1. The Jazz are winning, and that’s bad for the Jazz
The Jazz have now won consecutive games, pushing them to a 7-20 record. They’re also now down to fifth in the tank race.
(Tankathon.com)
But because of the NBA’s lottery odds, this also means the Jazz are now more likely to miss out on a top-5 pick than to get one. The most likely pick the Jazz will get is currently No. 7. I think that top-5 cutoff is valuable, as I see a top tier in this year’s draft among those five. I don’t have to tell you that the 7th pick is significantly less valuable.
(Tankathon.com)
We’re only a third of the way through the season, so obviously, there’s still so much more basketball left to be played. The lottery odds are not decided in December. But I’m also here to tell you that the tank race doesn’t get easier from here, it gets harder: teams in contention for the No. 1 lottery odds will rest more players, extend more injuries, and play worse players. The Jazz must do the same.
I care about where the Jazz end up in the tank race because Jazz fans deserve a good basketball team. The last two seasons of 30-something wins has NBA purgatory, where the team is neither good enough to sniff the playoffs, nor bad enough to acquire a franchise player through the draft. The fanbase — which has still sold out the Delta Center through this all — deserve one or the other.
And instead, they’ve received a team that’s chosen a series of half-measures.
When the Jazz were good, they dumped Derrick Favors on to OKC to save money, giving up a valuable first round pick in the process — a pick that could have been used to buy a defensive difference maker in the playoffs as their competition racked up $200 million payrolls.
Now that the Jazz are bad, they’re benching youth like Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier, Kyle Filipowski, and Bryce Sensabaugh in favor of vets who can help them win games now.
If the season ended today, 2024-25 would likely be another wasted season. Purgatory extended. A playoff drought lengthened. As is, the road ahead of the Jazz is long, and I don’t understand why they’re trying to make it longer — but their choices are doing exactly that.
Tanking makes sense under the NBA’s rules. Half-tanking doesn’t.
2. In fairness to the vets
And I want to be clear: I do understand how unfair the above is to nearly everyone who actually is part of the Jazz, and those players who got the Jazz the win tonight.
• Lauri Markkanen and Collin Sexton are two of the three longest-tenured NBA players to never make the playoffs. Sexton, especially, has competitive fire I don’t think I’ve seen in another Jazz player this decade. Markkanen is supremely talented, an All-Star-caliber player. They deserve to win games.
• John Collins was roasted by nearly everyone last season for underperforming — and quietly worked hard, came back, and improved his game in a huge way this year.
• Jordan Clarkson has stuck in Utah and been an incredibly good soldier despite his team collapsing around him over the last five years.
• Svi Mykhailiuk, Micah Potter, Drew Eubanks, and Johnny Juzang are NBA outsiders, drafted in the second round or completely undrafted, who have fought every day to earn their spot in this league. All are less athletically gifted than their peers. All are here through virtue of their hard work anyway.
• If Ime Udoka’s fall from grace happens a few months sooner, Will Hardy is likely an NBA champion with the Boston Celtics right now. Despite that, he’s handled coaching this team with aplomb. At every instance when the Jazz have actually tried to win, Hardy has won the team more games than outsiders expected; he’s hugely respected by the NBA as a whole.
It must be extraordinarily difficult for these men to win, then go and see my ugly mug and hundreds of (probably better-looking) Jazz fans whining about their good performances online. Tens of thousands of hours of work has led to this: a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t reality among the commentariat.
And, rational or not, what the commentariat says does have an impact — even if you try to “block out the noise” or whatever, you never really truly can.
So to them, I just want to say: I see you. I’m sorry that the situation is this way. I would love to cover your successes without contradiction and bittersweet feelings. And I hope this comes to an end soon.
3. The Jazz’s 3-point defensive strategy
The Jazz allow the 3rd-most threes in the NBA this season.
Looking at the numbers, the top five in 3-point shots allowed is a mixed bag. The Jazz are behind Atlanta (16th-best defense) and Charlotte (24th-best defense), but ahead of Sacramento (13th-best defense) and Oklahoma City (NBA’s best defense). So two bad defenses, two middle-of-the-pack defenses, and one great one all allow a lot of threes.
But because three-point variance is so high, it means that whether or not the opponents are making shots from deep plays a large role in game outcomes. Here’s the Jazz’s game log sorted by opponent 3-point makes this season, excluding tonight:
(Basketball Reference)
So the Jazz are 0-11 when teams shoot above that 37.5% mark from deep, and 7-9 when they shoot worse.
Tonight, the Nets had the worst shooting performance for any Jazz opponent this season, making 17.5% of their threes. Relatedly, the Jazz won.
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