Jeff Teague is available to be poached from the Atlanta Hawks, and the Utah Jazz, it seems, have made some calls.
Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated dropped some knowledge alongside Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski during the latter’s The Vertical podcast:
As @WojVerticalNBA and I discuss on his podcast: Keep an eye on Atlanta before the trade deadline. Hawks been discussing Jeff Teague w/teams
— Chris Mannix (@ChrisMannixYS) January 27, 2016
Zach Lowe of ESPN.com then added this:
Utah is one of their potential partners, as I wrote yesterday in Jazz column: https://t.co/WuTHKjizSu https://t.co/7HdBAyEkZC
— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) January 27, 2016
Though the Jazz rank in the top 10 of offensive efficiency, per Basketball-Reference, they’re woefully thing at point guard. Trey Burke has been better, but not great; Raul Neto is more of a defensive specialist; and Dante Exum is out for the season with a torn ACL. Gordon Hayward is the primary playmaker, with Alec Burks and, of late, Rodney Hood also shouldering major ball-handling responsibilities.
That’s not good enough, particularly for a team that lives in the half court and needs a wily floor general to create space and collapse defenses while dealing with the necessary logjam Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert create in the middle when playing together.
The Utah Jazz, however, aren’t ones for dealing first-round picks or incumbent talent. They’ve been very clear about that ever since they jump-started this rebuild in 2011, and then doubled down on it when they let Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson leave in free agency for nothing.
But they might be willing to make a slight exception for Teague, who is a 27-year-old All-Star, an expert pick-and-roll catalyst, and an upgrade as a shooter over any other floor general they currently employ.
A package of Burks and Burke for Teague and Thabo Sefolosha could get the job done, though it’s unclear if the Jazz are ready to cut bait on the Burks experiment. He has only ever been an offensive plus twice in his career, according to NBA.com, but he’s on a super-reasonable deal that Utah may be hesitant to trade.
If the Jazz decide Teague isn’t worth whatever the Hawks are asking, expect them to make a smaller-scale move. Standing pat really isn’t an option, even for team like them that’s OK making lottery appearances, when they’re this close to making a playoff push.
