I just don’t fully understand this trade. I get dealing KO because he was expiring and unlikely to be resigned here but why on earth did the Jazz have to include Ochai in the deal as well?
The pick will not be lower than around 28th – what are the chances that player will be better than Ochai who was the 14th pick two years ago?
I get that Ochai did not show much (if any) improvement offensively, so even though I like him (seems like a great dude), I’m not saying losing Ochai necessarily makes a huge difference in terms of team success.
But the return for KO and Ochai is… likely a worse player than Ochai? What’s the point? What am I missing?
by JCivX
27 Comments
Probably, but he’s not really a difference maker either, and you can grab guys like that for cheap. If I had to guess, they would rather gamble on the small chance of getting a difference maker who is cost controlled for longer. Reading between the lines, I think Danny expects an extended rebuild for years.
One man’s **FRP**,
is another man’s trash.
Yeah I definitely have these same feelings but I’m obviously not Danny Ainge and though I do trust him, this deal I didn’t quite understand, here’s kinda my “reasoning” for it mind you I’m a huge Ochai fan
-ainge clearly sees something special in Kira Lewis despite his size
-in the Simone deal, there’s a chance Detroit would’ve given him major cash so maybe Utah was just getting an asset that they couldn’t have gotten otherwise+ they didn’t want to help out any contenders. With that pick + this pick they can move up?
-maybe behind closed doors they just didn’t think Ochai was the piece to have on a championship team and maybe they thought his value would decrease so they maximized it now
All of these are wild, but to me it just feels like the Conley/Vando/NAW/Beasley deal again. Crust trimming
Seems they just didn’t want to develop him. His defense is already good, but his offensive game needs work. It seems we don’t want to be bad, so running plays for Ochai while he figures stuff out isn’t on the table, might as well get some value.
Doesn’t make much sense to me either when we’re trading away vets for picks, might as well then give more chances to Ochai, but that seems to be the rationale.
In this move I doubt the FO is considering whether the future pick will be better than Ochai. They apparently had seen enough to decide it was best to move one and got a late 1st rounder in return, which is probably fair or greater value for what Ochai’s worth currently. He’s an athletic stud with potential but his numbers are just not good, 20 minutes a night for 5ppg and 33% from deep
I really thought the Ochai trade was to clear out a SG spot for Grimes. I think the Jazz realized as long as they have Sexton/Clarkson, there really wasn’t a place for Ochai.
Jazz are going to draft Bronny and get LeBron to talk up Utah in a PR move to attract future FAs.
I disagree. Ochai was not a positive for us. His defense was alright, but his offense was horrendous. I was tired of his 15 min, 0 points on 0-2 shooting, 1 rebound, 0 assists, 0 steals, 1 block statlines.
The Jazz evaluated that a late FRP is a better gamble than Ochai.
My guess would be moving both picks acquired this year to move up in the draft
Perhaps but look at it this way. Jazz front office thinks Ochai ain’t it. The 2024 1st round pick might be it. Could be worse. But if Ochai isn’t worth developing in the FO’s mind… then why hang on to him? Take another swing at finding the right piece.
It’s a star’s league, role players pretty much don’t matter, because they’re always available.
Very rarely does a RP turn into a star (Lauri is really unprecedented… Like one in 5,000).
What you want is bullets in the gun and/or capital to move up and get your guy. Because that’s how you get stars without breaking the bank, and cheap stars is how you build a contender
It absolutely was a very shitty trade. I know our FO has multiple people calling the shots, our decisions seem very inconsistent. Some of these recent trades are directionless and are not good at all.
They want to keep pulling the lever for the unlikely chance of hitting the jackpot. They get that chance with another first rounder. We know Ochai is not a huge difference maker at this point.
Danny wanted more asset in this class. We didn’t have anything two days ago. Now we have a late first and early second. They probably can move to the late teens or early twenties with those picks.
Personally I don’t know why anyone is so high on Ochai I’ve never been all that impressed with him
Do not get me wrong I did like Ochai but if the front office didn’t think he was going to turn into something special then I would agree with the trade. People who are upset about how late the 1st round pick is need to keep in mind that Nikola Jokić was picked 41st overall. If we can hit on a pick like that then it would be no doubt worth Ochai. Only time will tell who is going to win out on this trade.
The team cannot commit to potential and upside alone. I doubt Ochai is the piece we need to get back into serious contention. Until we are consistently winning again moves like this will be necessary.
I think, potentially, the strategy would be to aggregate the 2nd round pick we acquired in the Fontecchio trade and attach it to this one to move up in the draft. We could potentially move into the late teens, 20ish range.
THT hacked DA’s phone and replaced his profile with Ochai then sent it to the Raptors that made the Raptors approved the deal
My only guess is the Jazz don’t feel great about Ochai so they can now package picks 28ish and 32ish to move up to 22ish to get a guy they like.
Raptors are not that good so this pick can be better than ochai.
Tbh 14-28 is a crapshoot. You don’t know that the pick is likely worse.
Definitely wont be as good looking.
Classic Jazz fans latching onto mediocre role players. Tale as old as time. Older than Beauty and Beast.
You’re talking like he was going to turn into Bruce Brown. Ochai is a below average NBA player. Getting a first for him and Olynyk is a good deal
lol everyone acting like the Jazz were going to compete this year. Sorry to be the one to say it but the Jazz aren’t going to be a championship caliber team for quite some time. Just enjoy the bball
You would’ve said the same about Donovan, pre draft.