Jazz Rank: Mike Conley comes in 4th

The Utah Jazz gave up quite a bit to bring in grizzled vet Mike Conley. Grayson Allen, Kyle Korver, Jae Crowder, and 2 first round draft picks were included in the trade to the Memphis Grizzlies. But it was a price worth paying for the Jazz front office.

Mike Conley has been one of the best point guards in the league for several years now. He’s well respected and has played a lot of winning basketball. Memphis was looking to rebuild, so they were forced to move on from their franchise player after 12 seasons. The Utah Jazz saw an opportunity to increase the quality of players around Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, so they jumped.

Admittedly, these results probably look different if the voting had been fully completed before the season started. Conley has been a near-All Star for several years, so it would be surprising if he truly is the 4th most valuable player on the Utah Jazz roster. That being said, he’s getting paid over 30 million dollars, while it’s unlikely that he actually fits that bill to its entirety.

Mike has been one of my favorite players for some time. In fact, when I sat down to play some NBA 2K, the first move I made as a the GM of the Jazz was to trade Trey Burke and whatever it took to get Mike Conley to Utah. So I was pretty excited when he was brought to the Jazz in reality. When he gets it going, he is so fun to watch. That’s something we’ve already seen when he destroyed the LA Clippers by putting up 18 points in the 3rd quarter alone.

Now it’s just a matter of getting up to speed and back on course. Conley might be the most important player for the Jazz to reach their ceiling this season. They paid a premium to get him in. I can’t wait to start seeing those returns.