3 Most Likely Trade Candidates on the Utah Jazz, Ranked (2024)

Finishing the 2023-24 season at 31-51, the Utah Jazz figured that they should chart a course for a new direction as a franchise, and one that has nothing to do with their most prominent players from last season.

As it has turned out, the Jazz have been dominating the basketball news cycle in the summer of 2024, mostly because of their willingness to negotiate trades with other franchises that would send away their prized possessions. Since the team did not make much progress last season, the front office already feels like the team needs to be gutted again in favor of featuring as many promising young athletes as possible.

The Jazz have boasted some impressive talents in the past decade-plus, most of which are homegrown, since it takes a lot of convincing for a talented free agent to make their way to Utah. The franchise has drafted All-Star talents and multiple-time award winners like Gordon Hayward , Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell , to name a few.

Keeping those players as they grew to become more and more skilled was, and continues to be the most difficult part of Utah's offseasons. Hayward left the Jazz as a free agent in 2017 after making his only All-Star game appearance to join the Boston Celtics , Gobert was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2022, where he has now become a four-time Defensive Player of the Year, and Mitchell was also traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2022 after reaching the All-Star game three times with the franchise. Now, they are preparing for the same fate with the newest of their All-Star and Defensive Player of the Year caliber talents.

Utah is looking to once again move forward with a new generation of players, trying desperately to grasp relevance through their homegrown talent as time goes on. To do so, they'll get the most out of their current stars and their value to winning organizations. Here are the three current members of the Utah Jazz that are most likely to be dealt from the team as the 2024-25 season gets closer by the day.

3 Jordan Clarkson - SG

The talented scoring guard could make a difference coming off of the bench

Jordan Clarkson has simply been one of the NBA's best scorers coming off of the bench over the last eight seasons, since he first began assuming a sixth man role as a member of the L.A. Lakers in 2016-17. Ever since then, his dazzling scoring displays and streaky shooting touch has given plenty of teams a reason to be inquiring about his availability through trade.

Now, as a 31-year-old nearing the end of his current contract with the Jazz, opposing general managers may believe it's time to grant Clarkson a much-needed change of scenery. In 2023-24, Clarkson started in only 19 of his 55 appearances while averaging 17.1 points on just 52.1 percent true shooting. Though it's a slight drop in efficiency from his Sixth Man of the Year campaign in 2020-21 when he put up 18.4 points on 54.9 percent true shooting, other franchises could be willing to take a bet that his production would rise again when surrounded by other talented scoring options.

As purely a prospective contributor to a successful team, Clarkson may be Utah's most appealing player to acquire via trade, as he comes with a soon-to-be expiring contract and the expectation of coming into games as one of his team's main options as a reserve. Clarkson fits the bill of the classic super-sixth-man, one that comes into each game with a strict focus on scoring the ball, as Lou Williams , Jamal Crawford and Eric Gordon are players that fit his exact archetype from recent memory.

Though it may appear to some that Clarkson has hit a new low as an offensive player thanks to his awful 29.4 percent shooting clip from three-point range in 2023-24, his ability to affect games as a threat from the mid-range combined with his improved play-making skills could convince a front office that taking a gamble by trading for him could be worth it.

2 Lauri Markkanen - PF

Markkanen's improvements have made him a target

Lauri Markkanen 's career in Utah, while short, has been incredibly fulfilling for him as an individual. Since being shipped from the Cavaliers to the Jazz in the trade that sent Mitchell to the Eastern Conference, Markkanen has completely turned his career around.

After averaging 14.8 points with Cleveland in 2021-22, he increased his output to 25.6 points to go along with 8.6 rebounds with Utah, an unprecedented ascension that warranted his first All-Star game appearance and the 2023 Most Improved Player award. After a second-straight season of being the No. 1 scoring option for the Jazz in 2023-24, he poured in another 23.2 points on an incredible 63.1 true shooting percentage, with his efficiency making him more coveted than he already was after his monster debut season with the team.

Markkanen's potential as a floor-spacing star that's capable of putting the ball on the floor as a 7-footer is surely very attractive to plenty of teams around the association, especially when his remarkable 39.9 percent three-point shooting on eight attempts from distance each night is thrown into the conversation as well. Markkanen's athletic abilities combined with his pure shooting stroke provided the Jazz with their first All-Star since the departure of Gobert and Mitchell, but Danny Ainge is focused on bringing in as many assets to set the team up for a bright future as possible.

The team that's shown the most interest in Markkanen has been the Golden State Warriors , who have been in constant conversation with Utah about working out a trade for the All-Star. In return for Markkanen, the Jazz are looking to poach the Warriors' Moses Moody and plenty of first-round draft capital, though the team's other young stars like Jonathan Kuminga and Brandin Podziemski could possibly be thrown into the mix as well, according to Shams Charania.

While it's been reported that Podziemski may be off of the market for now after the team's owner Joe Lacob, spoke highly of the young guard, no player has officially been ruled out of discussions to this point. As a result, Markkanen may not be the player that Utah is most likely to trade, but he is their best chance at receiving a massive assortment of young assets through a deal this offseason.

1 Walker Kessler - C

Utah's incoming third-year center has been on the team's trade block

If one were to look at Walker Kessler and his level of play through two seasons with the Utah Jazz, it might be confusing as to why they'd be letting go of a player with seemingly plenty of potential on the defensive side of the ball. The third-place finisher in Rookie of the Year voting, Kessler's 7-foot, 245 pound frame has been one that player's have no choice but to be intimidated by.

His 7-foot-six wingspan has allowed him to rack up rejections, as he's averaged 2.4 blocks through his two seasons as a professional. On offense and as a rebounder, Kessler also does his job very well, scoring 8.7 points on a sensational 69 percent shooting clip from the field while also bringing down eight rebounds each night for his career.

Kessler has been made available on the trade block plenty of times through the 2023-24 season and the following offseason, as it appears that the Jazz aren't willing to be the team to give the promising center his big pay-day when that time comes in the summer of 2026-27 once he hits restricted free agency. The franchise has decided to be proactive and plan ahead by deciding that they'd ship Kessler to another team in exchange for even more draft capital.

The team that's been mentioned as potential suitors for Kessler has been the New York Knicks , according to Bleacher Report, though the team's recent acquisition of Mikal Bridges through trade complicates things. Per Ian Begley of SNY, the Knicks did propose a trade including two first-round picks for Kessler, a deal which Utah reportedly denied, leaving Kessler's true asking price to still be determined. Still, whether it's to New York or elsewhere, the Jazz have been determined to trade Kessler, as his availability has been made well-known since the beginning of the summer.