The Jazz and Suns completed a fascinating trade on Tuesday, with Utah sending three first-round picks (in 2025, 2027, and 2029) to Phoenix in exchange for a single first-round pick in 2031.
The exact terms of the deal are as follows:
- Jazz acquire the Suns’ 2031 first-round pick (unprotected).
- Suns acquire either the Cavaliers’ or Timberwolves’ 2025 first-round pick (whichever is least favorable); either the Cavaliers’, Timberwolves’, or Jazz’s 2027 first-round pick (whichever is least favorable); and either the Cavaliers’, Timberwolves’, or Jazz’s 2029 first-round pick (whichever is least favorable).
- Note: The Timberwolves’ 2029 pick is top-five protected.
Our readers who have commented on our story on the deal have argued in favor of both the Suns’ and Jazz’s sides, while some have wondered about the logic of trading three first-rounders for a single far-off pick.
Given the assets that both teams held, it’s the sort of swap that makes perfect sense for both sides. Here’s why:
Why the trade makes sense for the Jazz:
As a result of their trades sending Donovan Mitchell to Cleveland and Rudy Gobert to Minnesota, the Jazz controlled Cleveland’s and Minnesota’s unprotected first-round picks in 2025 and 2027, along with Cleveland’s unprotected 2029 pick and Minnesota’s top-five protected ’29 selection.
That means, along with their own pick, the Jazz would have three first-round picks in each of those drafts. That’s essentially the same situation Utah has been in for each of the last two drafts — the club controlled three of the top 28 picks in 2023 and three of the top 32 in 2024 and used all of them to bring in rookies. It has proven to be a challenge to get all those youngsters acclimated at once, so it makes sense that the Jazz would want to avoid repeating that situation over and over again in the coming years.
By trading the least favorable of their 2025, 2027, and 2029 first-round selections, the Jazz will consolidate the least valuable of those picks while still leaving themselves with multiple first-rounders in each draft.
And now they have an intriguing new unprotected 2031 first-rounder, which has significant value due to the nature of the Suns’ roster construction. While Devin Booker figures to be a star in Phoenix for years to come, Kevin Durant turns 37 this year — he certainly won’t still be a Sun by 2031. And if Phoenix trades for Jimmy Butler, the club will be adding a player who turns 36 later this year (even if Bradley Beal remains a Sun for now, it’s unlikely he’ll still be on the roster by 2031).
Suns owner Mat Ishbia has shown he’s willing to spend big, but that doesn’t always translate to winning. This year’s Suns team has the highest payroll in the NBA and is still on the verge of falling out of the play-in picture — they’re tied for the No. 10 seed at 21-21. So there’s certainly no guarantee that, with few valuable draft assets left in their coffers and little flexibility to upgrade their roster, the Suns will be a playoff-caliber team in 2031. The Jazz are certainly betting against it.
Could this bet backfire on Utah? Sure. Maybe the Cavs and Timberwolves both fall apart in the coming years and Utah’s rebuild doesn’t progress as planned, resulting in all three teams missing the playoffs in 2029 and the Jazz sending Phoenix a lottery pick. But given the building blocks the Cavs and Timberwolves have in place, that’s highly unlikely, and even in that scenario, Utah would still control two lottery picks (unless Minnesota’s ’29 first-rounder is in the top five, which is a long shot).
Maybe the Suns figure out a way to maintain a sustainable contender and their 2031 pick ends up in the 20s. But even if that happens, it probably won’t become obvious for several more years, given how quickly teams’ fortunes can change in the NBA. And in the meantime, that unprotected pick will have tremendous value on the trade market if Utah wants to flip it in another deal.
There’s certainly some risk involved, but given how many draft assets they already possessed, it makes sense for the Jazz to surrender their three least valuable first-rounders to roll the dice on the chances that Phoenix’s 2031 pick could land in the top five.
Why the trade makes sense for the Suns:
Given how valuable that unprotected 2031 Suns first-rounder could be, along with the likelihood that the three picks they’re acquiring will end up in the 20s (or even at No. 30, if the Cavs finish the 2024/25 season with the league’s best record), what’s the thinking for Phoenix here?
Well, this Suns front office remains fully focused on upgrading the team in the short term and turning a single first-round pick into three first-rounders will help them do that.
Take Phoenix’s pursuit of Butler, for instance. In a multi-team scenario in which the Suns send Beal to a third team and acquire Butler from Miami, both the Heat and that third team will need to be incentivized. With just one tradable first-round pick in 2031 to offer, the Suns weren’t well positioned to offer sweeteners to both of its trade partners.
Now, Phoenix could offer, say, one first-rounder to the Heat and one first-rounder to the team taking on Beal’s onerous contract, with an additional pick left over to potentially send to one of those two clubs (which team gets it could depend on what the rest of the deal looks like). Those individual picks aren’t as valuable on their own as the Suns’ unprotected 2031 first-rounder, but splitting them up into multiple tradable assets allows Phoenix to spread them out across multiple trade partners.
The same thinking would apply if the Suns don’t acquire Butler and instead make separate trades to upgrade their roster. For instance, Phoenix could look to trade Beal and a pair of first-round picks for a series of role players who would better complement Durant and Booker, then attach a third first-rounder to Jusuf Nurkic in order to try to upgrade that roster spot too.
Again, that Suns 2031 pick is more valuable on its own that any of the new picks Phoenix acquired, but it also represented a risk for any potential trade partner — it’s six years out, and there’s no guarantee it won’t end up in the 20s itself. The Jazz were willing to take the risk on that 2031 pick due to their cache of existing draft assets, but it wouldn’t have made sense for every team.
The new picks are simpler for teams to place a value on, so there shouldn’t be much disparity between what the Suns and a trade partner think they’re worth. That might not have been the case for the 2031 first-rounder.
It’s also worth noting that reacquiring picks in 2025 and 2027 and 2029 gives the Suns more flexibility in terms of which first-rounders they make available going forward. The team could theoretically now trade its picks in 2026 and 2028 while hanging onto the ones in the odd-numbered years without running afoul of the Stepien rule, which prohibits a club from leaving itself without a first-round pick in consecutive future drafts.
However, trading first-rounders for even-numbered years would limit the Suns to two tradable picks, since the 2030 first-rounder can’t be moved now that Phoenix doesn’t control a 2031 pick. Additionally, those 2026 and 2028 also have “least favorable” terms applied to them, so if they’re more valuable than the newly acquired picks, it’s only marginally.
The ’26 selection will be the least favorable of Washington’s, Orlando’s, Memphis’, and Phoenix’s first-rounders, while the ’28 pick – probably the most valuable of the bunch – figures to be the least favorable of Washington’s, Brooklyn’s, and Phoenix’s first-rounders (Philadelphia’s pick could also be in that mix if the Sixers don’t convey their pick to Brooklyn in 2027).
Whatever the Suns plan to do with their first-rounders from 2025-29, it seems like a relatively safe bet that they won’t still control all of them by the time the trade deadline passes on February 6.
Definitely a better deal for Phoenix than Utah, unless that 2031 Phoenix pick somehow ends up in the top 10. We can probably count on 1 hand the # of times Phoenix has had a top10 pick since the Alvan Adams days so this looks like another instance of Utah working without a long term plan & just making up stuff as they go. Next few yrs promise to be just as rough as the last few yrs have been for the Jazz. Trading away 3 upcoming 1sts for 1 that’s 6yrs away prob won’t help that.
Actually you need one hand just for the last 10 years: Jalen Smith (10, 2020), Jarrett Culver (6, 2019), Deandre Ayton (1, 2018), Josh Jackson (4, 2017), Dragan Bender (4, 2016). It wouldn’t be that strange that the Suns go through another rough stretch like that in the near future.
Given the financial ramifications of the repeater tax in the new cba, phoenix’s lack of long-term assets, and how hard it is to win in the West, this is likely to be a top-10 pick.
Ishbia is pretty clearly making a two-year all-in play here, by the time the team is in the repeater tax he’ll be ready to bring payroll down and possibly even sell the team at a huge profit. He doesn’t care about the ‘31 pick with those motivations.
And it goes on… Devin Booker (13, 2015), T.J. Warren (14, 2014), Alex Len (5, 2013). That makes EIGHT years in a row in which the Suns selection was (much) higher than any of the 3 Utah picks will probably be.
If Phoenix doesn’t want to pick top10 in 2031 then they won’t. The only times they ever pick that high is when they choose to rebuild. This is true for mostly every high draft pick. It’s very rare for a team to have a high draft pick when they’re actively trying to compete for a title. Utah took a long shot gamble with this trade & in hindsight it’s more than likely to look as ridiculous as the DMitchell trade currently looks. Hoping that the Suns are terrible in 2031 is something I guess lol at least nobody’s pretending that Minnesota or Cleveland are gonna be terrible in the next few yrs anymore. While we’re predicting teams that might/probably will be terrible in 2031, how bout we start with Utah themselves.
“If Phoenix doesn’t want to pick top10 in 2031 then they won’t”. This year is the perfect example: they are tied with GSW for a lottery place, but I guess it is because they want to. Now imagine they cannot get rid of Beal plus they give Durant an extension, none of which would be too shocking. With no control over their first round picks up to 2032, they would be stuck in mediocrity for years to come. And basically the same could happen if they swap Beal for Butler and offer him a max extension. Phoenix have a much clearer path to the lottery than to a championship, no matter what they want to do.
Amazing what a few minutes on Google can find.
Suns 3 first round picks are overrated by all reporters.
The only issue with this trade is one word “least” favorite. If you delete the word “least”, this would be the best ever trade for Suns.
2025 Cavs pick has little trade value. I don’t want it.
The other picks have a word “least”, which means it could be 30th pick.
I think Danny Ainge knows what he is doing. Cleveland will be picking25-30 without injuries those years. 2030 PHX will not be a top 5 team.
Utah could have 3 more terrible seasons in a row & yall would still think Ainge knows what he’s doing lol
Almost like he was brought in to rebuild the Jazz…
They were one of the best teams in the league when he got there. Whoever made the decision to rebuild (whether it was someone before he was hired or him when he got there) clearly made a stupid decision.
Regardless of what Utah’s record is over the next 3 years they still have their own picks. The ones they sent out all belong to another team and if those team’s picks are worse Utah keeps those picks and sends out their own. The only way this trade looks terrible for them is if Cleveland and Minnesota BOTH bottom out by 2029 and AND Utah also remains a bottom feeder. If Phoenix is still decent in 2031 it would be a miss but it would still be worth the shot IMO.
Sounds to me like you’re stubbornly hanging onto some irrational hate for Ainge rather than agree that it works for both teams.
The Suns need assets now.
The Jazz are making a calculated guess the pick will be much better than three 25-30 picks.
Think about it. How many times have we seen draft day trades where one team trades multiple picks for one pick? It’s no different, except that it’s not on draft day.
No one knows where Phoenix pick will be in 7 draft from now. They can go all in for a couple years and still have time to move on from Durant and Booker a couple years down the road while recouping picks and have time to be decent to good again in those 6 NBA seasons.
Durant is going to be nearly 40, probably getting paid too much, and likely still injury prone. Who is giving up much for that?
It doesn’t matter if they’re “good”. They still have to be better than enough teams to make the playoffs. That’s not a given.
Otherwise, that pick will be a lottery pick. If so, that’s much better than the Jazz would’ve likely gotten in all 3 drafts.
The Jazz don’t need more bench players.
This is 100% a stupid idea. Clearly those 1st round picks have value as the suns wanted them to try to trade for Butler. You’d think you could have traded those picks during the draft or for a player instead of a pick you cant use for 6 years. Giving up picks you can use over this year, in 2 years and in 4 years for a single pick in 6 years seems like a bad deal. The only way it works out if its a top 3 pick but with nba lottery system even if they are the worst team it doesn’t guarantee you a top pick.
If you were to make a trade tomorrow, the 2031 pick would have more value than the three picks the Suns received, which are almost second rounders. The only reason the Suns made this trade is because they do need several picks. But purely in terms of value, it’s Utah that won the trade.
I don’t people are fully understanding the fact that the Jazz can’t use 3 first round picks every year either
The way Presti handles his extra picks compared to Ainge is night & day. Presti is a master, Ainge still apparently a novice.
That’s likely the primary reason the Jazz made this trade. They are consolidating assets for better ones. They’ve been trying to do that for awhile now. Takes two to tango and other teams have been very scared to dance. Lol
Danny Ainge is just kicking the can down the road. He’s not accomplishing anything besides stocking up first rounders and he’s done that ad nauseam.
In fact, he’s done it so much that now he has so many first round pics in the short term that he must combine a few for an unknown first rounder six years from now !!
This could be shooting himself in the foot and he is like a person with so much abundance they don’t know what they really have or in Ainge’s case, how to handle all this abundance.
In one respect you could say Danny is a buffoon here who trades three first round picks for one first round pick. It just makes zero sense on the surface and in reality could end up truly being an awful trade for the jazz.
This isn’t stocking up, this is trading quantity for upside. The last thing Ainge needs right now are more picks in the 20s and 30s, since they’ve drafted several of them the last few years. This spreads out the timeline and lets him take a swing that has a much better chance of landing in the lottery.
You’re right this isn’t stocking up. Stocking up is what he’s been doing. Now he has to deal with all his stocking up by dumping.
But as I mentioned in another spot, I can see why this is a good move. He’s playing with the house’s money anyway when you think about it. 10 for one will do that for you (Gobert.)
It’s not the house’s money. He’s down by a lot lol just look at their record this year. Actually look at their record with Gobert & look at what it is since then. Ainge is very much in the red.
Brother the Jazz are not trying to win games… how have you missed this?
Should this last forever? If they’re still terrible in 5yrs will that all be part of the plan lol
Right it shouldn’t last forever and that’s why Ainge is Strange.
He has a fascination with hoarding draft picks and that does no good for the team. So it’s a problem now because he has to dump 3 first round picks for 1 six years in the future.
But what I’m saying is one of the reasons he has these extra pics, not the only reason, but one of the reasons, is that he Took the Timberwolves to the cleaners. I give him a little slack here because part of his abundance was that heist in particular.
But I am in agreement with you Sank. As I said elsewhere, he needs to pull off his Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown draft picks pretty soon and become a contender before another five years goes by.
You two are acting like he traded 3 unprotected picks for one. All three are the least favorable of 3 good to great teams.
The Jazz, when they actually want to win, tend to make the playoffs, or very close, the Cavs have a pretty young team and have the best record, the Timberwolves could stumble, but since it’s the least favorable it won’t matter.
My guess is that the Cavs pick will be the first and likely second of the 3. The third pick could the Jazz by then.
That’s the beauty. The Jazz are trading bad first round picks for a gamble at a lottery pick. Sure, it could backfire, but it’s also possible the Jazz trade it by then.
Exactly wash. The jazz are not trying to win any ball games here. Even with a decent roster, they only have 10 wins? Ridiculous.
The problem is that sure it’s great Danny Ainge is getting a lot of first round pics, but he’s not taking this strategy and going to the next level or taking the next step and becoming good lol.
It’s like the dude who scored his first job and then 10 years later, he’s proud of all the paychecks stuck in his sock drawer. That does no good lol, you have go down to the bank and cash those in so you can buy stuff,
Decent roster with lots of injuries. Their best defender broke his leg at the start of the year. Markkanen, Clarkson, and Collins have all been injured off and on.
The starting lineup has changed practically every game. Hard to build momentum doing that.
Still, anyone thinking the Jazz aren’t tanking just want to hate or aren’t paying that close attention.
Benboy , glad you’re here to rep Utah fans because they’re great and deserve a good team.
The problem: we all see that the rebuild has made zero, (arguably, negative) progress in 3 years. That’s why fans are mocking a trade for a 2031 pick.
Utah have no young players that look like future stars, much less a future superstar. Until that happens, it needs to use, not postpone, any draft picks.
A successful rebuild looks like this: Detroit has Cade, Ivey, and Duran. Orlando has Paolo, Wagner, and Suggs. Houston has Sengun, Green, and Smith. Utah still lacks one young player with this potential.
The fact we’re talking about Collins, Clarkson, and Markkanen indicates a failure by Ainge. Those players should have been traded long ago for draft picks.
From the outside, it looks like the franchise is in denial.
On a positive note for Danny Ange I will say that he made out like a bandit in the Rudy Gobert trade. Essentially 10 guys for one guy? I don’t care who that one guy is lol, that’s a major big-time heist.
In hindsight, the only trade worse was Paul George, I think seven for one and then he left for nothing after a few seasons lol.
So you could say that Ainge can do whatever he wants with these first round picks because he received more than what was reasonably expected in the Gobert trade. He’s playing with the house’s money anyway.
This 3 for 1 is fine because he got lucky and took advantage of a situation where a team supposedly needed just one guy to get them over the top.
He made out like a bandit that was caught & thrown in jail. Utah was a perennial contender with Rudy & Spida. Since that trade they’ve been a perennial doormat & the future looks just as bleak as the present. Utah got fleeced in both of those trades as well as this one with Phoenix & a few more as well.
Utter nonsense you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about
TMQ, i’m just throwing out my opinion. Sure I have no idea what I’m talking about but this is great because we can express our opinions here and no one‘s offended. Good stuff keep it coming.
I wouldn’t mind reading why you think I don’t know what I’m talking about if you have the time. Drive-bys add little to the discussion.
That Utah team wasn’t a perennial contender. It has plateaued and ran it’s course. They never made it out of the second round. It’s not that Gobert and Mitchell aren’t still good players it’s just that the guys around them were getting old and expensive.
How soon they forget lol. That team had plateaued at a 50W team. I feel like Utah would love that right about now. They could have chosen to add to their perennial 50W team but they chose to tear it down & 3yrs later the franchise remains in ruins. Old, expensive and most importantly productive & successful. How could you forget the most important parts.
Bojan Bogdanović was the last piece that they had the resources to acquire. They were way over the cap and weren’t going to get anything than mediocre draft picks. Clarkson and O’Neale are still productive but Conley, Bogdanović and Ingles are all washed.
It was time. The chemistry between Gobert and Mitchell was always a little suspect but in the last season before the blew it up it was at a boiling point.
Could they have kept Mitchell and retooled with the Minnesota picks? Possibly but at that point I think it was a matter of time before Mitchell asked for a trade if he hadn’t already and they just kept it private.
Conley clearly wasn’t washed. He was helping them win games even after Rudy/Spida were gone. That’s why they had to trade him that next season & he went on to help Minnesota win games/playoff series as well. Ingles was washed but his contract has since run out. You say Utah’s resources had run out but obviously they get a new draft pick every yr. Just a slight bit of patience would have put them in a much better place without having to endure all this losing. The chemistry bw those guys didn’t ever have to be great bc they always produced at an extremely high level. Neither of those guys asked for a trade, they just decided to blow it up. That has proven to be a terrible decision.
Taco ,
1. The notion that the team had “plateaud” is open to debate. Mitchell was only 25 years old at the time they blew it up. Giving up on Mitchell feels premature, especially in retrospect. (BTW, Lauri Markkannen, Ainge’s new “franchise player”, is 27 and underperforming.)
2. Perhaps Mitchell and Gobert on their own were not enough to win it all, but they represented 2 under-30, (at the time) top 20 players, both under 4-5 year deals, with other tradable assets, and, moreover, which owned its future draft picks. In all, that’s a position a normal rebuild targets to be in after 3 full years.
Some other GM’s expressed surprise that Ainge wouldn’t build on what he had in place, adding another star or 2. Ainge has too much ego for that. Rebuild or bust.
At the time he blew it up, Ainge promised to be better in 3 years. Instead, it’s year 3 and he’s tanking. Because of poor drafting and player development, Utah remains at the very bottom of the rebuilding curve. Realistically, the best case returning to contention is 6 years after blowing it all up. That’s a failure by any measure.
Ari, Danny Ainge doesn’t know how to win. And GM Kevin McHale is not around to give him a championship winning trade either.
Sankara, don’t you think you’re a little obsessed with trying to convince everyone a moot point?
The Jazz were imploding at the end of the Mitchell/Gobert era with the Jazz. Their head coach retired temporarily from the NBA after the season BEFORE the trades. That should tell you enough of how bad the locker room got.
The team was spiralling but you keep ignoring that because you don’t want to see things that don’t support your obsession with hating on Ainge. Lol
I mean these are the pitfalls of a rebuild
We paint them with such wild imaginations at the beginning but more than not you end up here, and it will get uglier
Brk thought they could thread the needle
Utah….
I always say buyer beware when you call for the corner to throw in the towel
Remember just last year everyone was saying Mobley/Allen doesn’t work and neither does Garland/Mitchell . Teams need time, patience and a good front office that makes timely moves, thankfully most Front offices operate this way and not like the unruly fan whoes driven by 90% emotio0n
I appreciate articles like this.
Luke is great. He’ll explain things in ways that a simpleton like me can understand them.
He’ll give us the ins and outs and the backgrounds of the situations and give us some reasons why GM’s and owners may do the things they do. I love it.
I can’t really understand the people who criticize Danny Ainge for this trade. It doesn’t matter where the 2031 pick actually lands, Utah can flip it long before that. And the fact is an unprotected first rounder from a potentially bad team has more value than three late firsts. The Suns are desperate, and Utah took advantage.
Also Utah already has multiple 1st round picks in each of those years so it absolutely makes sense for him to trade them. Phoenix only had one pick to trade to it absolutely makes sense for them to turn that 1 asset into 3 assets. Both teams did well and no one got fleeced. The 2031 pick could end up being in the 20s or could end up being top 5 but its 7 drafts from now so plenty can happen between now and then.
Otogar,
Utah has drafted poorly. This young group ranks last of any team in a rebuild stage.
Utah needs to use all its available firsts now, not postpone for 6 years. That’s a lifetime in the NBA.
As a Cavs fan, I just appreciate that Danny Ainge is basically betting that the Cavs will be good for a while
Thank you for the analysis of this trade. I love these convoluted deals but I even started to get dizzy when you described the 2028 pick. lol
I fell the Jazz could have asked for more. The right to switch the even numbered picks or the 2nd round pick that the Suns own or the right to switch that pick. I feel this way because I think the Suns were the team of need here and the Jazz were not but maybe the Jazz made the phone call.
I briefly considered going into more details on the 2028 pick, but it’s so convoluted right now that it’s hardly worth laying it all out until we know whether or not the Sixers pick will be involved.
Bucks have 2031 first round pick to send to Jazz too.
I don’t believe that Bucks want Beal contract.
I believe that Bucks want LaVine.
If I had to guess, based on the signs and players that are going to be available in the drafts, the Jazz will be bad the rest of this year and next year.
This year has great talent at the top. AJ will be the prize next year.
That third year could go either way, but I suspect they’ll be on the upswing after getting a top 5 pick this year and possibly next year to go with their seasoned young guys.
The telling sign will be when they start bringing in more win now vets. That’s usually when teams compete for a playoff spot. Of course, that’s still no guarantee, but at least everyone will finally know what they’re doing by then. =)
Yes, there’s plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the jazz future. I remember the old warrior days when the NBA draft lottery, and the actual draft itself, was my favorite time of year. That’s all I had to look forward to as a Golden State fan.