Cavs and Jazz both look like runaway winners from blockbuster trade

Jazz are big winners from trade with Cavs too

Donovan Mitchell has carried the Cavs to great success to start the season, and they have the league’s fifth-best offense. Sixth on the list? The Utah Jazz, the team that was supposed to be tanking, the team already an eighth of the way to their over/under of 24.5 wins. They have three wins over three legitimately good teams, teams that are undefeated when they play anyone other than Utah.

There are plenty of players to commend for the strong start, on both ends of the court, but the best player on the team has been former Cavalier Lauri Markkanen. After a breakout performance in EuroBasket last month for Finland Markkanen has picked up right where he left off, averaging 24 points per game and snatching 9.7 rebounds per game, both easily career-highs. Perhaps even more impressive has been his 3.7 assists per game, more than double his previous best.

Check out the names Markkanen is among in terms of total, on-court impact:

That’s right, the maligned stretch-big serving as matching salary playing for a “tanking” team with a new head coach and no chemistry is just behind Ja Morant among the league’s best players to start the season. Whether or not that lasts, Markkanen has been awesome thus far. If the Jazz get this Markkanen moving forward, they have a legitimate building block before even factoring in Collin Sexton or the draft picks.

There is obviously plenty of basketball to be played before making official referendums on this trade, but both the Cavs and the Jazz have to be ecstatic about the early returns. Through three games Markkanen and Mitchell have been among the best players in the league. Who would have seen that coming?