The Jazz Are Playing A VERY Risky Game…

The Jazz Are Playing A VERY Risky Game…

In the NBA, it’s very hard to start over completely from scratch. Tanking has become a useful tool for rebuilding teams at the bottom of the standings, but the method wasn’t always as accepted as it is now. There are a lot of pros and cons that come with it. So, measuring that risk and weighing things out, whether or not it’s a path worth going down, is tough sometimes. Sometimes you find that pillar to build around through the draft early on in the rebuild, which sets the tone for the rest of it. But other times, years can go by without any luck in the draft. And that’s exactly where the Utah Jazz currently find themselves. Things are not looking good at all in Utah right now. But every move they’ve made this off season indicates to me that they may have a trick up their sleeve and are planning something big. But it’s just going to be incredibly risky. And if things go wrong, then they’ll be completely screwed for quite a while. In today’s video, we’re going to be doing a bit of a deep dive into all of this, taking a look at how their rebuild is going so far, what got them to this point, and why what comes next is incredibly high risk, but could be as high reward as it gets. Before we start though, it turns out a good amount of you watching right now aren’t even subscribed to the channel. So, if you enjoy the content, consider hitting the subscribe button as not only does it help out a ton, but it also very much appreciate it. Now, with that being said, let’s begin. As I mentioned in the intro, tanking is always a reasonable plan in theory, but hitting on everything that needs to be done in actuality is a lot harder. There’s a reason why the process era Philadelphia 76ers were as controversial as they were at the time, because the product on the court is going to be ugly for an extended period of time. And with that, coaches are putting their jobs at risk, front office members are putting their jobs at risk, and ownership risks losing out on profits that would be more plentiful with a team that wins more games. Some teams secure top picks and land a star in the making with it relatively early in the process, like for example, the Pistons landing Cade Cunningham in their second year of rebuilding and the Orlando Magic landing Plo in their second year of rebuilding. But not everyone is that lucky. When the Utah Jazz traded Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobear away in the same off season, they brought in a whole treasure chest of draft capital that put them in the driver’s seat of a great opportunity to rebuild right away. And at this time, there was a lot of optimism surrounding the Jazz’s future. They held the rights to multiple first round picks in five straight drafts at the time. And with the chance to take that many swings, surely one has got to be a home run that can kick things into gear, right? The Jazz are now three years into this rebuild though, and so far they have yet to find anything close to a franchise pillar, and that is a big reason why this video is even being made. In the 2023 season, the team surprisingly overachieved a bit in that first year post Mitchell and Gobear, thanks in large part to a breakout all-star season by Lori Markin and Jordan Clarkson having the best year of his career, amongst others. So, in the 2023 draft, they were picking ninth overall instead of near the top of the board. And with that pick, they drafted Taylor Hendris. Hris was viewed as at minimum a high floor 3 and D type of player, but through two seasons he’s only been able to play 43 games because of countless injuries stacking up. And even when he’s been healthy, he just has not produced like a top 10 pick is expected to. The class wasn’t that great in that year. So, it’s not like they made a glaring error and passed on elite talent at that spot, but there were still some better options, including Derek Lively, Kase Wallace, and Brandon Pajki, for example. Luckily, the Jazz still had two more first round picks to use in that draft, and they even landed some solid talent with them, taking Keiante George 16th overall, and Bryce Sensible at 28th overall. But at best, those two are good bench talent on a team that wants to win at the highest level. Both players are microwave shooters who have had plenty of flashes of upside putting up big scoring nights here and there, but what they bring to the table is a dime a dozen. The 2024 season didn’t really do them any favors either with the team still struggling to find an identity because of the fact that they didn’t go allin on tanking and they hovered in the realm of limbo. Not being good enough to make the playoffs but also not being bad enough to finish with a pick that could land them their next foundational building block. They once again had two first round picks to use in the 2024 NBA draft at picks number 10 and 28 selecting Cody Williams and Isaiah Kier respectively. And that’s just not a hall that’s changing anything about your outlook as a team. A few months ago, I made a video over why I, to put it lightly, am not very high on Cody Williams. But long story short, he’s looking like a pretty big bust and one of the biggest ones we may have seen in recent memory. So, there goes another top 10 pick down the drain. Isaiah Collier is actually a huge steel that they found at the end of the first round and looks every bit like a phenomenal backup point guard. But again, that’s not shifting the direction of a franchise. Now, the 2025 season this past year finally seemed to be a turning point. The young guys were finally starting to be put at the forefront. Larry Markin had a down year, and he struggled with injuries. The veterans weren’t nearly as involved as they previously were, and the team was losing a lot of games. The Jazz finished the year with the worst record in the NBA, the ultimate goal for a tanking team still in search of a start to build around. Luckily for them, this year’s draft also had a real prize at the top with Cooper Flag having all of the makings of a potential two-way stud, who should have quite a few all-star games and all defense team nominations on his resume down the line. The problem is that a whole year’s worth of tanking can be thrown out the window by a few pingpong balls in a private room. And that is unfortunately exactly what happened. The draft lottery is done for the first four picks in the draft. And the Jazz, despite having the worst record in the league, did not have the luck of the balls on their side for any of those four picks, meaning they fell all the way down to the fifth pick in the draft order. No Cooper flag, no foundational building block to take things to the next phase of the rebuild. Instead, they used that pick to select Ace Bailey, who despite some tantalizing talent as a shot maker, has done everything in his power to tank his own value over the last few weeks, doesn’t seem to want to be in Utah. whatsoever and is still probably a few years away from working out the kinks in his shot selection and mindset at the next level. This off season has also seen the Jazz offload Colin Ston, John Collins, and Jordan Clarkson. So, it’s becoming even more clear that they’re running back an all hands-on deck tank job for the 2026 season. And that brings us up to speed with the present moment, which begs the question, what exactly is the plan from here? Well, when you take a peek at the top of next year’s draft class, you start to see the picture that this team is painting. It sucks that progress is taking so long for sure, but they don’t have any other choice. And with three absolute studs waiting at the top of the 2026 NBA draft, they would be foolish not to embrace another year of tanking while putting all of the focus on developing the young guys on their roster. The Jazz’s pick in 2026 is also top eight protected. So if it falls to nine or later, they have to send it to Oklahoma City, which only adds fuel to the tanking fire. AJ Debonsa, Darren Peterson, and Cam Boozer are all franchisealtering prospects, and landing one of them is really this team’s only option. That’s why the title of this video is what it is, because a prize like this is absolutely worth the risk, but it is still a risk at the end of the day. We literally just saw the ping-pong balls crush them despite having the worst record in the league. And that will still be a possibility next season. Darren Peterson is being referred to by some scouting circles as the best guard prospect of the last decade and checks pretty much every single box you could want from a shooting guard. He’s a fierce competitor who easily scores from all three levels. He can take over a game with his decisive shot creation skills and tight handle. He’s explosive around the rim and if he’s not one of the NBA’s leading scorers when he’s in his prime, I would be genuinely shocked. So stay tuned for him at Kansas this year. AJ Debonsa is a 6’9 athletic specimen who also confidently scores from all three levels, defends at an elite level, and brings a well-rounded game at either forward spot. He’ll be attending BYU right in the backyard of the Utah Jazz, so they’ll be hoping to keep him in state at the draft. Then of course, Cam Boozer is the son of former Utah Jazz great Carlos Boozer. So this franchise is likely very familiar with his game, but Cam is actually a freak athlete at 6’9″ and 240 lb, dominating the game with his brute force and power while also having the finesse, skill, and touch to gracefully make plays all over the place. and his confidence on the ball as both a scorer and a passer could have himself a similar season to what Cooper Flag just did when Boozer will also be attending Duke this upcoming season. The summer of 2026 has the potential to be a quick turnaround after four slow years of progression. Because if they do bring Debonsa, Peterson, or Boozer in, they will also have max cap space next summer to splurge either on a bigname and free agency or spend wisely to fill out the roster with quality talent in a few different areas, giving them as much or more flexibility than anyone else on the market. If they don’t land a top three pick though, dark times are ahead. And with that being said, that’s all I have for you today. Make sure to like the video, subscribe to the channel, and comment down below what you think about the Utah Jazz in their future. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you all next

In this video we discuss how the Utah Jazz are moving forward with an incredibly risky plan to try to save their sinking rebuild…

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