The Golden State Warriors explored a move for Jaren Jackson Jr. before February’s mid-season deadline, only to turn their attention to a failed pursuit of Giannis Antetokunmpo as the Utah Jazz swooped on the former Memphis Grizzlies big man.
The Warriors might be fortunate that they avoided a Jackson trade and that their attention was diverted to Antetokounmpo, with the Jazz now facing an obvious problem with the former Defensive Player of the Year as they look to surge up the Western Conference standings.
Jazz face Jaren Jackson Jr. problem Warriors luckily avoided
The Jazz clearly decided that February was the time to strike after years of rebuilding. Following the Jackson acquisition and landing Darryn Peterson second overall at June’s NBA Draft, there’s no doubt Utah are a team to watch as a potential entrance into the playoff picture this season.
But the Jazz aren’t building to just be a playoff team, rather the desire is to obviously end their championship drought. From that perspective, the jury is still out on whether Jackson was the player to send out three first-round picks for to accelerate their rebuild.
When Utah traded for Jackson in February, they inherited the four-year, $205 million contract extension that he now begins this season. That's a lot of money for a player who's never made an All-NBA Team, has two All-Star appearances, and who has quite an underwhelming playoff history through his first eight years.
In today's apron era, teams have to be far more careful with who they give max contracts to. The Jazz didn't give Jackson the extension, but they were clearly comfortable with taking it on. Did it play a role in choosing not to retain Walker Kessler and instead sign-and-trading him to the Los Angeles Lakers this offseason? Most likely.
Jazz have positional logjam heading into this season
The other issue Utah now face is that they have a positional logjam entering the season. Jackson, Peterson, Lauri Markkanen, Keyonte George and Ace Bailey all have a claim to starting, but none of them are traditional centers despite Jackson and Markkanen being considered 'bigs'.
That means we're almost certainly going to see more Jackson minutes at the five this season which could be problematic given his foul-prone nature and lack of rebounding. If Will Hardy and the Jazz can't get the best out of him, that trade and especially the contract is going to start looking very questionable.
The Warriors would have likely faced a similar issue. A Jackson trade would have meant no Kristaps Porzingis deal, equating to Jackson potentially being Golden State's starting five. The more important question is whether it would have led to the Warriors leaping back into championship contention? They may be fortunate that we're never going to find out the answer.
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