The deal
Jazz get: Jordan Clarkson
Cavaliers get: Dante Exum, a 2022 second-round pick (via San Antonio) and a 2023 second-round pick (via Golden State)
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Utah Jazz: B
The Exum era in Salt Lake City began with great promise. The No. 5 overall NBA draft pick in 2014 (and my top-ranked prospect after Joel Embiid's injury), Exum started 41 games as a rookie at age 19 and figured to transition into a larger on-ball role as he developed. Instead, Exum tore his ACL playing for the Australian national team the following summer, the start of a star-crossed period in which he played 80 games total over the following three seasons.
Despite those injuries, the Jazz showed enough faith in Exum as a restricted free agent during the summer of 2018 to sign him to a three-year, $27 million contract that could have reached $33 million with incentives. It was clear Exum would need to improve dramatically to live up to that deal, and that development never came. Though Exum was useful in a reserve role last season, a partial tear of his patella tendon ended his season after 42 games. And he had largely been pushed out of the rotation after returning from surgery to repair that injury, playing just 83 minutes over 11 games so far in 2019-20.
As aspiring contenders limited by depth, Utah couldn't afford to get almost nothing from Exum. Clarkson offers a dynamic scoring presence off the bench, albeit at the cost of a defensive downgrade. Quietly, Clarkson was off to a strong start in Cleveland, averaging a career-high 22.2 points per 36 minutes thanks largely to career-best 37.1% 3-point shooting. While it's unlikely that will continue, Clarkson's volume scoring still has value to a Jazz team that has managed just 97.6 points per 100 possessions with Donovan Mitchell on the bench (per NBA Advanced Stats).
It will be interesting to see how much Utah coach Quin Snyder uses Clarkson with Mitchell in backcourts that lack a traditional point guard. Those lineups can help the Jazz survive the absence of starter Mike Conley, sidelined for seven of the past eight games by hamstring injuries. Clarkson is a good enough spot-up shooter to be a credible threat off the ball, having hit a league-average 36.2% of his catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts in his career, according to Second Spectrum tracking.
Adding Clarkson isn't enough to solve everything that has ailed Utah during an 18-11 start that has left the Jazz a disappointing sixth in the Western Conference, but he helps upgrade their biggest weakness on paper. If Conley gets healthy and Ed Davis plays more like he did in 2018-19, Utah has plenty of time to get back in the mix for home-court advantage in the opening round of the playoffs.
There's also value to the Jazz getting off Exum's $9.6 million cap hit for 2020-21. While Utah won't likely be able to create appreciable cap space either way as long as Mike Conley declines testing free agency in favor of a $34.5 million salary next season, Utah now has more wiggle room with regard to the luxury tax. That should make it easier for the Jazz to re-sign restricted free agent Royce O'Neale and use their midlevel exception.
All of that seems well worth a pair of second-round picks far enough out to be of uncertain value at this point.
Cleveland Cavaliers: B-
I'm a little less sold on the value from the Cavaliers' perspective. Getting anything for Clarkson is a positive at this point, given he's in the final season of his contract and Cleveland is rebuilding, but I'm not certain the draft compensation is sufficient to merit taking on Exum's 2020-21 salary.
That math changes if the Cavaliers see Exum as more than dead salary. He is still just 24, remarkably, and it's too early to close the book on Exum developing into a useful rotation player. His size and athleticism should help Cleveland defensively, and the Cavaliers can attempt to develop Exum at the other end with the benefit of more playing time than he'd get in Utah. Cleveland also still has room to take on additional 2020-21 salary with nearly $60 million in expiring contracts on the books before making this trade.
Without being in the Cavaliers' locker room, it's tough to tell how much of the incentive from their standpoint was simply moving on from a veteran who wanted to be on a contender. If Cleveland feared Clarkson's attitude could have a negative influence on the team's young players, then trading him was an understandable priority.