There are certainly reasons that many of us want to trade Jaxson right now:

* He has not demonstrated the focus and work ethic that we'd like to see.

* In the wake of his arrest and guilty plea, there are obvious concerns about his character

* He's demonstrated a lack of maturity in other ways, including his rookie-season video telling the league to suck his d*ck.

* The development that we actually have seen from Jaxson has not been in the skills where we most need to see improvement: guarding bigs in the post, and defensive rebounding.

* Jaxson generally lacks physical toughness. How many times, for example, have you seen him take a charge? Notwithstanding the LeBron shove at the end of the season, Jaxson's fouls are usually not of the physical kind -- they are more likely to be because he couldn't keep his arms vertical.

* I personally believe that he has cussed out coaches and generally been resistant to coaching, which is why two different head coaches in the last two years have flat-out benched him for a while.

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I completely understand those concerns. I've said before that I dislike Jaxson as a person. But I want to make the case why, despite all of that, I don't think that we should trade him right now:

* Jaxson is still only making a little over $6 million this season, and it's very unlikely that we could get another rotational big of similar skill for less money.

* If we trade him now (and assuming that we don't get a big back in return), then we would lack depth, as our only proven bigs would be Zion, JV, Billy, and Nance. Yes, we can be hopeful that EJ will prove to be a rotational PF, and we can hope that Trey can play that position, but it's unwise to depend on a 2nd-round rookie, and Trey's physical growth has meant that he's still rather skinny to face a real pounding in the post, and he wasn't successful in that role last season.

* Jaxson just turned 22, has still not been playing basketball for very long, and still has enormous potential. Perhaps, knowing that he's going into a contract season, he's working out harder this summer than he has in previous offseasons.

* Jaxson has developed and improved each season. When we first got him, for example, he clearly didn't know if dribbling was actually allowed, and now his handle is quite decent for a big guy. He's obviously improved his shooting and has nice touch on shots 4-6 feet from the basket. Shooting 35% from 3 last season on a real number of attempts indicates that continued improvement from deep could make him a real weapon on the outside. Jaxson's perimeter defense also took a huge leap forward this past season.

* There's real potential for synergy with Zion on the floor. Two years ago, both of them were such poor defenders that it was hard to play them together in SVG's defensive scheme, but I think Zion will be a much better defender now, and Jaxson has also improved on that end of the floor. That may allow Willie Green to play them together and exploit the athletic advantages we'll have over other teams. Jaxson's biggest advantage on offense is as a roll man, and Zion initiating the pick-and-roll with Jaxson might simply be unstoppable. Jaxson's other big plus is his ability to run, and Zion also obviously excels in transition. I'm just seeing these plays in my head where Herb or Jose gets a steal, passes it forward to Zion, who draws the defender and throws it up for Jaxson to slam down -- those plays are already fun to watch in my head, even if I haven't seen them yet in real life. And if his 3-pt shot develops? Then, he can really help with our spacing for Zion.

* We might want to keep Jaxson next season. I simply do not understand all the people saying that we can't afford to re-sign him, so we should trade him now. First of all, Jaxson does not have a large trade value right now. And if he doesn't improve much, then he isn't going to command a lot on the market next offseason and we could probably afford to re-sign him. If he does improve a lot, then he's a powerful trade chip at the deadline, and he'd then easily be worth his $9.1 million qualifying offer. Maybe we're going into the tax next season, and we don't know how much the cap is going up in any case. Jaxson would be a RFA, so we'd certainly have the ability to match, and RFAs in his price range often don't even get offers if other teams think that we'll just match.

TLDR: I don't want us to trade Jaxson now. To make room for EJ, we're better off keeping Jaxson for now and instead waiving Temple, or else trading a Graham/Temple, Temple/Kira, or Graham/Kira combo.