Will NYK picks be more valuable the Lakers picks?

[Coach Ellis]

If we trade for Russ then keep him and trade him at the deadline again for more picks. I don't care if we just get one pick from LA but having him as an asset at the trade deadline or at next year's draft for a team that wants to dump salary maybe a smart move.

If the Jazz manage to facilitate a Russell Westbrook trade for assets, I don’t see any way the he would want to play for a tanking Utah Jazz. Also, I’m not sure I’d want him in my locker room even for half a season - I’m worried his type of negativity could set back any of the young guys that may turn out to be worth keeping.

Nope. Take your pick(s) and be thankful that you added another asset. Work out the buyout and end things with him on positive terms. Let him move on, and just be thankful that there’s revenue sharing and a punitive luxury tax that allows the Jazz owner to make such a move without it being a debilitating, crippling decision that runs the team off to Las Vegas or Seattle.

 

[Coach Ellis]

As to the OP question, I think the Knicks picks (unprotected) will be the best value the Jazz can get for Donovan Mitchell. Orlando would be a close second if they came in with a competitive package.

With that said, the Jazz should absolutely try to trade for the Lakers pick(s) because they could bottom out too. They should try to add assets anywhere they possibly can this off-season so they can start building it back up next offseason.

 

[YoungJefe]

Think about it.... If we trade Don to NY and they have Brunson, RJ and some other stuff... are their picks going to be more likely to be higher than the Lakers picks. LA doesn't own their own picks until 27 and 29. Lebron is old... AD is fragile... it may be scorched earth in 27/29... choose wisely.

The only issue with the Lakers picks is that they're one of the few franchises in professional sports that can fail forward. They've shown the ability to acquire elite, top tier talent via free agency/trades consistently. So it's basically impossible to project what they'll look like that far down the road because even if they don't make any great draft picks there's still always the possibility that they'll just add 2 top tier guys through other means and be a contender.

I mean they just blew their load for Russ last offseason and may parlay that into landing Kyrie Irving. So over the course of a year they really turned Kuzma, Harrell, KCP, 21st pick into Westbrook and then may flip Westbrook and 2 1sts in the distant future for an All-NBA player in his prime. So all in all they essentially will have traded Kuzma/Harrell/KCP/3 1sts for Kyrie.

The Lakers are also set to have a 1st in 2023, 2024/2025, and 2026 so they're really only missing one pick over the next four draft cycles as they'll get their own pick/NOP pick in 2023, either their 2024/2025 pick depending on if NOP defers or not, and their own 2026 pick that they can't currently trade.

New York on the other hand hasn't shown the ability to build a consistent winner for decades at this point. They've picked in the lottery in 8/9 years with the only exception being 20/21 during the shortened season and Randle playing like a slightly worse version of LeBron James for 70 games somehow. In the scenario that the Knicks traded for Donovan and extended Barrett, they'd have like $110M tied up into Don/Brunson/Randle/Barrett for the foreseeable future with limited draft capital and basically no cap space to make any tweaks around them.

 

[YoungJefe]

As to the OP question, I think the Knicks picks (unprotected) will be the best value the Jazz can get for Donovan Mitchell. Orlando would be a close second if they came in with a competitive package.

With that said, the Jazz should absolutely try to trade for the Lakers pick(s) because they could bottom out too. They should try to add assets anywhere they possibly can this off-season so they can start building it back up next offseason.

The only issue I have with that is I don't really see many scenarios that we'd get their 2027/2029 1sts but we'd have to give up Beverly, Bojan, and/or Clarkson/Beasley in any Westbrook trade. I think we can get better value moving those 4 guys in separate deals then a 1st in 5/7 years.