New Orleans Pelicans: One trade with every Northwest Division team

New Orleans Pelicans: A trade with the Utah Jazz

The Utah Jazz were a tough out in this year’s playoffs and probably don’t want to disrupt their core too much.

They have a huge contract in Mike Conley that will expire at the end of next season but he’ll be difficult to move before the trade deadline, as teams will want to see if he is healthy before trading for the veteran.

There was some talk that the Jazz would move on from Rudy Gobert, who infected the team with COVID-19 after some dumb lockerroom stunts but that seemed to have cooled off in the bubble.

Gobert would be a nice fit next to Zion Williamson if the Jazz were willing to move him, but what would it take to get one of the league’s best defenders?

In this trade, Utah picks up an elite shooter to add to the league’s best 3-point shooting team, a promising young center to replace Gobert and a lottery pick in this year’s draft.

Utah would only do this if they thought the relationship with Gobert was untenable and wanted to pick up some assets before his contract expired.

This would be a huge risk for the New Orleans Pelicans unless they had some assurance that Gobert would re-sign after next season. He’d probably like to hit the free market as a free agent, so that would be unlikely.

Given that this big trade is unlikely to happen, here is a sneaky bonus trade with Utah that I like:

The two teams trade from areas of surplus in this one. The Pels get a promising young center in Tony Bradley and the Jazz get a promising young combo guard in NAW, who could eventually be part of their future backcourt.

There is some amount of fit with the Jazz but probably more of the small trade variety.