NEXT YEAR – Do Utah Jazz have athleticism to compete? 6 Bad SOLUTIONS to Tanking. 2 good ones
Utah Jazz face a pivotal question: Are they athletic enough to compete with the best in the Western Conference next season? David Locke scrutinizes the roster’s strengths and weaknesses, spotlighting Keonte George, Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson, and Walker Kessler’s athletic profiles. The conversation weighs rim protection, rebounding prowess, and pace against elite Western rivals while emphasizing a pressing need for more ball handling, shooting, and speed.
Locke also unpacks the NBA’s ongoing struggle with tanking, dissecting six proposed solutions and championing innovative Reddit ideas to truly incentivize winning. Will Hardy joins with insights on Ace Bailey’s development, George’s growing poise, and Blake Hinson’s successful adaptation. Is Utah’s starting five fast enough, or will offseason moves be necessary to compete with players like Victor Wembanyama, Devin Vassell, and SGA? Explore the Jazz’s path toward playoff contention and the league-wide battle for competitive integrity.
00:00: Jazz Athleticism Next Season
10:15: NBA Tanking Solutions
27:39: Will Hardy Press Conference Insights’
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12 Comments
Which solution for NBA tanking do you think would work best?
Kevin Peltons idea makes no sense. Because if a team doesnt know what date itll be selected based from, then the teams will have to make sure they lose as much as possible regardless of the time in the season….
The Jazz are lucky to have Coach Hardy.
I don't believe teams will purposely lose a play-in game and the ability to play a playoff series for a 7% chance at the top pick and equal odds at any of the other spots in the lottery. No way! No good player would ever want to play for that team again after competing all year to make the play-in. Plus you're always saying something like any playoff team is just an injury or two from the opposing team away from going to a conference championship.
Problem with that Reddit proposal is that you are recording a mediocre teams while the first team still don't get the pick needed to improve
Just do the seeding tournament and give a somewhat significant cash prize to the winning team. That motivates players especially the lower rotation guys that don’t get paid as much.
Yes. The top teams in the West are not super athletic or anything. Wemby can be covered by Kessler and JJJ, fox can only shoot 34% from 3 so you can sag off him in the paint. Harper and castle don't aren't much more athletic than keyonte and ace.
Same with OKC, not a ton of amazing athletes there. Or on Denver.
Bro stop with this castle stuff. Teams are going to treat him like the spurs treated tony Allen in the playoffs and he won't be able to shoot his way out of it.
There are 30 teams and one trophy each year. Realistically there are only 7 teams at most that are actually competitive each season. In other words, there are 7 teams that are haves, and 23 teams that are have nots. This is why I think completely flat odds for the 14 lotto teams is the best I’ve come across. David doesn’t seem to like this because he views it from the perspective of a team that never catches a break and is perpetually bad. I think this something to be addressed, but I see it from the perspective that half the league needs opportunity to become something special because you have to be special to be truly competitive. I just don’t like the incentive to be the worst on purpose. If there was no incentive to be last place, I think teams would play better basketball while they are rebuilding and I think teams just under .500 need the draft avenue just as much as the worst teams because the goal should be to help teams be special, to help 14 teams have a chance to be haves and not have nots.
I think you need to stipulate more than just flat odds to lotto teams, make it so a team or two can’t have too much luck and make sure the wealth is shared a little more evenly. Something like 1 pick one year can’t get and pick in the top 5 next year, pick 2 and 3 can’t get a top 3 pick. Not sure how best to do it, but that’s more or less the idea.
I also think if you flattened the odds completely, you will have an incentive for more teams to be better at drafting as more teams have a shot at the top 6 picks.
If some teams were better at drafting, they wouldn’t be in the mess they are in.
History has proved that getting a #1 overall isn’t as impactful as assumed. Ant and wemby, Flagg (was Cade #1 overall? He might also be in this club) as possibility, are basically the only ones we think can be the best player on chip team right now.
To me, Spurs, Mavs and Grizzlies stand out. Prestie definitely hit with KD and Harden, but Shay wasn’t drafted and Chet was basically a give me at #2 as a number 2 on the team, if anything, thunder’s current strength comes from trades.
Too many have become busts, though not always a team’s fault.
What we are finding out recently is that draft classes matter a ton which actually makes me question if Spurs are just lucky, be interesting if someone did a study on which teams actually draft the best when they don’t have top 3 picks.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts, incentivizing teams to be bad sucks, and I’d like teams that manage a team well get more chances to get the franchise players they need rather than feed teams at the bottom.
I’d like teams to be smarter, work on being compatible and then be hopeful of generational player falling to them when they have momentum.
Flat odds for every team that doesn't make the second round of the playoffs. Otherwise teams will tank out of the playoffs, but nobody will intentionally lose in the first round. There is NO way to fix this if there is any incentive at all to lose. Being a Jazz fan this year has been horrible. Rooting for your team to lose is a terrible system.
It's nice to say that the big free agent markets love the "no top 4 picks in consecutive years" rule, but you failed to provide an argument why that might be the case. Sowing fear in little-market Utahns is not an effective approach to winning an argument.
Besides, it sounds like the root cause of the problem has nothing to do with the draft, since you have to throw in all these caveats and excuses.
You can't make winning part of the equation. The whole point in every sport is to give the worse teams that need the most help the best picks. The Lottery is so stupid, it just makes bad teams have to tank for longer.