I just don't know how the Jazz even get Love. He shouldn't be a priority. Only way I see to get him is to trade Favors. Jazz could re-sign Rubio then trade Favors and Exum for Love. Don't see any other scenario where Love makes sense and you can get him.
Maybe the Jazz sign some role players and deal them at the deadline for Love.
Exum + Favors for Love has been the one that I’ve been saying is most realistic (plus a pick — many will say we should be getting the pick, but that’s just the reality from where I see it). This allows us more flexibility because we just operate over the cap, retain the MLE, and it is at least one scenario where retaining Rubio is in play.
Love has a terrible contract that could kill us, but there are a lot of serious positives that I think people would be neglecting. We’re really wanting a creator and we’re not seeing that in Love. We’re also wanting a dynamic defender. However, assuming any reasonable health, there are a few key things. The first is the obvious that he’s a guy who can space the floor from that position. The second is that despite not really being a creator, he’s going to occupy a huge vacuum in our offense and I believe easily scores 20+. It’s hard to know what his baseline offensive output is currently because of the years of being third option followed by last year of being in and out of the lineup (mostly out) and being on an absolutely ****** team. So, he’s not the 24 ppg Minnesota Love, but he’s not the 17 ppg Cleveland Love, either. While injuries are a large variable, he’s 30 and the next 3 years is our prime window and, honestly, he fits that time line. The biggest benefit, however, is that he can both space from the outside as well as rebound. When we have Favors on the floor with Gobert, the spacing is a problem. When we have someone else on the floor who can space better, we don’t have very good rebounding. Favors wasn’t closing games. How many close games did we lose because we could t secure easy defensive rebounds? When Favors would close, it was usually him coming up with timely rebounds that really helped us. The converse is the idea that he’s not a good defender and would get hunted for switches. It’s not ideal. There’s good and bad, but I think as an option farther down the list, bringing in Love is a move that, all things considered, does in fact push us up to the next step, and we’ll be a top three team in the West. Being able to jettison Exum in the process is like getting a discount on Love for the next two years.
