John Hollinger on the Deandre Ayton front: If we're talking 1-2 picks + Bogey for Ayton, hell yes I'm doing that trade!
What's the Jazz next move?
While deals are being agreed to between teams and players, nothing can be signed in ink until the league's moratorium ends next week. As a result, the Jazz have five days to turn the Rudy Gobert trade into something even larger ... like, say, a sign-and-trade for Deandre Ayton. They could do that most effectively by including the contract of Bojan Bogdanovic, who fits a need for the Suns and could actually be salary-matched to Ayton in spite of his "base-year compensation issues." The Jazz can do this by starting Ayton's next deal at $29.11 million for 2022-23, which is high enough to permit an Ayton-Bogdanovic swap on the Phoenix side. Utah would then forward at least one of the draft picks from Minnesota to Phoenix in order to complete the triangle on the three-team trade; that, in turn, would allow the Jazz to use Gobert's outbound salary to help offset the gap between Ayton and Bogdanovic.
While we're here, let's complete the circle on that Ayton thought: The Suns could then trade for Kevin Durant with a package of Bogdanovic, Mikal Bridges and any player the Nets want named Cameron (along with a raft of future picks, no doubt), without being subjected to the complicating base-year rules or tax apron as they would in a deal that brought Ayton to Brooklyn. That circle completes, of course, with the delicious possibility of the first-round pick the Nets sent out for Royce O'Neal ending up right back in Brooklyn via Phoenix; in fact, O'Neale's deal would likely end up as part of the trade, too, and enable the Jazz to get a $19.5 million trade exception for Bogdanovic (with the help of an earlier exception for Joe Ingles that can swallow Jarred Vanderbilt's small deal). Dare to dream, people.