Jazz Preview
A look at the Utah Jazz entering the 2024-25 season …
- Coach: Will Hardy
- Last Season: 31-51 (failed to make the playoffs)
- New Faces: Cody Williams, Drew Eubanks, Svi Mykhailiuk, Kyle Filipowski, Isaiah Collier, Patty Mills
- Notable Losses: Talen Horton-Tucker, Kira Lewis Jr., Omer Yurtseven, Kris Dunn, Luka Samanic, Kenneth Lofton Jr., Darius Bazley
Overview
The Jazz are facing a big, complicated question: Who exactly is their future? Two years after trading Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, they’ve got a collection of young players and draft picks.
You’d think this would signal the start of a proper rebuild, right? But that’s not exactly how it’s played out. Instead, the Jazz have been caught in no man’s land — too competitive to bottom out, not good enough to contend, and still without a clear franchise player to build around.
Lauri Markkanen, to his credit, emerged as an All-Star, but let’s not kid ourselves — he’s not the guy to carry the team deep into the playoffs. Utah came out of the gate hot in 2022-23, winning 12 of their first 18, before eventually settling for 12th in the West.
They didn’t lose enough to secure a high lottery pick, but they didn’t win enough to be a real threat. The same story unfolded last season, where they racked up 31 wins behind veterans like Markkanen, Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson, and John Collins.
The result? Another mid-first-round pick, another year stuck in NBA purgatory.
The Jazz have taken five first-rounders in the past two drafts — Taylor Hendricks, Keyonte George, Brice Sensabaugh, Cody Williams, and Isaiah Collier — plus Kyle Filipowski in the second round. But let’s be honest, none of them looks like a future star at this point.
George might have the highest upside, but even he struggled with consistency, shooting below 40% from the field last season. The jury’s still out on this year’s class, but you can’t help but wonder if the Jazz are just spinning their wheels.
What makes things even more complicated is head coach Will Hardy. Now, Hardy’s a good coach. In fact, he’s too good, which is part of the problem. He leans on his veterans to win games, meaning younger guys often take a back seat.
Take Walker Kessler, for instance. The 7-footer was a finalist for Rookie of the Year in 2023 and even made Team USA for the FIBA World Cup. But instead of building on that, the Jazz moved him to the bench in favor of Collins, who hasn’t exactly moved the needle.
The numbers are clear — Utah’s defense was significantly better with Kessler on the floor, but instead of developing him, they’re chasing marginal wins with veterans.
And that brings us back to the same question: What’s the endgame here? The Jazz aren’t making the playoffs this season. The Western Conference is too loaded, and this roster isn’t built to go the distance.
So why are we still talking about the possibility of them chasing the play-in? Their focus should be on figuring out which of these young players, if any, is going to be a cornerstone for the future.
If they don’t commit to playing the kids, they’ll be stuck in the same cycle of mediocrity.
Best-case scenario? Markkanen stays fully committed, Hardy gives the young guys plenty of run, and they show enough flashes to get excited. Maybe they move guys like Clarkson, Sexton, and Collins for assets and fall far enough in the standings to secure a top-five pick — something they haven’t done in more than a decade.
And if everything breaks right, maybe Cleveland and Minnesota underperform, giving the Jazz a few extra lottery tickets from those unprotected first-round picks.
But if it all falls apart, here’s the nightmare: another hot start convinces the front office they can make the play-in, and they once again fall short of tanking.
Suddenly, that top-10 protected pick they owe to Oklahoma City starts looming large. If they lose that, it could set this team back even further, and we’re left asking the same question next season — Who is the future of the Jazz?
Right now, no one has the answer.
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Obviously you don’t know anything what’s going on inside the team. About their goals for this season. About the “build”. Long term goals. You didn’t come to any conclusion. Now i am taking your mindset and i’ll just make some questions: what was the point of this article? Why did you wrote it? Are your readers now more educated about the Jazz franchise? I understand that in sports you are allowed to speculate a bit, but you didn’t even do that. Thanks for waisting everyones time.
Can you run it by me again, why Kessler should start over Collins? Better defense? What about offense? If “chasing marginal wins” is an inference to Collins, it might mean he gives them a better chance to win. The are different style players. One may be more versatile than the other, or have things that fit the starting group better.
I LOVE chasing marginal wins. It’s called winning for the love of the game, and winning to win, and it’s always for the fans. The tank method has never really proven to be successful. Especially now with altered lottery chances. You may be speaking in old theories. Ones that leave a lot to be desired. How’s that trust the process thing going, when did that start again?
I’d rather be like the Celtics, trying to be good every year. Or like the Jazz were under Jerry Sloan.
Kudos to the Jazz for attempting to build through trying to win. Making that the goal. Instead of the con that leaves fans with nothing to show for their loyalty. If Kessler needs to get better to beat out Collins and start, what about that, Sam? Doesn’t that build for the future? Earning your playing time by displaying improvement? That’s more of a proven method to success than tanking, is it not?
The Cavs tanked to get LeBron. We still weren’t able to build a championship team in that run. He left to Miami before we won it. It was simply the fact that he was from Akron Ohio that he decided to come back. That’s when we won. So you could argue that tanking never worked for the Cavs either. Just dumb luck did.
Love you Sam. But the media, “you guys”, need to end this old non-proven narrative. Just because Popovich bought into it at one point doesn’t make it right. He won his stuff before they tried that approach. And Wembanyanas don’t grow on trees. Getting that first pick isn’t as easy as the narrative suggests. How many tanking teams are left at the alter every year when the balls don’t bounce their way. Those are the ones the theory is neglecting to count.