The Jazz have been disappointing to start the year, and you know what that means; it is time to completely alter the foundation of the team, purely for the sake of it. Will Trade A or Trade B actually make the team better? No one can say, but nevertheless, they must be completed – SOMETHING must be done, anything!
There are the obvious, small-potatoes that Jazz fans are proposing. Kris Dunn would be nice; he would immediately be our only positive defender who can also dribble and pass. Tre Jones,
maybe? He can run a clean offense off of the bench. Maybe we give Nikola Topic a shot! I wonder if there’s a reason our minds are all immediately going to back-up point guard options.
However, one report (potentially not based in reality) out of Sacramento really got people thinking:
Now we’re talking.
(EDITORS NOTE: Since writing, this report has gained a bit more credibility, viaTim McMahon)
Before I elucidate the 5 reasons I think a trade for Domantas Sabonis makes basketball-sense, let me give the lay of the land:
- The trade that I am defending is a one-for-one Lauri Markkanen and Domantas Sabonis swap, which works financially.
- I do not know who has more value. Markkanen’s contract is longer, but seemingly more desired across the league. Thus, due to my confusion, I am assuming no picks are exchanged.
- Maybe this is a three-team trade, with Markkanen sent elsewhere. That doesn’t impact my thinking in this article. I do not care where Markkanen lands, and am operating under the assumption that this deal nets us Sabonis and costs us Markkanen.
With that in mind, please indulge me as I arrogantly, ignorantly, and prematurely attempt to fix the Utah Jazz.
Reason #1: Domantas Sabonis allows Will Hardy to run his preferred offense
Will Hardy loves his top-of-the-key, dribble-handoff offenses. He gave Kelly Olynyk his last strong full season showing, he got lots of run out of Kyle Anderson, and he built an entire offense around Jusuf Nurkic after premature claims that Father Time had conquered the Bosnian Beast. A big man at the top of the key and 4 swarming, cutting teammates is Hardy’s idea of a good time. I mean, look at how every set from Nurkic’s 3rd triple double of last year was organized:
Jusuf has still yet to play a game in the 2026-2027 season as he deals with injury, and his absence is obvious. Hardy has attempted to run some of the sets with Jaxson Hayes, but Hayes simply doesn’t have the feathery touch or sense of timing that makes Nurkic so deadly from these spots. Because of this, the offense has stalled. The Jazz are last in the league in rim attempts per game, and in the bottom 10 in three point attempts. These are the shots that get prioritized in offenses built off of ball movement and motion, but with Nurkic out, many possessions end with Keyonte George or Isaiah Collier dribbling for 18 seconds before taking a contested mid-range jump shot.
Domantas Sabonis was born for the Will Hardy offense. In 2023, the Kings had the best offense in the association, and it was built almost entirely on the back of Domantas Sabonis and his top-of-the-key decision making. He is, indisputably, the 2nd best big-man passer in the league, and around the top when it comes to screen-setting as well. Hardy has turned players that the league had given up on into the centerpieces of offenses, and Sabonis, being a player still in the thick of his prime, would actualize Hardy’s offensive dreams to an extent not yet before seen. Sabonis would potentially average a triple double on this team, and the offense would have a structure in a way that has been heretofore, absent.
Reason #2: Sabonis and Jaren Jackson Jr. are near-perfect complements to each other
When Sabonis is being derided, it is fairly easy to anticipate the reasoning of the deriders. He isn’t a vertical, shot-blocking presence around the rim. He isn’t the quickest when switched out onto the perimeter. And he isn’t necessarily the most intimidating shooting threat. Domantas Sabonis, for all his skills, is a known commodity – what he can’t do now, he likely won’t be able to do later.
Similarly, people seem to generally understand what Jaren Jackson Jr. struggles with. He struggles as a rebounder and with physicality in general, and thus isn’t really cut out to play consistent center minutes. He often falls victim to tunnel vision, and seems to have made the decision to pass or shoot before he begins his offensive process. On paper, Jaren seems like the versatile big man option that every contender craves, but once you peel back some of the layers, you can see that he quite dependent on a context that caters to his flaws.
I struggle to think of a more synergistic front court pairing than these two.
JJJ can struggle on the boards as much as he wants, and the Jazz would still be carried to a respectable mark by 3 time rebounding champion Domantas Sabonis. There’s a limit to the level of defense Jaren can anchor on his own due to his poor rebounding, but Sabonis, who is not a good individual defender, would boost Jaren by, at the very least, consistently being able to end plays with rebounds. Domantas can continue to struggle blocking shots (his highest per-game mark is 0.6), but as long as he can be large down low, he allows Jaren Jackson Jr. to play to his strengths as a help-side roamer. Jaren provides spacing for Domantas to both hit cutters up top and bang down low, and Sabonis can set the bruising screens that Jaren never really could. Together, these two former all-stars can amplify strengths and mitigate weaknesses. We would not just be trading for Domantas Sabonis; in this deal would be included a superior version of JJJ.
Reason #3: It opens up more minutes for Ace Bailey
I hope to make one thing clear; I am not a Lauri Markkanen “hater”. In fact, I have strongly advocated for keeping him throughout the rebuild, and my opinion of him has not really changed after his slow start to the year (although I do have a theory that his transformation into a body builder has hurt his flexibility and, in turn, his impact). Today, Markkanen is still an all-world level off-ball shooter and scorer who, in most contexts, can add to a team’s attack without taking anything away. However, I am beginning to wonder that Utah is not one of those contexts. This team is facing a severe drought of dribblers and passers – everyone is attempting to do their work off-ball. Without players with gravity to work off of, Lauri Markkanen is taken out of his ideal role.
Normally, I wouldn’t mind this too much. Even playing out-of-role, Markkanen is still clearly a positive offensive player. However, with the rapid development of Ace Bailey, one must now consider the opportunity cost of every Lauri Markkanen minute played and action ran. This season, Ace has made huge strides defensively (making him an even better fit next to a guy like Sabonis), and has continued to improve his efficiency in all the same sets that Hardy runs for Markkanen. Both are big forwards who move and shoot like smaller, quicker players, but who aren’t necessarily the most capable creating their own shot. Considering that (a) Markkanen is significantly more expensive and (b) he is significantly older, it has been clear to me that, eventually, he would be the odd-man out and the first of the core to be traded. With Ace taking a leap and Jaren filling the other forward possession, now is as good a time as any to start looking into Markkanen trades (although I would feel a twinge of guilt if he did spend the heart of his prime in Utah, waiting for a playoff run, and then we trade him to Sacramento). If that trade can net a former all-star who is a perfect fit in Hardy’s offense, that should cause some real consideration on the part of the Jazz brass.
Reason #4: Sabonis can score with efficiency and volume in the restricted area
As discussed in Reason #1, the Jazz are currently outlierishly bad at interior scoring, making 5 less shots in the paint per game compared to the #29 team in that stat. Sabonis will help in one aforementioned regard; his top-of-the-key passing will open up rim attempts for cutters. However, that isn’t the only mechanism Sabonis will utilize to put consistent pressure on the paint; he himself would be the most intimidating rim presence on the roster. Sabonis consistently shoots near half of his shots within 3 feet of the basket, and shoots those shots at a career 72% clip. Many of these shots are assisted, but not all of them – Sabonis has shown the ability to post-up on his own and collapse the defense. Even the assisted shots from Domantas have more value than any of the same plays from the current interior players the Jazz employ. Sabonis has a combination of fluidity, strength, and touch that no one of the team can match, which makes him a more intimidating presence rolling to the rim than any of Hayes, Markkanen, Bamba, or whoever. Currently, the Jazz attack is centered entirely from the outside – rim attempts feel more lucky than strategic. An inside-out attack would strain opposing defenses in a way the current roster simply cannot.
Reason #5: We gotta do SOMETHING
I hope my sarcasm was evident in that subheading. In reality, I have 4 reasons and an anti-reason. I think each of the prior 4 are strong enough on their own, but they also operate under a base assumption that might not be true: that something must be done. In doing so, they disregard the most likely scenario. To me, that scenario still is that the Jazz are not a bad team. Maybe they’re not the level of a 6 seed, as I saw some hoping, but likely they are closer to the average projection of quality than how they are currently performing. Would it be nice for the Jazz to have performed better than they have? Sure, but in that same vein, it would be nice if Jaren Jackson Jr. did not immediately get injured. I would be nice if we could see Jusuf Nurkic hitting cutters like he did last season. It would be nice if we weren’t missing a disproportionate amount of our three pointers. Yes, it would be nice if we were winning, but this losing is not something that we can yet draw meaningful data from.
So, a proposition; let us continue to watch the games with caution, and a critical eye, but with a mind not yet predisposed to make changes at the first sign of trouble. Make careful notes of where the team is struggling, and pay close attention to how those areas develop throughout the remainder of the season, and even keep potential trade targets in your mind, but to this point? There is limited need for any of these changes to be made reality. This team has disappointed me too, Lauri Markkanen included, but I think it is important to maintain a sense of confidence in the player evaluations we have crafted for years, instead of tossing them out the window and calling the Kings at the first sign of trouble. Sabonis would be a good fit on this roster, but he’d be a good fit at the February trade deadline too; at this point, there should be no rush for transactions.
What are your thoughts on Sabonis’s fit on the team? Markkanen’s? When is the right time to start discussing trades? Sound off below!
