This trade between the Utah Jazz and Memphis Grizzlies feels similar in its timeline to the Los Angeles Lakers dealing for Anthony Davis last weekend -- even though the value of the players involved is different, and the attention on them exceptionally different.
Both trades were talked about extensively ahead of the trade deadline but not completed then, and in both cases the team getting the best player was apparently willing to pay a higher price this time around.
Let's dive into this deal and what it means.
The deal
Jazz get: Mike Conley
Grizzlies get: Grayson Allen, Kyle Korver, Jae Crowder, 2019 No. 23 pick, protected 2020 first-round pick
Get more trade grades for every deal here
Utah Jazz: B
As with the Lakers, the Jazz's urgency to make a deal increased in the past four-plus months. Though a second-half surge carried Utah to 50 wins, that left the Jazz in the fifth seed with a difficult first-round matchup against the Houston Rockets. Utah lost in five games, averaging just 96.8 points per 100 possessions in the series -- nearly 10 percent worse than league average in the postseason.
Because the Jazz have been out of the postseason mix for almost two months, they've gotten little national attention as a team that could benefit from the top of the Western Conference opening up after injuries struck the five-time defending conference champion Golden State Warriors. Flip the perspective, however, and Utah's as well-positioned as almost anyone to contend in the West.
The Jazz boasted the conference's second-best point differential, beyond only the Warriors, outscoring opponents by 5.2 points per game during the regular season. They have a relatively young core, led by 22-year-old leading scorer Donovan Mitchell and All-NBA Third Team pick Rudy Gobert, who will turn 27 next week. And now they have their best point guard since Deron Williams was traded to the Nets eight and a half years ago.
Conley should be a huge upgrade on incumbent starter Ricky Rubio, an unrestricted free agent this summer. After shooting a career-best 35% on 3s in 2017-18, his first season in Utah, Rubio regressed to 31% last season. He went 4-of-20 in the series with Houston as the Jazz shot 26% beyond the arc as a team despite getting excellent shot attempts.
Utah's shot quality in the playoffs, as measured by Second Spectrum's qSP (quantified shot probability) metric, which incorporates the ability of the shooter as well as where shots are taken and the distance to nearby defenders, was third-best of any team at an expected effective field-goal percentage (eFG%) of 53.9%. The Jazz's actual eFG% was a dismal 45.5%.
Enter Conley, who gives Utah not only a second strong shot creator within the half-court offense to help relieve the pressure on Mitchell but also another player capable of actually hitting the open shots Quin Snyder's offense has generated. He's a career 37.5% 3-point shooter, having slipped slightly to 36.4% last season, and defenses won't be able to help off him the way they were Rubio.
Investing so much money at point guard does cost the Jazz the ability to address their shooting in the frontcourt. They structured the trade so that they can make it using cap space on July 6 after the moratorium, while also retaining starting power forward (and backup center) Derrick Favors, whose $17.7 million 2019-20 salary becomes guaranteed the same day.
Doing so meant including backup forward Crowder, who averaged more minutes against the Rockets (26.0 per game) than Favors (20.6). Utah's best lineups since acquiring Crowder at the 2018 trade deadline have featured him at power forward alongside Gobert, giving the Jazz more quickness and shooting in the frontcourt. (Though Crowder is just a 34% career 3-point shooter, he attempted 8.3 3-pointers per 36 minutes with Utah, and volume tends to be a better predictor of a player's gravitational pull on defenses than accuracy.)
Now the Jazz will have limited flexibility to replace Crowder. In the Conley trade, they dealt away this year's first-round pick, No. 23 overall, and making this move using cap space limits them to the room midlevel exception (projected at $4.8 million based on current cap estimates) to use on outside free agents. Utah will be bargain shopping while perhaps hoping that Georges Niang, who made 41% of his 3s in 105 attempts off the bench last season, can step into a larger role.
Though we don't know what Memphis would have taken for Conley in February, the price appears to have only increased by waiting. The Jazz gave up a pair of first-round picks as well as their 2018 first-rounder, Allen. And instead of sending back Rubio as the main part of the salary to match Conley's $30 million-plus deal, Utah was forced to include two key reserves -- both Crowder and Kyle Korver, the team's best outside shooter. That will weaken the Jazz's depth in 2019-20.
Besides the health of Conley, who missed 70 games due to Achilles soreness in 2017-18 and who hasn't played more than 70 in a season since 2013-14, Utah is also betting on the health of backup guard Dante Exum -- who could potentially have been part of the trade at the deadline as both matching salary and part of the value to the Grizzlies.
The Jazz front office has steadfastly maintained its belief in Exum, the No. 5 overall pick in the 2014 draft, despite a series of injuries. Most recently, he suffered a partial tear of his patellar tendon in March that required season-ending surgery. And though Exum showed flashes last season of the athleticism and skill that made him a high lottery pick, his performance rated worse than replacement level based on my wins above replacement player (WARP) metric.
If everyone stays healthy and Niang (or some free agent pickup) can replace Crowder, there's a real chance Utah could be the top seed in the West playoffs next season. That's the upside the Jazz have with a core of Conley, Mitchell and Gobert. But the Jazz are also taking a substantial risk that they've overpaid for an aging point guard with injury concerns and compromised their depth in the process.
Memphis Grizzlies: A
By all accounts, the Grizzlies' price for Conley at the trade deadline was far higher than what they accepted from the Toronto Raptors for their other franchise pillar, center Marc Gasol. (Memphis didn't get a future first-rounder in that trade, built around free-agents-to-be Jonas Valanciunas and Delon Wright.) The willingness to wait paid off handsomely for the Grizzlies, who got massive value in return for one of the league's biggest contracts. (Conley will make $32.5 million in 2019-20, the NBA's 11th-highest salary ahead of this year's free agency.)
Saving money in this trade was important for Memphis, which was in some danger of going into the luxury tax by re-signing Valanciunas and Wright after taking back the $8.7 million salary of wing C.J. Miles as part of the Gasol trade. Now, assuming the Grizzlies waive guard Avery Bradley (whose 2019-20 salary is just $2 million guaranteed through July 3), they should have more than $40 million under the tax to spend on first-year salaries for Valanciunas and Wright, more than enough to bring both back.
(Unfortunately, those tax concerns mean they probably won't be able to benefit from potentially creating a $25 million trade exception, the largest in NBA history, according to ESPN's Bobby Marks, in this deal.)
In addition to the two first-round picks (and Allen) they received, I think Memphis could add further draft compensation by retrading Crowder and Korver, both in the final year of their contracts. Given their modest salaries ($7.8 million for Crowder, $7.5 million for Korver, just $3.4 million of that guaranteed through July 7), both players should have positive trade value.
Last weekend, I wrote about options for the Warriors if they generate a trade exception by signing-and-trading Kevin Durant or Klay Thompson to their new teams if they want to leave in free agency, or if they're awarded a disabled player exception for either or both player due to their injuries. Both Crowder and Korver would be fits for Golden State, particularly Crowder, who could play both frontcourt spots and would come with Bird rights so the Warriors could re-sign him in the summer of 2020.
With the Gasol and Conley trades, the Grizzlies have quickly pivoted to build around a young core of 2018 lottery pick Jaren Jackson Jr. and this year's No. 2 pick, expected to be Murray State point guard Ja Morant. Memphis will now have extra first-round picks both this year and at some point in the future (most likely 2022, based on the reverse protections on Utah's first-round pick the next two years), and the Grizzlies' cap sheet going forward is clean. Pending new contracts for Valanciunas and Wright, Memphis currently has less than $40 million in committed salary for 2020-21 after Chandler Parsons' contract comes off the books.
By tying their fortunes to two players (Morant and Jackson) who will turn 20 this summer, the Grizzlies are inevitably headed for a rebuilding period of some length -- especially painful given the first-round pick they still owe the Boston Celtics from the ill-fated Jeff Green trade. But with luck, and continued good management, Memphis can get as much out of those two new cornerstones as they did from Conley and Gasol.