It has been nearly a week since the news broke that the Utah Jazz were trading All-NBA center Rudy Gobert to the Minnesota Timberwolves
That trade became official Wednesday — the Jazz’s trade of Royce O’Neale to the Brooklyn Nets was official on June 30 — and since then it has been quiet.
That hasn’t prevented speculation that the Jazz will look to make additional trades, though.
On the July 4 edition of The Lowe Post podcast, ESPN’s Zach Lowe and Tim Bontemps suggested that Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic are players that no longer fit the current iteration of the Jazz.
“They (the Jazz) are not done trading,” Lowe said. “They are looking around.”
“They clearly have to make more moves,” Bontemps added. “… The Rudy Gobert move isn’t the only move you make. This team was built around Rudy Gobert’s skill sets.”
According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, on the ESPN morning show “Get Up” on Thursday, any trade involving the Jazz in the near future will not include All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell, though.
Per Windhorst, the Jazz are insistent — right now — that Mitchell is going to remain in Salt Lake City as the face of the franchise.
“After the Gobert trade there was a belief (around the NBA) that maybe Mitchell would be next, and maybe at some point he will be,” Windhorst said, “but for now the Jazz are telling people that they don’t intend to trade him.”
Also according to Windhorst, Mitchell has made the decision to “stand pat,” and not request a trade.
“He’s not going to force action right now,” Windhorst said.
Did the Rudy Gobert trade change the market for Kevin Durant?
The return the Jazz got in the Gobert trade — Malik Beasley, Patrick Beverley, Walker Kessler, Jarred Vanderbilt, Leandro Bolmaro and multiple first-round draft picks — has changed the landscape regarding any trade offers for Kevin Durant, who asked for a trade from the Brooklyn Nets at the start of free agency.
Per Windhorst, the Nets view Durant as a more valuable asset than Gobert, and thus worthy of an even greater return than the Jazz got for Gobert.
The rest of the league, however, doesn’t exactly agree with that sentiment. At least when it comes to what sort of assets should be surrendered in a trade for Durant.
“The Jazz made this trade of Rudy Gobert last week where they get an incredible haul of draft picks and the Nets responded by saying the price for Durant went higher,” Windhorst said, “but the rest of the league is saying, ‘We don ‘t think so. We don’t want to pay that price. We didn’t like that trade.’”