The NEXT Big NBA Trade Is…

The NEXT Big NBA Trade Is…

Larry Markin is one of the most interesting potential trade candidates in the entire NBA. As of this recording, the Jazz are actually playing pretty well, but I don’t anticipate that to be the case for the entirety of the season. And Markin is a player that they have definitely explored trading in the past, even going back to prior offseasons in which he was eligible for an extension. They were shopping him to Golden State, a variety of teams. Then he signed the extension, then he stayed. And now Marketin’s playing really, really well. And that was always step one for Utah in terms of trading Larry Markin because even though everybody knows he’s good, he hasn’t played a ton over the last handful of seasons, specifically last year. Partially because of injury, partially because the Jazz kind of faked that he had an injury cuz they were trying to tank and he needed to bring his value back up. Well, now he has absolutely done that. Lowry market is playing out of his mind and it reopens up the possibility of the Jazz who clearly have a long-term outlook on their team making a move and trading him. So, we’re going to talk about where he could possibly go and just the situation in Utah in general. So, for Markin, I think there are other guys around the league that might come to mind as potential trade options. Obviously, there’s a lot of drama going on with someone like John Moran, couple of other guys around the league, but I think in terms of realistic trade targets, someone that is signed long-term, someone that’s still relatively young, has a lot of value, would fit in on a variety of teams that might want to make a semi all-in move this year. I think Markin fits perfectly at the center of all of those things. And like I said, there’s some momentum here because he’s playing really well. A couple of teams to talk about here. The Philadelphia 76ers are a team that have been connected to Markin for a while, especially going back to the time of the 2025 NBA draft where the Sixers had the third overall pick. They of course take VJ Edgecom who’s really good. Don’t worry Sixers fans, I have not put together any kind of trade construction that involves VJ Edgecomb going to Utah. The Sixers in theory here would like to maybe add Markin in as this front court player that can shoot, provide them spacing. Obviously, they’ve got this really exciting team. And if they could add someone like Markin in, it fits their timeline well in terms of helping Embiid now, but also helping the young guys, which is why there were a lot of discussions around them potentially being an option in terms of a market and trade at the time of the draft. The problem is in any construction in which the Sixers are adding Lowry Markin, they have to find someone, whether it be Utah or anyone else, to take on Paul George’s contract, which you want to talk about someone that hasn’t played lately. We were talking earlier about how Markin’s value needed to be rehabilitated a little bit because he didn’t play last year. Paul George’s trade value is unbelievably low. He is a negative asset at this point. And from a salary structure standpoint, the Sixers have to trade Paul George. Why at the time of the draft, one of the things that was being thrown around was Paul George plus the third overall pick that ends up becoming VJ Edgecomb in exchange for Lowry Markin. And even that I speculated at the time might not have been enough for Utah, even though obviously Edgecom has looked really, really good. So in theory, you could put together a trade package of the Paul George contract, a couple of first round picks, and Jared McCain in exchange for Larry Markin. Markin is very, very good. I think Philly would love to have him, but the the Paul George piece of this complicates things. And the Sixers are kind of moving towards this window where it makes more sense to prioritize Tyres Max, VJ Edgecom, Jared McCain if he’s still on the team. And Markin, although he’s not old by any means, represents a little bit more of a Embiid timeline kind of move, even if you’re able to get out of the Paul George thing. And to me, I’ve talked about this in recent videos with Philly, I think they’re probably going to be more so thinking, how do we build around Maxi and how do we build around Edgecomb? And trading away McCain, trading away multiple first does not accomplish that. Not to mention, if I’m Utah and I truly want to trade Lowry Market in, I think there are probably other places that I can look because I don’t want anything to do with that Paul George contract. If I’m going to try and be good over the next handful of seasons, if I’m going to take two more years, if I’m Utah, you’re going to trade market and take two years to really build this thing up. The number one thing I don’t want on my roster is that Paul George contract when it comes to flexibility. So although Philly from a basketball perspective, if you’re not thinking about the future, you’re just thinking about the Encore product, does make a lot of sense for marketing, I don’t think there’s actually all that much of a possibility there. Another team that I’ve seen mentioned is the San Antonio Spurs. The concept of marketing plus Wemby and the front court works really well together. The Spurs obviously traded for Darren Fox, but they didn’t trade that much for him. I have a scenario here in which Darren Fox is not involved in the trade. Maybe there’s something there where you can send Fox elsewhere, go to Utah. He’s not currently playing as of the recording of this video. So trying to trade him is a little bit odd. And just like with Philly, the Spurs don’t want to give up the guy they just drafted. In this case, it’s Dylan Harper in exchange for Larry Markinham. But again, like Philly, from a basketball perspective, there’s a lot of things to like here. San Antonio might be better than most people thought this year. They have an opportunity here to make a not all-in move, but something that improves their chances of being competitive in the West this year. And they have some salaries they can put together here to match Marketing’s 45ish million dollar contract. And just like with a team like Houston, a couple of other teams around the league, they have a bunch of picks that they can trade as well without even using any of their own picks. So the Spurs are definitely a realistic market and trade option. In this scenario, it’s Kell Johnson, Kelly Olen, Jeremy Sohan, and a couple of first round picks in exchange for marketing. The question for San Antonio is, is Mark in the guy you want to use some of these assets for? Because for De’Arren Fox, they traded the equivalent of basically two first and some contracts. Whereas for Markin, and it’s going to require more, it’s going to be another bigger contract on top of having Fox on his big deal. And strictly from a financial perspective, you’re kind of establishing that dear Fox, Lowry, Markin, and Victor Wemanyama, of course, are your cornerstone players. And I’m unsure if that’s the decision San Antonio wants to make right now. Not to mention, if I’m Utah, from a player perspective, no disrespect to someone like Jeremy Sohan or Kell Johnson. This is not really what I’m looking for. In exchange for marketing it, it’s cool to have the extra first, but Utah is not lacking in young guys that they could possibly turn into something as late first round picks. They have a handful of those guys. Ironically, they need a focal point guy and obviously market is that currently, but they’d like someone maybe with a little bit of a of a higher ceiling. And so, I don’t think this one works for Utah either, even though just like Philly, it would make sense on the floor for San Antonio. Another team that has been connected to market in for a little while is the Golden State Warriors. Going back to two off seasons ago, the 2024 offseason, they were probably the team that was closest to actually getting Lowry Market in before then he signed his contract extension which made him ineligible to be traded for the entirety of the season last year. And the concept at the time was Andrew Wiggins, a couple of other things. That stuff got moved to Miami in exchange for Jimmy Butler. And now that they have done that, it gets pretty difficult to trade for Lowry Marketing. It’s made a little bit easier by the fact that they now have Jonath and the Gaminga under contract and once we get closer to the deadline, he would be eligible to be traded. Makes about $22 million. Without that, this trade would be literally impossible. With that, you can kind of piece it together. I don’t know why the trade machine didn’t have Jonathan Kamega’s new number, by the way, but just imagine that it’s here. You can kind of piece together Kaminga, Buddy Heield, Moses Moody, maybe some picks, but one, I don’t think Utah is super interested in that, even if they really really like Jonathan Kaminga, which I’m not sure if they do. And two, you’re kind of gutting a lot of your rotation if you’re Golden State. Kaminga’s been good. Moody’s been good. He’s a good shooter, and you don’t really have a bunch of future picks that are going to super interest Utah in this scenario. And so it’s kind of similar to what we’ve already talked about in the past with Golden State where their move was the Jimmy Butler trade. And so they kind of used all of those pieces to go and get him. And now, especially from a salary perspective and also from an asset perspective, they just don’t have the pieces to bring in someone like Larry Markin. Realistically, if they were just the only suitor in Utah, it’s like, “Yeah, sure. We just want to get rid of him.” But clearly that’s not the scenario we’re in. So I think it’s unrealistic to expect Golden State to trade for him. Which brings me to a team that I do actually think is realistic and that is the Detroit Pistons. The Pistons have been linked to marketing for a while as well because they need spacing. They need a little bit more front court scoring and the combination of him with Kadear Thompson and Jaylen Duran mixes really well. A lot of the defense stuff to kind of cover up some of Markin’s issues at times on defense, not all the time, but at times. And obviously his spacing really elevates what they do, especially given how they’ve struggled a little bit spacing wise in the absence of someone like Malik Beasley this year. And it’s very easy to put together the contracts or at least the large bulk of the contracts for Markin’s contract number because you have Tobias Harris there. You have Tobias Harris. You have some picks and you can kind of bridge the gap between Markin’s 45 million or whatever it is and Tobias Harris’s 20some million. And one of the ways you can do that is by adding someone in like Jaden Ivy, which is the trade construction I have on screen here. That I’m unsure about because I don’t know if Utah actually wants him. Obviously, he’s been hurt. Is Detroit willing to keep him? They’ve been without Jaden Ivy for like a year at this point. They were good last year. They’ve been pretty good to begin this year. And I think they could definitely look at that scenario and say, “We’re good just moving on from him and using whatever potential he has as an asset.” Whereas for Utah, one, you’re worried about the injuries. Two, he doesn’t have an extension. So, you’re going to have to deal with that yourselves. It’s kind of creating a problem for you. Even though in comparison to the situation like with Philly earlier, they would have take on the Paul George contract in that scenario. In this scenario, you’re getting quote unquote out of the Lowry market and money pretty immediately because Tobias Harris isn’t expiring and as I mentioned, Jade Ivy would need a new contract at the end of the year. My question here is twofold. One, does Detroit view this as enough of a move to get them to where they want to go with some internal improvement for their young guys? Or are they not a Lowry market in away from competing at the top of what is definitely a weak Eastern Conference, but still the top couple of teams in the conference are still very good. Detroit might not see that much value in that. And the other part of it is for Utah, as we’ve talked about with all these other trades, is this enough to make you actually move off of market. And and that is the thing that I keep coming back to for the Jazz. If you look at their situation and you’re assuming that at some point during the year they’re going to be 10 15 games under 500, they’re going to start tanking because that’s what’s happened in Utah the last couple of years. If you’re looking at that situation, you’re thinking, “Okay, it doesn’t really make sense to pay Larry Markin $45 million a year when the team isn’t good, when he doesn’t have any other co-stars, and Markin, I’m sure at some point, would like to play in a playoff series.” To this point in his career, he has not done that. So, of course, it makes sense for the two sides to move on from each other. However, he’s playing so well and is such an asset to Utah that I think it would be difficult in this cap environment where teams don’t necessarily want to be spending as much money on marketing as he’s owed. Uh in this scenario where a bunch of teams already owe future picks, they don’t necessarily have a way to match the salaries and give up enough picks to make it happen. It’s gotten to the point where even though I think Markinan is a realistic trade candidate in the sense of his talent and his value to these other teams, the more you look at the situation specifically with the exception of Detroit, I don’t know that there are actually a lot of really really good options for Utah. And if there aren’t at least a few good options and you’re the team trading player away, you don’t really have a way to leverage teams against each other to potentially get better and better value. If you’re just bidding against yourself and it’s Detroit that’s the only team that is really getting close to your asking price, it gets that much more difficult to trade someone of Marinth caliber. I think he’s really good. I think Utah is in a scenario where it would make sense because I’m not anticipating their good start to the season to continue, but I’m not 100% sure that there’s actually a good Lowi market and trade out There.

Lauri Markkanen could be traded from the Utah Jazz soon, as he if off to a great start this season, and the Jazz could look to capitalize on his high value – including the Philadelphia 76ers, Detroit Pistons, Golden State Warriors, and San Antonio Spurs.

#nba #nbanews #nbatrade