The Phoenix Suns are trading their unprotected 2031 first-round pick to the Utah Jazz for three first-round picks.
The three picks the Suns are getting out of this arrangement will all be the least favorable of multiple picks owned by the Jazz in specific years. In 2025, the Suns will get the least favorable out of the picks that originally belonged to the Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota Timberwolves. In 2027 and 2029, they will get the least favorable available pick between Cleveland, Minnesota and Utah.
According to Heat beat writer Ira Winderman, this deal is one of the steps toward a possible Jimmy Butler trade with the Suns. That deal would include at least four teams and result in both players and picks going to the Heat. In addition, the Suns would likely need to use one of these picks to pay somebody off to take on Bradley Beal’s long-term contract. Beal has a no-trade clause, though, so he would have to approve any deal.
The Jazz, meanwhile, had a surplus of draft capital to work with in making this deal. Because they owned 13 first-round picks in the next seven drafts, they were willing to part with three that will almost certainly come relatively late in the round for the chance to control Phoenix’s 2031 pick unprotected. Now the Jazz have 11 first-round picks in the next seven drafts, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks.
The Butler saga is ongoing, and with a trade of this magnitude, there are so many moving parts that it could still be days or weeks before anything is finalized — if it even is. But this appears to be the biggest step yet toward a blockbuster with Phoenix. Now, let’s grade the deal for both sides.
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Phoenix Suns: C
Given the direction the Suns are actually trying to go, this trade makes sense. For the past few weeks, they have been trying to accomplish two things with one asset. They need to come up with a fair asset return to send Miami to land Butler, but they also need to send another team enough to take on Beal. You can’t trade an unprotected pick to two different teams, and that unprotected 2031 selection is the last major chip the Suns have to work with if you assume they’re trying to hold on to rookie wing Ryan Dunn. By making this trade, they’ve divided the value of that one asset into three assets, making them easier to split among multiple teams in a possible blockbuster. The plan is coherent.
But is it smart? Well, that’s a harder question. The Suns had better be confident that this all ends with them landing Butler, and no matter what they do, that is out of their control. Beal can squash any deal with his no-trade clause. If he decides he isn’t interested in whatever team the Suns want to trade him to, they’re out of luck. Now, the Suns could, in theory, adopt this strategy to a different end. If Butler is off of the table, they could, for instance, pay someone one first-round pick to take on Jusuf Nurkic and then pay someone else two first-round picks to get a valuable player back for him. Either way, this trade only makes sense if the Suns are about to make a substantial upgrade of some kind.
The upgrade itself is not a guarantee. But even if the Suns can make it, it’s worth asking how much they really stand to gain by doing so. Phoenix is a .500 team (21-21) as of this writing. The Suns were swept out of the first round a year ago. This is a team with several holes: perimeter defense, rim-protection, play-making, rim-gravity. It’s hard to imagine a single trade solving all of those problems. And if it doesn’t, well, it becomes pretty hard to imagine the Suns seriously competing with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference.
That’s the bar for Phoenix here, because that 2031 first-round pick is extremely valuable. Remember, Phoenix does not control any of its own picks between now and then. The Suns do have first-round picks in even-numbered years moving forward thanks to the Stepien Rule, but those picks now have swap rights attached to multiple teams, essentially ensuring that they come late in the first round.
Kevin Durant is 36. Butler is 35. No matter how good the Suns are this spring, this version of the team is playing on borrowed time. Eventually, Phoenix is going to collapse. When that time comes, they won’t have the ammunition to rebuild quickly. They are going to hand out some very valuable picks, this 2031 selection among them.
This is an “in for a penny, in for a pound” move from Phoenix’s perspective. Their future was ruined before this trade, so they might as well continue betting on their present. But adding another potential year of tank-free misery on the back end of this just doesn’t make sense without getting into true championship contention now. Maybe the Suns can do that, but it’s no certainty even with Butler. And now, they’ve traded their 2031 pick without even sealing such a deal.
Utah Jazz: A
As is the case with most things related to roster-building around a billion draft picks, the blueprint for this trade was sketched by Sam Presti. The Thunder spent the first few years of their rebuild accumulating as much draft capital as possible, but once they started to win games and the outline of a successful, long-term roster presented itself, they shifted towards quality over quantity. At last year’s deadline, for instance, they gave the Mavericks a first-round pick that they would use to get Daniel Gafford in exchange for an unprotected first-round swap down the line.
Why? Because the Thunder had so many picks and young players already that, at a certain point, adding more just wasn’t all that valuable. What they wanted was upside. A late first-round pick in the near future did little for them. A swap might ultimately give them nothing. But it’s unprotected, and it’s far enough in the future (2028) that sheer randomness could make it extraordinarily valuable. They’ve taken several swings like that. The San Antonio Spurs have followed in their footsteps. They’ll miss on some of them. If this strategy yields even one premium draft pick down the line, it will have been a success. One top-five pick is worth a dozen picks in the late-20s.
The Jazz are the latest team to realize that. Really think about the picks that they’re giving up here. That 2025 pick they’re sending out is the least favorable of a set of teams that includes the Cavaliers, who are currently on pace to win 70 games. That pick is either going to be No. 29 or No. 30. The 2027 and 2029 picks are the least favorable between those same Cavaliers, still young and theoretically built to win for ages, the Timberwolves, who employ the 23-year-old Anthony Edwards, and the Jazz themselves, who surely plan to start winning sooner rather than later.
Sure, it’s possible that one or two of those teams crash and burn in the coming years. But all three? The odds of that are infinitesimal, and that’s what Phoenix (or whoever ends up with these picks) would need for them to land any higher than the 20s. These picks might have short-term value to a team hoping to add cheap depth or flip them for a helpful veteran, but they’re low upside assets.
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The Jazz don’t need low upside assets. They’ve made six top-32 picks in the last two drafts. They still control most of Minnesota’s and Cleveland’s future draft capital along with a potentially valuable top-four protected Lakers pick in 2027. They, like the Thunder and Spurs, have the quantity part down. Now they’re moving towards quality, and as we’ve covered, that 2031 Suns pick is potentially as high quality as future picks get.
Danny Ainge once landed Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown by betting against a bad owner and a desperate organization. Now, it seems that he’s trying to do it again with Matt Ishbia and the Suns.