SALT LAKE CITY — The NBA trade deadline is less than a month away, and the Utah Jazz are mired in a stretch of terrible basketball.

Sitting nine games under .500, and five games back of the 8th seed, the opportunity to make a postseason run is quickly slipping away, and nothing the team is doing on the floor appears to be reversing its fortune.

While the Jazz appeared to be treading water through a tough month of December, finishing 2017 still in playoff contention, the team has managed just one win so far in the month of January, and has now lost 15 of its last 19 games. The season-ending injury to Thabo Sefolosha is just the latest in a long string of absences on the roster, and even with starting center Rudy Gobert due back from injury in the near future, the Jazz may simply have dug themselves into too deep of a hole.

With that in mind, the Jazz can now turn their attention to the Feb. 8 trade deadline and figure how to reshape or deconstruct the roster to best suit their future.

With a record of 17-26 on the season, the Jazz are just four games ahead of the lowly Sacramento Kings, who have the worst record in the Western Conference. League-wide, the Jazz are just five games ahead of the Orlando Magic and Atlanta Hawks, who are tied for the worst record in the league. However, despite so few games separating the Jazz and these NBA cellar dwellers, nine teams sit below the Jazz in the league standings.

While it’s unlikely the Jazz could lose enough games to earn the top odds of winning the NBA lottery, it’s not unreasonable to think they could use the trade deadline to reshape the future of their roster, while improving their draft odds.

The most likely player to be traded is Derrick Favors. The Jazz’s longest-tenured roster piece will become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season and is all but guaranteed to sign elsewhere over the summer. While Favors has shown his value this season in place of an injured Gobert, the two are an awkward fit in the modern NBA, especially alongside point guard Ricky Rubio. None of the three is capable of spreading the floor with long-distance shooting, hindering the Jazz in the 3-point-centric NBA. Favors is a starting caliber center and deserves a bigger role than the Jazz can offer with Gobert in tow, and a team looking for a short-term upgrade at center would be wise to add Favors to its roster.

The downside for the Jazz in any Favors trade is that they are unlikely to get equal value in return, as the team that acquires him understands he may be a short-term rental signing with the highest bidder in the offseason. However, for the right team, the Jazz may be able to land a late first-round pick in return for his services, or a young player who can’t crack the rotation of a high-level roster. The Jazz will almost surely take a step back talentwise when moving Favors, but could gain a long-term asset in the process.

While Favors is the most likely piece to be moved, the Jazz should be pushing hardest to move shooting guard Alec Burks. Burks has fallen out of favor in the current rotation, losing minutes to undrafted rookie Royce O’Neale. With another year left on his contract at $11 million, and being redundant behind budding star Donovan Mitchell, Burks adds very little value to the Jazz roster, and serves only to hurt the team’s free-agent pursuits this offseason. The Jazz will look to get a future asset in return for Burks on the trade market, but should be willing to settle for an expiring contract if one can be had. The Jazz may even need to include a draft asset of their own, say a second-round pick, to free up the money owed to Burks ahead of next season.

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As an impending free agent, Derrick Favors can leave without the Jazz getting any compensation. Rather than let him walk away, the Jazz should look to trade Favors in the coming weeks with an eye toward improving the team now and in the future.

The Jazz could also look to move fourth-year wing Rodney Hood. Hood will become a restricted free agent this summer, and is likely to fetch a high price from a potential bidder looking to lure him away from the Jazz. When Gordon Hayward was a restricted free agent in 2014, the Jazz were forced to match the max contract offered to the forward from the Charlotte Hornets. At the time, the Jazz had little choice but to invest in Hayward as the future face of the roster, and the team matched the high price offer-sheet.

Unlike 2014, the Jazz's future success isn’t strictly tied to the play of their pending restricted free agent. With the rookie Mitchell building on a rookie of the year campaign, and the Jazz having already invested in a long-term contract for Joe Ingles, Hood could easily price himself out of the Jazz comfort zone this summer by signing with a team desperate for help on the wing. With that in mind, the Jazz may look to rebuild their asset bank by trading a player like Hood, who could otherwise be a long-term piece of the franchise. With Hood averaging a career best in points and 3-point shooting percentage, he should receive significant interest at the trade deadline, and the Jazz may be willing to move him if they don’t feel comfortable with the idea of signing him to a high-priced long-term contract. Trading Hood would be a significant gamble, but could net the best long-term return for the Jazz.

Beyond those three players, the trade market for this current Jazz roster likely won’t be all that significant. Joe Johnson’s expiring contract may appeal to a team looking to shed salary and add a veteran piece who could help spot minutes in the playoffs, but his dip in play this season has been significant. Any trade involving Johnson will likely require the Jazz to take on a longer-term contract in return, which would limit their offseason spending options.

Ekpe Udoh, Raul Neto and Jonas Jerebko have value as low-cost rotation pieces, but the Jazz will likely benefit more long term by keeping the three at a discounted rate, rather than trying to net a low-level contract, or second-round pick in return for any of the three.

The Jazz would be wise to retain Dante Exum beyond the deadline, as they control his contractual rights going into the summer. Exum played well alongside Mitchell in the Utah Jazz Summer League, and could fit well as a tall, athletic guard alongside the smaller Mitchell. Unless the Jazz got a clearly lopsided offer in their favor for Exum, they should be willing to hold onto him, and match whatever reasonable contract offer he receives this summer.

Whereas at past trade deadlines, the Jazz were looking for difference-makers to pair alongside Hayward to make a deep playoff push, this current team should have the freedom to be sellers at the trade deadline, should their trade partner be willing to offer assets for the future. Additionally, the Jazz may view the ability to increase their draft position as enough of a benefit to be willing to make trades that don’t net them an equal return in talent.

Though traditionally the Dennis Lindsey-led Jazz have been quiet at the trade deadline, the team’s freedom to fall back in the standings before the end of the season may make them one of the league’s more active teams before Feb. 8. While the Jazz may not have more talent on their roster at season’s end than they do now, short-term steps backwards may prove beneficial over the long haul.

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