Why the Lauri Markkanen trade probably won't happen, according to Shams

all the reports in one spot

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In short

It’s in Markkanen’s financial interest to get extended by UTA, who can offer him the most money soonest. This can only happen Aug 6 or after. If he signs after, then he cannot be traded in the 2024-25 season. If he signs Aug 6, he can be traded at the Feb 6 trade deadline.

Ainge wants an extreme overpay offer or he’ll extend Markkanen on Aug 6 and then wait until the Feb trade deadline when more teams can bid for an extended Lauri, as they no longer need Lauri’s cooperation to re-sign. Thus it is likely this won’t be resolved until a Feb bidding war.

Here an extreme overpay means, merging the reports (1) and (2) below: Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga and Brandin Podziemski, three first-round picks, three to four unprotected pick swaps, three to four second-round picks.

Apricot says

No.

I could be convinced to overpay with two of any of the young players plus 3 first-round picks.

Revisit this in February. Ainge has a history of not doing trades except for big wins, at the cost of his own team success (see Ainge ramble at the end), so set your limit and then move on.

Primary sources for Shams Charania’s reporting yesterday

Yesterday, Shams released a bunch of specific details about the state of the negotiations between GSW and UTA.

1. The Athletic article excerpt

For the past several weeks, all eyes have been on the Utah Jazz and Lauri Markkanen. The Jazz have operated in concurrent lanes with Markkanen’s future: open to listening to trade offers from serious suitors while maintaining interest in keeping him as a franchise centerpiece. Markkanen is eligible for an extension Aug. 6. The Jazz are in a rebuild, so rival teams have wondered about Markkanen’s fit moving forward. Utah officials want to keep the 2023 NBA All-Star and Most Improved Player unless a team truly wows it with an offer.

The Golden State Warriors have been the most engaged team for Markkanen in recent weeks, as league sources tell The Athletic they have discussed a proposal around Moses Moody, multiple first-round picks, multiple pick swaps and multiple second-round picks. The Jazz, however, have asked for the bulk of young talent and capital the Warriors possess, including Moody, Jonathan Kuminga and Brandin Podziemski, along with picks, which has been a non-starter thus far for Golden State, league sources said.

Markkanen — who would be the most coveted 2025 free agent in the prime of his career — has an amount of leverage in all of this as well. Any team willing to give significant assets for the 7-foot big man would likely desire assurances that he would have interest in a long-term deal.

For Markkanen, a renegotiation-and-extension allows him to receive more money now. For him to reach his maximum salary in 2025-26, the Jazz would need to raise his 2024-25 salary to at least $33,138,600, which requires at least $15.09 million in cap space for the current season. One component to watch for: Markkanen is eligible to be traded next season if he signs the extension on the first day of eligibility Aug. 6 — but not tradable if signed after that date.

2. Video of Shams speaking on the radio after the article

What I have picked up is the Warriors and Jazz, they have continued conversations. It’s just, the Jazz are in a position right now where they wouldn't be even thinking about moving Lauri Markkanen if this was a team that is trying. like Ryan knows. If you're trying to compete and win, that's a guy you compete and win with. This is a team that obviously is going down more of a rebuilding path. And if you're going to rebuild and you're trying to compete for not a playoff berth but probably the number one overall pick, you have to consider moving Lauri Markkanen.

I don’t think they want to move Lauri Markkanen, but if the Golden State Warriors put in Brandin Podziemski and, you know, from what I'm told, three first-round picks, three to four unprotected pick swaps, three to four second-round picks.

Kuminga's a name, but I think—the Jazz, from everything I've been told, are more focused on Brandin Podziemski and his inclusion in the deal, all the picks being in the deal. From the Warriors' perspective, it's Podziemski, but then there are not all the picks. And if it's all the picks, then there's not going to be a Podziemski. And so this could be a back and forth, but both sides are kind of entrenched right now where they're at, saying nothing is going to change.

So only time will tell, but I think the Jazz are very comfortable with extending Lauri Markkanen. At that point, you'll see more suitors potentially as well in him, not just teams that feel like, okay, we'll be able to re-sign him.

Bonus Danny Ainge ramble

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I sports-despise GM Ainge. Well, now that I’ve got a high fever and a few minutes to free type, let me explain why.

As a player, he was an obnoxious cheap shot artist.

As a GM, he has a reputation for not making a trade unless he wins it resoundingly. There are persistent rumblings about him going back on settled trades to extract another asset. Every time there was a trade without him, his office released a report that he made a great offer that was declined.

What I despise is that for all his wheedling and scamming and trading fan favorites, his team has only won the big one once. He’s missed on many trade opportunities because of his need to win the trade and he’s caused dynasty-splitting feuds due to his constant wheedling. This would be funny justice except for those years when Warriors fans were really counting on him to do something competitive in the Eastern Conference.

He’s made his reputation on four stunning BOS trade wins.

• Ainge took over BOS in 2003 and The Great GM feuded with fan favorites and turned a team that had made the conference semis and conference finals into a team that barely made the playoffs twice in four years and then collapsed, winning only 29% of their games in 2006-07 and had Paul Pierce demanding a trade.

• Trade Win 1. His first huge trade win was the 2007 trade for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen that formed the BOS Big Three, the first super team. This paved the way for his only championship. However, we take points off from this legendary maneuver because:

  • First, the trade was regarded at the time as highly suspicious, as the MIN GM was Kevin McHale, Ainge’s old Celtics teammate, who seemed to trade with Ainge despite rumored better deals elsewhere.

  • Second, I would argue that BOS’s dominance came from its defense (faraway #1) and not the offense (#10). The defense was created by new defensive coach Tom Thibodeau who was the first to install the strong-side zone defense and the league was just not prepared for it. Ainge does get credit for this, but his Big Three trades get all the press.

• After that the Big Three BOS declined due to injuries and not enough actual trades to put them back on top.

• Ainge’s constant wheedling and willingness to put everyone on the trade block and then backing out of trades added massive fuel to already boiling internal team turmoil. Finally in 2012, when Ainge sided with Rondo against Ray Allen and when Ainge lowballed Allen in contract negotiations, Allen left for BOS arch rivals, LeBron’s Heat, for less money out of anger at Ainge, and that ended the Big Three era.

• Trade Win 2. In 2013, Ainge pulled the plug completely on the Big Three era, following a pattern of relishing trading fan favorites. He pulled off perhaps the biggest rip off trade in NBA history sending a decrepit Garnett and Pierce to the new Brooklyn Nets. We take points off from this stunner of a trade, widely regarded as a ripoff in the moment, because:

  • The Nets were newly owned by Mikhail Prokhorov, described with the wonderful euphemism “swaggering Russian minerals oligarch”, so let’s go with that. He had to make a splash with his arena opening, enough to pump up the price of his franchise, which he finally dumped in 2019 at a massive profit, despite being the worst owner in the NBA in that time. He was responsible for numerous terrible trades, of which the BOS-BRK was merely the most famous.

• Now followed an ultra-frustrating period where from the 2015 Playoffs through the 2017 Playoffs, BOS fielded a team that was clearly one big move away from going toe to toe with LeBron’s Cavaliers. BOS was also the only Eastern Conference team with the resources to make that one big move. Instead, BOS went into cruise control and dutifully served as the Washington Generals to LeBron’s Globetrotters.

  • Throughout this period, Ainge was mocked constantly for not wanting to trade his draft picks from the Nets looting for the various stars who changed teams. This was the high point of Ainge’s reputation for self-excusing press leaks about wonderful trades that he’d offered that were rejected.

  • So, yes, as a Warriors fan I resented Ainge for not putting a team together that could actually compete with LeBron and ensured that every year the Eastern Conference playoffs would be like a relaxing preseason tuneup for LBJ. But I think any fan of basketball should feel the same.

• Trade Win 3. In 2017, Ainge finally pulled the trigger on a trade. He traded away Isaiah Thomas, the plucky underdog who played through his sister’s devastating death and funeral and literally gave up his hip and career for the Celtics for… Kyrie Irving. Thomas’s sacrifice for BOS was so self-devastating that BOS later had to add a pick to the trade due to his physical condition.

  • This shows the cold-blooded heart of a true Trade Machine Assassin. None of this wussy “hey Wiggins we’ll let you take time off for two years and keep your issues private” stuff. They traded Thomas a couple of months after all those sacrifices while Thomas was rehabbing the hip he ruined for the Celtics! Wooooof, that’s nasty. But he won the trade.

    • “Boston is going to be all love,” [Thomas] vows, with one exception. “I might not ever talk to Danny again. That might not happen. I’ll talk to everybody else. But what he did, knowing everything I went through—you don’t do that, bro. That’s not right.”

  • This is not often considered a Trade Win because it’s just so cynical, and also because it turned out so badly, but it was perhaps the high point of Ainge-ism: sell high (a player who injured himself for you) and buy low (a star who asked to be traded). These are fungible assets, not people!

  • But some victories are not worth it. Kyrie’s destruction of the chemistry of that Boston team earned him the permanent hatred of Boston fans, and can perhaps be considered the karmic outcome for mistreating Thomas.

• Trade Win 4. In 2017, one of Ainge’s picks (looted from the Nets) won the lottery, and he then took this completely undeserved gift from the basketball gods and ran with it. He traded the #1 pick (Markelle Fultz) to PHI for the #3 pick (Jayson Tatum) and a 2019 first. Perhaps to restore a small bit of balance to the universe, The 2019 first rounder became Romeo Langford, whom you’ve probably never heard of.

  • I give Ainge full marks for this trade, which was a pretty fair deal and not one of Ainge’s flashy scam trades. The trade itself was only unfair in retrospect due to BOS superior scouting and Fultz’s mystifying forgetting of all things jump shot.

• Ainge would then spend the next four years not making big trades, which left BOS just short of championships and fans complaining that Ainge couldn’t put a title team around Tatum and Brown. He resigned in 2021 as BOS GM.

• His final count for 18 years of BOS wheedling was a number of trade wins, the Big Three team breaking up and hating each other to this day because of the constant trades and near-trades, and only a single team in 2008 to win the championship. You could possibly give Ainge partial credit for the 2024 BOS team but it was only after BOS made the Jrue Holiday and Porzingis trades that they went to the next level and that was well after Ainge left.

• As for Ainge’s time in UTA… the clock is ticking. Ainge continues to prove that he can blow up a team with stunning unfair trades, but he isn’t yet anywhere close to showing he can assemble a championship team.