The Jazz Reportedly Rejected A Knicks Offer Of RJ Barrett And Two Firsts For Donovan Mitchell

The last big domino left to fall in the 2022 NBA offseason is Donovan Mitchell being trades, as the Utah Jazz look to fully enter a rebuild after sending Rudy Gobert to Minnesota for a massive haul of picks earlier this summer.

The Knicks have long been considered the frontrunners — and really the only team we’ve heard of with considerable interest in Mitchell — with many operating on the belief it’s a matter of when, not if, Mitchell is playing his home games at Madison Square Garden. However, on Tuesday, the Knicks announced a new four-year extension worth north of $100 million for RJ Barrett, which seemed to complicate matters and raised plenty of eyebrows around the league.

While Barrett’s extension changes the calculus given the poison pill provision, according to Shams Charania, it doesn’t preclude him from still being part of a trade package that nets Mitchell. The bigger problem is the Knicks not meeting the Jazz’s asking price in offers where Barrett is the focal point, with Charania bringing word that the Jazz rejected the latest offer from New York of Barrett and a pair of unprotected firsts for Mitchell.

Given that we’ve heard the Jazz are asking for a similar draft pick haul as what they got from the Wolves who sent five first rounders to Utah for Gobert, this certainly indicates that there’s still a wide gulf between what the Knicks are offering and the Jazz are requesting. With a month left until camp, there’s no reason for either party to budge much on their offer/demand, but we seem headed for a who blinks first scenario in terms of offering up a compromise position that’s somewhere between this reported offer and the full asking price.