SALT LAKE CITY — We're about 48 hours away from the NBA's trade deadline. Here's what's going on with the Jazz.

Jazz interested in Lou Williams?

ESPN New York Knicks writer Ian Begley reported the following late Monday night: "Some members of the Utah Jazz front office have expressed interest recently in Lakers guard Lou Williams."

Williams makes some sense for the Jazz. First of all, the Jazz don't really have an efficient go-get-baskets kind of scorer beyond Gordon Hayward, and Williams is that. He's phenomenal at getting to the foul line, shoots well and isn't a bad playmaker, either. He's on a $7 million contract for this season and next, a super cheap deal in this cap environment. And he'd be able to take over minutes at backup point guard (a sore spot) and some shooting guard minutes, too.

Jazz head coach Quin Snyder likes him too. "I'm a Lou Williams fan, 'cause I was with him in Philly and in Atlanta," Snyder told reporters after the Jazz narrowly beat the Lakers in the second game of the regular season in October. Earlier, in that day's shootaround, Snyder called him "one of the best pure scorers in the league."

Still, there are questions. Zach Lowe pointed out the biggest one that teams have around the league: Can Williams be a good playoff player? In his previous playoff appearances, he's been drastically less effective as games tighten up and his foul-drawing is no longer effective. And he can't defend at all, which threatens to hurt the Jazz's go-to quality: being elite on defense.

And then, what would it take? Begley says the Lakers are looking for a first-round pick. The Jazz have two of those this season, likely to end up around No. 24 and No. 30. Is giving up one of them worth it for Williams?

And can the Jazz deal with a brand new front office? The Lakers named Magic Johnson president of basketball operations just hours ago. Does he want to trade Williams like the old front office did? Who knows.

This might be too inside baseball, but I think it's semi-interesting, so I'll go with it. As a reporter, my first question was: How did Ian Begley report this? Begley is an extremely solid reporter, but he nearly exclusively covers the Knicks for ESPNNewYork.com. I can't find another instance when he's reported on the Jazz alone like this. How did he have knowledge of the thinking of "some members of the Utah Jazz front office"? That's awfully specific. If the Jazz had made a call on Williams, and the Lakers leaked it, they would have agreed to call as a front office whole.

I have a couple of guesses. First of all, Jeff Hornacek is the Knicks coach. Maybe he still stays in contact with someone in the Jazz's front office who said they liked Williams? Another possibility: Wallace Prather is Lou Williams' agent. He's also the agent of Derrick Favors. Prather has probably talked with members of the Jazz's front office dozens of times over his career, and maybe, they've talked with Prather about the possibility of acquiring Lou Williams. Maybe Begley knows someone in Prather's camp.

Phoenix interested in Derrick Favors?

Hey, speaking of Favors, ESPN's Zach Lowe reported that the Jazz are "testing the market" for the big man. That matches up with what I wrote about last Friday, that Favors' long-term future may be limited in Utah. Then, the Salt Lake Tribune's Tony Jones wrote today that Phoenix may be interested in the big man.

"Elsewhere, the Phoenix Suns have expressed interest in talking to the Jazz about Derrick Favors, Utah's starting power forward, sources say."

Again, the language here is a big deal: They've expressed interest in talking to the Jazz about Favors. That's not necessarily the same as talking to the Jazz directly about such a deal and indicates how early we are in that process.

Still, it's worth imagining what such a deal would look like. Jones later reported that the Jazz like P.J. Tucker, a big wing who is a tenacious defender, decent outside shooter and not much else.

Tucker probably wouldn't be enough for the Jazz to part with Favors right now, but I could definitely see him as part of the deal. Who else? Devin Booker, Eric Bledsoe, Marqueese Chriss and Dragan Bender are all probably too valuable for the Suns to give up. The Jazz were interested in Jared Dudley during free agency, so maybe he'd be part of a package? T.J. Warren, Tyler Ulis, and Derrick Jones Jr. all exist, I suppose. The Suns have picks, but it would seem they're all too good for them to trade. It's kind of a weird fit, and I wonder if maybe a third team might need to make this work.

There's still the likely possibility that the Jazz are just asking around right now in order to understand Favors' market in the offseason.

Elsewhere in the power forward market, Terrence Jones of the Pelicans has played his last game in a New Orleans uniform, according to Mason Ginsberg:

Jones makes some sense from a basketball point of view: he's a solid rim-protector, decent in space and can shoot threes (or more accurately, has been able to shoot threes in the past) and finish inside. From a personnel point of view, there's some worry that he'd be a bad fit off the court. Jones was part of a bad locker room in Houston last season, and there's a non-DeMarcus-Cousins-trade reason the Pelicans want to move on from him now, despite a tiny contract and good production. Jones is incredibly cheap, but his contract runs out at the end of this season.

Jazz below the salary cap floor

One reason I think the Jazz will make a trade of some sort in the next 48 hours is because they're so far under the cap. Right now, the Jazz have about $13.6 million dollars in cap space, which means they're about $4.2 million below the salary cap floor.

Right now, that $4.2 million would be distributed among members of the Jazz, basically, a nice bonus for the players already on the team. But it probably makes more sense to use it to acquire an asset of any sort, rather than give away the money as a gift to already-millionaires.

There are problems, though. The Jazz don't want to take on any dead money for future seasons because their cap situation will be tight assuming George Hill, Gordon Hayward and Joe Ingles re-sign. That means they're looking for something short.

There are also a few other teams in the Jazz's situation who have salary cap room. That means it'll be more difficult to procure assets.

Shelvin Mack to Cavs deal still possible

The rumor about Shelvin Mack going to the Cleveland Cavaliers to help their point guard situation is now in its fourth week.

You see, the Cavs had a traded player exception to the NBA's salary cap that they could have used to acquire Mack and only give up picks or future assets, without giving up players. However, that expired at midnight Monday, and I had seen some speculate (and I believed it!) that was the end of Mack to Cavs discussions.

However, the Cavs have a second traded player exception that was created in the Kyle Korver deal, so they can still acquire Mack into that space. Doing so, though, would cause the Cavaliers to pay luxury tax on any acquired salary.

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