I mean the Jazz are trying to tank. There is your reason there.
I was being rhetorical.
If you want to be literal though, the Jazz have won too many games to tank properly, recent loss to the Spurs notwithstanding. Also, they didn’t have to sell so low on two starter level players. The Jazz could have just sat them if tanking was the plan. Not that I’m complaining since the Lakers are watchable again. It’s just a little baffling that a man known for fleecing other teams in trades made a very non-Ainge deal.
Well, this has been asked a few times now, so there are a handful of possibilities here for why Ainge made that Westbrook trade, despite knowing that Westbrook was never going to play a single game for us and we didn't want him anyway:
1. In the lead-up to the trade deadline, there were stories going around the major NBA pundits that the Jazz were one of the biggest players on the market, but that some general managers had declared "if you get a call from Danny Ainge, let it go to voicemail." Apparently, at least some if not a lot of teams were petrified of being fleeced like the Cavaliers kinda were and the Timberwolves DEFINITELY were. You could argue that Ainge had to show he was willing to lose a trade in order to make it easier for GMs to deal with him again over the Summer.
2. Something else that came up over the Summer is that the Jazz were having trouble getting trades going because they were hard-capped. They couldn't take on salary, so any trade had to be for equal value, and that just wasn't working out. By trading several players who weren't going to stay for the Jazz after this season for a player who DEFINITELY wasn't going to stay for the Jazz, it opened up I believe $60 million in cap space. It's believed this will allow the Jazz to finally start making trades again during the Summer, but it could also have another purpose...
3. Jazz owner Ryan Smith has this bizarre obsession with Jordan Clarkson, like he's the one player that he's publicly said he wants on his team, come hell or high water. He's the player the Jazz dragged out to show off those godawful new Jerseys over the Summer, despite Donovan still being the face of the team at the time.
Problem is, Jordan has openly said he's not going to take his player option this off-season to return to the team. Instead, he's nearing the end of the viable part of his career, so he's going on the open market to chase his last big payday. The Jazz could not afford the $21 million+ per year that Jordan's asking for, so we are expecting to lose him after this year. However, the Jazz just made this bizarre 3 team trade that opened up a huge amount of cap space. Perhaps Ainge was being strong-armed into finding money to resign Clarkson. Personally, I hope not. I like Clarkson, but I don't think he's worth what he thinks he's worth, and we need that cap space to sign real starters and get this rebuild going now that we're down to our new core unit. Ainge wants to make the Finals in the next 3 years. Clarkson will not be part of that, and if we pay him what he wants, we won't be able to reach that point.
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