As fun as it is to say that the Utah Jazz traded for an All-Star and Defensive Player of the Year at the deadline in February, it may be a bit of a stretch to refer to Jaren Jackson Jr. as such right now.

I've been more guilty of doing this than anyone; JJJ is the star that Utah's front office decided to dish out picks and young players in the hopes of adding the finishing touch to a roster that has been painstakingly rebuilt over years. If Jackson isn't the type of player that Utah hopes he can be, that sets the team's plans for a competitive future back a ways.

But is the best version of Jaren Jackson Jr. still on the horizon? Or are the Jazz betting on a player who hasn't been his best self in years? I dove into this question for selfish reasons, and I found encouraging details to back up Utah's faith in their newly-obtained star.

It's difficult to properly measure how good a player is when he's playing for an imploding organization. And if the speed of Memphis' deconstruction is any indicator of how poorly their star trio of Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, and JJJ fared over time, I'd say the Grizzlies couldn't wait to hit the reset button on a dud batch of stars.

This past season, after parting ways with Bane, Memphis began its descent into the pits of endless despair known as the NBA Lottery game.

Morant was a liability off the court, and wasn't contributing to winning on the court anymore.

Jackson, in his last full season with the Grizzlies, was named an All-Star, All-Defensive Second-Team, and finished seventh in the Defensive Player of the Year voting.

In 48 games last year, he averaged nearly 20 points per game on over 35% three-point shooting, 1.1 steals and 1.4 blocks per game.

In 4 games with the Jazz, JJJ posted a defensive rating of 90.4 -- far and away the best of any player on the team, and a miraculous stat for a member of the 29th-rated defense in basketball.

Becoming an All-Star in Utah is a very real possibility for a player entering the prime years of his career -- especially if the Jazz hold up their end of the deal by winning some basketball games.

It's been four seasons since JJJ's Defensive Player of the Year campaign, in which he blocked 3.0 shots per game. He hasn't averaged even 2 since that season, and without a true center beside him (like Edey or Adams), JJJ may need to adjust his approach and relearn how to play with his new team.

DPOY isn't likely in year one, but an All-Star push with Lauri Markkanen (and hopefully Keyonte George) isn't out of the question by a long shot. It could be a special year in Utah.