I'll talk about Kawhi later, but I do think the Ingram part of the deal is more real than a Lauri trade at this point. Here's what we know about the Jazz for sure. 1) The Jazz really want Lauri, they have never tried to trade Lauri. 2) The Jazz have tried to get a "star" multiple times. Lowe just said that we went for Bridges extremely hard. But before Bridges, there was Lillard, Jrue, Porzingis ect. Maybe we didn't actually go after every single one of these guys, but I 100% believe we at least wanted them to. Would it not make sense that we have interest in Ingram based on those two things?
The trade value of Ingram seems like an all time low right now. It also seems obvious that they must trade him because they have no real C on their roster right now. Theis is their best C right now and behind him they have rookies and journeymen. Out of all teams in the NBA, they make the most sense for both John Collins and Walker Kessler. Either can fit next to Zion for certain situations, and they could likely play together in another system. It doesn't work with Hardy because Hardy wants one of his bigs to be like KO or Flip if he's playing two. Collins + Kessler might get you close to Ingram, to push it past the goal line you probably don't need to include much more.
DA is 100% a value hunter, and you know he's considering this. I think we're wired to think tank vs win now as a binary, but I think that conversation has become more nuanced with the new flattened odds. Look around the league....Yes there are still teams gunning to bottom out, but that's not the case with everyone. Over the past couple off seasons, there are many teams who make moves to get better even if it doesn't put them firmly in the playoff picture. HOU went out and got FVV+Brooks last summer. This summer, teams like SAS, POR, CHO, and DET made moves to get better. Maybe one of those teams makes some kind of playoff push, but it's not like any of them would be favored to make it in or even close. Even the bottom dwellers like WAS and BKN....there hasn't necessarily been this massive sell off of all their players. I think teams are now starting to account for the flattened odds and saying "our draft odds will be worse, but if we do get lucky we're bringing in a star prospect into a better situation. If the Jazz are committed to Lauri, they probably know they can't reliably be a top 3 tanking team....so it would make sense to go this other route that many teams are choosing.
Let me also throw this out there. Let's say an Ingram trade is already cooking. What would that look like from the outside? It would probably look a lot like it is right now with most of the focus on Lauri to GSW. Move forward with Lauri was always the plan, this GSW trade talk is just fluff talk.
