NBA Teams That Could Be Aggressive Sellers Going into the 2025 Trade Deadline | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats & Rumors

Lauri Markkanen trade scenarios are officially off the table for the Utah Jazz until next offseason, which drops them back about three spots in this discussion.

It doesn’t completely throw them off the field.

Granted, that could definitely happen. Renegotiating and extending Markkanen can’t be seen as a mere ploy to increase his trade value. He’ll fetch a better return if he were moved with more years left on his contract, but you don’t want to risk gambling on another high-end lottery spot to get a few extra first-round picks or prospects from other teams.

Conventional wisdom dictates that the Jazz will now go one of two ways: They can try to leverage their prospects, future first-rounders galore and cheap matching salaries into a win-now acquisition or two. Or they can try to strip the roster bare around Markkanen — so much so that not even another All-Star season of his will earn them too many games.

“Well, actually,” superheroes will insist that Utah doesn’t have to do either. The Portland Trail Blazers are currently the only Western Conference team that doesn’t seem interested in winning next season, which will likely depress the Jazz’s winning streak by default, and the organization could always cut its best players instead of dumping them.

This is a fair point. It’s also a regular season plot Utah has played out in each of the past two years. In both cases, the Jazz finished in the second half of the lottery.

That can’t happen again. Unless, of course, Utah believes it already has #TheGuy in its grasp. And it doesn’t. The Jazz wouldn’t even listen to Markkanen’s offers if they believed he was prime cornerstone material. No one else comes close to fitting the description, though honestly, we need more information on Keyonte George, Taylor Hendricks, and Cody Williams.

Expect Utah to be more proactive this time around. If I were running the team, that would mean acting like a buyer. But team CEO Danny Ainge doesn’t seem to want to go that route.

If that’s his prerogative, then Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson, John Collins and, apparently, Walker Kessler should be up for grabs right now. And look, if we’re being brutally honest, that includes everyone in town except Williams and Markkanen. Utah doesn’t have the incumbents or the current lottery job to be overly romantic about what’s already here.