robinson, an unprotected 2028 pick, and swap rights in 2027 and/or 2029.  Following the loss of PJ Tucker, Miami doesn’t have a natural power forward on the roster unless you count Udonis Haslem (and you shouldn’t).  Vanderbilt and Beasley would be fun additions that could put the Heat over the top, with the added quirk that it would be the third time they’ve been traded together.  Miami has been rumored to have Duncan Robinson and his large long-term contract on the block for months now.

Then the Jazz would control multiple unprotected or lightly protected picks, including swap rights, from up to six different teams other than themselves: the Wolves, Cavs, Kings, Knicks, Clippers, and Heat. 

And those draft picks will supplement whatever high lottery picks the Jazz get from their own performance in the aftermath of this summer’s tear down, which can’t be overlooked.  After trading away both their stars and their best role players, the Jazz should have about as good a chance as any team at landing a franchise cornerstone with their own pick in the near future. 

You put together all those pathways to getting top picks, and that’s how the Jazz are most likely to find the players they need to become a real championship contender.