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With the NBA Draft and Summer League all wrapped up, we’ve officially reached the dog days of the NBA offseason. Free agency has slowed dramatically as all eyes are on the potential trades of Kevin Durant and Donovan Mitchell. The Brooklyn Nets have no issue playing the long game as they wait for an appealing offer, and now it sounds like the Mitchell sweepstakes could be going down a similar path.
It was reported last week that Utah entered trade discussions with New York, but when the Jazz offered Mitchell in exchange for six future first-round draft picks in addition to Quentin Grimes, Immanuel Quickley, Obi Toppin and Miles McBride, the Knicks backed away from the proposal. That’s not surprising, because that would be a crazy haul to give up all of those picks and a handful of young players for Mitchell. But Adrian Wojnarowski reports that the Jazz could start to survey the rest of the league to see what they could get in exchange for Mitchell, and that “any potential Donovan Mitchell deal is going to take some time.”
Trades for star players like this tend to take some time, and after the Jazz netted four first-round picks (three of which are unprotected), in addition to five players for Rudy Gobert, the trade market has been out of whack. If Gobert is fetching that much in a deal, then you can only imagine how much Utah will get for Mitchell, which is why this situation — just like the Durant ordeal in Brooklyn — could take some time.
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It will be interesting to see what other teams get involved in a potential trade for Mitchell because the Knicks have been viewed as having the most assets to offer to acquire him. The Miami Heat are another team that has been attached to Mitchell, but Utah has asked the Heat to get a third team involved if it wants Mitchell, given that they don’t have the draft capital to pull off a blockbuster deal.
Utah could also be saying that it plans to look around the rest of the league for potential trade partners as a negotiation tactic to get the Knicks to up their offer. There really isn’t another team bidding for Mitchell right now, and Wojnarowski reports that the Knicks don’t want to get into a bidding war with themselves and overpay for the All-Star guard, kind of like what just happened with Gobert and the Timberwolves. Whatever the reason, it sounds as though any potential trade for Mitchell could carry on for weeks at the very least.
