Danny Ainge, with each passing NBA Trade Deadline Season, proves how elite he is as an Executive. During his time in Boston he certainly earned his flowers: he was able to acquire Ray Allen AND Kevin Garnett in the Summer of 2007 after missing out on a Top 3 pick in that year’s draft, after that Championship window closed he was able to trade KG and Paul Pierce to the Nets for a treasure trove of draft picks which turned out to be Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown (and Collin Sexton), he was able to trade for Isaiah Thomas on the low, he was also able to move off of IT to get Kyrie Irving… honestly if I were to sit here and list every move he made in Title Town that was a net positive, this piece may end up being 5000 words. I’ll spare us both from that fate, but just know that this is something that Danny does on the regular.
Now that he’s in Utah, though? All of his managerial genius isn’t as apparent. Not that he isn’t making intelligent trades, because he is, it just isn’t publicized. Maybe it’s the lackadaisical nature of Utah, maybe it has something to do with the laid back vibe of Salt Lake City, or maybe it’s about the lack of fanfare the Jazz have had in the last couple of years. I’m sure it is some combination of all of those things but, in spite of that, Danny Ainge has continued to make great trade after great trade even if the casual basketball fan isn’t aware of it.
After almost 20 years as an executive in Boston, Ainge sought greener pastures in Utah when he was hired as the CEO of Basketball Operations and “alternate governor” of the Utah Jazz. There are plenty of fake job titles in the corporate world and “alternate governor” is definitely one of them. Essentially, he is advising the organization of what moves to make whether that’s the coaching staff, free agent signings, or draft selections. Ainge wasted little time flexing his executive muscles as he hired Will Hardy (a Greg Popovich disciple) after Quinn Snyder resigned on June 5th, 2022. While the Utah Jazz record hasn’t been the stuff of legends in almost four years since the signing, you can tell the difference between a bad basketball team and a young basketball team. The Jazz have one of the youngest teams in the league when you account for the guys who play real rotational minutes, and as a general rule, young teams don’t win anything. Their time will come though, and Will Hardy is going to be a huge part of that.
Once you have your coach of the future in place you can either stay the course and see if the coach can right the ship, or you can clean house and start over. We know what happened next, right? It started by trading franchise cornerstone pieces Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell for a total of 10 First Round Picks (including swaps), and Trader Danny was just getting started. In the three and a half years since those two trades Danny Ainge has made quite the name for himself by making a very specific kind of trade. I call it the “Take on BAD player’s salary for future draft capital no matter the cost” strategy, or the TOBPSFFDCNMTCS for short. This, as I alluded to in the title of this article, is his unhittable curveball.
Every single year there is going to be a trade just like this; it doesn’t seem like anything in the moment but, more often than not, it turns into something down the line. Take a trade from February 8th, 2024 for example; the Jazz traded Simone Fontecchio to the Detroit Pistons for Kevin Knox, the rights to Gabriele Procida, and a 2024 second round pick. Seems pretty meaningless in the grand scope of things, but that second round pick turned into Kyle Filipowski who’s become a vital role player for this team averaging 9.5 points and 6.4 rebounds a game this year.
ON THE SAME DAY in 2024 he also traded Kelly Olynyk and Ochai Agbaji to the Raptors for Otto Porter Jr., Kira Lewis Jr., and a 2024 first round pick with conditional provision attached to it. That first round pick? Oh, only the guy who just had 22 assists in a game last night: Isaiah Collier.
There are some less flashy ones, sure; a second round pick here, a conditional first there. Sometimes you accidently involve yourself in the biggest trade in NBA history by helping the Mavericks and Lakers facilitate a trade around Luka Doncic. You know, a usual day at the office. The one thing that you can say about Danny is that he is ALWAYS ready to make a deal. As long as there are draft picks to be acquired he will be trying to wheel and deal.
The curveball is unhittable: it’s like 70 MPH, he telegraphs it, hell he even yells out that he’s going to throw the curve, but it doesn’t matter. He will throw it every year and there isn’t anything that anyone can do about it. His fastball though? Well we only get to see that on special occasions as of late, but that doesn’t mean he can’t bust it out when the time is right.
Now this isn’t an Aroldis Chapman fastball, at least not anymore, but he’s still throwing heat in the mid 90’s. A very valid question to be asked of Ainge is this: what is the point of obtaining all of these draft picks if you aren’t going to use them? As I’ve mentioned, there have been some draft picks that are still part of this team today, but a lot of times what happens is Danny will trade for a draft pick, dangle that pick out there in trade talks, someone offers 2 or 3 future draft picks for his one, and then the cycle repeats itself. During Ainge’s time in Utah he’s traded for a net return of 7 FRP and 6 SRP by using this rinse and repeat method. Danny never rests on his laurels and he will find the best trade available INCLUDING using some of that house money to go get a guy like Jaren Jackson Jr.
There are things about the trade that I am not a fan of: JJJ makes a gazillion dollars and he isn’t ever going to be the 1A guy on this team, I could make the argument that 3 FRPs is an overpay, and I don’t think I would have given up on Walter Clayton Jr. so early especially after seeing what he’s been able to do this year in limited minutes. THAT being said this was still a very, very, good deal and it serves multiple purposes.
Each team in the NBA has a salary floor that they need to fulfill; a minimum amount of money spent on a roster. The salary floor for the 2025-2026 season is $139M with the presumption being that the number will go up slightly next year. The Jazz only have one large contract on the books for the foreseeable future in Lauri Markkanen who will be making an average of $49M over the next three years. Adding Jackson Jr.’s albatross of a contract will help meet the salary floor needs AND as an added benefit, he’s still an ELITE defender.
He has flaws in his game like every other player in the league does, but despite his glaring lack of rebounding, he is basically a 20 PPG scorer who shoots 36% from deep and also averages 2.5 stocks a game. With this roster in particular, that weakness in his game is going to be camouflaged very well. Assuming that everyone is going to be healthy next year (because let’s face it Jaren isn’t that good to make this team a Playoff contender this year) he’s going to have a running mate in Walker Kessler who will rebound enough for the both of them. Kessler has a career average of 9.3 rebounds a game, with a career high 12.2 a game last year. He went out pretty early this year with an injury but if the rumors are true, he’s going to be staying put in Utah which makes him and JJJ one of the best (if not the best) defensive frontcourt in the entire league. Then you add Markkanen to the mix? This is going to be a really fun team to watch, and with so much size, I think they’re going to give teams a lot of trouble.
While I will fully agree that this trade for Jackson Jr. isn’t the same thing as trading for Kevin Garnett, it is incredibly nice to see that Danny Ainge is still willing to take a shot at being competitive. Utah has had a few (some would argue too many) years of mediocrity and Ainge and Co. have decided that next year is the year to make big strides. Will it work? Time will tell, but I don’t see how a team with a core group including Collier, George, Sensabaugh, Filipowski, Markkanen, Jackson Jr., Kessler, and Ace Bailey would be downright awful. I didn’t even mention the potential Top 3 pick they’ll get in this year’s draft (my bet is AJ Dybantsa).
I won’t say anything outlandish like “the Jazz will be a homecourt advantage team in the playoffs next year,” but I will say that I think they will make it to the Play-In pretty comfortably. Fortune favors the bold, and I think that because of Danny’s ultra consistent curveball and his deceptively effective fastball, the Jazz will be rewarded with something that has been missing in Utah for too long: a winning culture.
At the time of writing the Trade Deadline hasn’t passed so there is a chance that we’re in for more Utah Jazz trades like the one we saw today with Lonzo Ball, or maybe Danny will get really bold and take another big swing. This is my favorite time of the year, and if you’re reading this, I bet it’s your favorite time of the year too.
That’s going to do it for me today. Be kind. Tell somebody you love them.
Round The Game 
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