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SALT LAKE CITY — In December of 2007, the Jazz were in a slump. They had lost 10 of 13 games and were looking for some help to kickstart the season. They found some by trading for Kyle Korver.
Eleven years later, Utah is hoping Korver can have the same effect.
Utah has sent Alec Burks and two future second-round picks to Cleveland for Kyle Korver, a source confirmed to KSL.com.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski was the first to report the trade.
The Jazz are 9-12 with plenty of those losses coming in blowout fashion. There are problems;’ lots of them. Korver could at least help solve one big one.
The Jazz entered Wednesday’s game against Brooklyn ranked 29th in the NBA in 3-point shooting. They have connected on just a hair under 32 percent of their long-range shots the season. Korver, even at the age of 37, comes to Utah shooting 46 percent from deep. And that’s mostly been the norm for Korver’s career.
The sharpshooter has shot under 40 percent from 3-point range just once since the 2008-09 season. That was when he hit a breezy 39.8 percent in 2015-16. He might be the fifth oldest players in the league (he’ll turn 38 in March), but his shot hasn’t left him. And that’s what the Jazz need.
Utah has been one of the worst shooting teams in the league, but it's not due to lack of quality shots. According to Second Spectrum, Utah has generated the highest-quality of 3-point looks this season. They just aren't making them. Though the team publically has stated it had a belief that things would turn around, Wednesday showed that they felt like a change was needed.
The Jazz missed their first eight 3-point attempts to start Wednesday’s game. Utah is hoping that Korver can help fix those types of nights. Korver has made 2,238 career 3-pointers, fourth-most in NBA history and most among current players.
Korver is averaging 6.8 points this season in 15.7 minutes this year and he has one year remaining on his contract following this season, according to Basketball-Reference. He is due to make $7.5 million in 2018-19, but that is partially guaranteed.
Burks is in the final year of his deal and it seemed unlikely the Jazz would have chosen to retain him in free agency this coming summer. Burks has always been somewhat of an awkward fit in Utah’s offense. His greatest skill of scoring one-on-one was never fully utilized in Jazz coach Quin Snyder’s motion offense. Was he the problem this season? Far from it. In fact, he was one of the only Jazz players to consistently hit shots. Burks was hitting 36.8 percent from deep — one of three Jazzmen shooting above league average from behind the arc.
But Korver is more of a natural fit in Utah’s offensive attack. He’s a master of getting open off screens and he’s one of the best spot-up shooters the league has ever seen.
And he has shown he can spark Utah before. After Korver arrived in late 2007, the Jazz won 19 of their next 22 games and finished with a 38-12 record with the sharpshooter. Is a similar run coming? Time will tell.
