Utah Jazz clearly won the completed-value comparison; Memphis received Ronnie Brewer but surrendered first-round pick (protected top 14 in 2011, top 12 in 2012, top 10 in 2013, top 9 in 2014-15, cash thereafter) (2011 #20-Donatas Motiejunas).
Memphis acquired Ronnie Brewer from Utah at the 2010 trade deadline for a protected future first-round pick. Brewer had started all 53 games he played for the Jazz that season and brought the defensive profile the Grizzlies wanted on the wing. The idea was coherent for a team trying to improve immediately, but the actual Memphis return became extremely small because Brewer appeared in only five games after the trade.
Brewer suffered a partially torn right hamstring in his second game after the trade and was ruled out indefinitely. He finished the season with just five Grizzlies appearances, no starts and 80 total minutes. Memphis then lost him in free agency when he signed with Chicago that summer. The injury was bad luck rather than a scouting failure, but completed-value grading still has to reflect that the Grizzlies surrendered a first-round asset for almost no realized on-court production.
The protected Memphis first ultimately conveyed in 2011 at No. 20, the slot where Donatas Motiejunas was selected. Utah did not use the pick itself. In July 2010 the Jazz included that Memphis first, Kosta Koufos and another future first in the trade that brought Al Jefferson from Minnesota. Because the Memphis pick was only one component of that package, Jefferson’s entire Utah career cannot be credited to this deal, but the pick clearly retained substantial transaction value.
This is one of the cleaner completed-value gaps in the queue. Memphis received a useful player in theory but only five games in practice, then lost him without a return. Utah converted Brewer into a protected first and soon used that first as a meaningful piece in a trade for a starting center. The Jazz should receive credit for preserving and redeploying value, while Memphis gets some allowance for the unforeseeable injury but not enough to erase the lopsided realized outcome.
Jazz Win — Utah A-, Memphis D+. Memphis acquired Ronnie Brewer for a protected first, but Brewer played only five games after a hamstring injury and left for Chicago that summer. Utah preserved the first-round asset and used it as one component of the July 2010 Al Jefferson trade. The injury keeps Memphis from an F, but the completed value still favors Utah by a wide margin.