The Utah Jazz have consistently been one of the most consistent franchises in the NBA.
If you remove the Ty Corbin years — which many fans tend to forget — the Jazz have consistently been in the playoffs or fighting for a spot. Since 2000, the Jazz have missed the playoffs only nine times, giving more credence to the franchise’s consistency, which fans can take for granted. It’s a remarkable statistic.
Since the sale to Ryan Smith and Smith Entertainment Group (SEG) in October of 2020, ending the Miller family’s tenure as owners, the Jazz have slowly fallen off. This includes hiring Danny Ainge as CEO of basketball operations, a well-known master of tanking maneuvers. Ainge was, and is, the architect of two championship-winning teams in Boston.
Both times, the Celtics were bad, but they retained draft picks, got lucky in the lottery, and made bold moves to bring in new players to elevate the team. Ainge left Boston before the second championship last season, but he drafted the team’s core.
Tanking Efforts in Utah
This is the path that the Utah Jazz find themselves currently walking.
They have the fifth-worst record in the NBA, at 10-28, and multiple picks in upcoming drafts. The young core has looked good, and Will Hardy has proven himself to be one of the best young coaches in the league. However, the records don’t show this because, in previous years, the teams that had been fighting for playoff spots were dismantled at the trade deadline, hampering Hardy and the team’s mostly mediocre success.
This is the first year in Hardy’s three-year stint as head coach that the team seems truly committed to the tank, allowing young players to grow and develop. The core of Lauri Markkanen, Keyonte George, and Walker Kessler seem to be the three players that the Jazz will build around.
John Collins, Collin Sexton, and Jordan Clarkson will almost certainly certainly be deadline casualties, much to the chagrin of Jazz fans who have come to love these players. Trading veterans who are significant contributors to the team will only further the efforts to tank and push for a better chance at the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 draft.
Utah’s Will Hardy Problem
The only real hitch in the plan seems to be Will Hardy.
The current roster makeup is young enough that losing should be a non-issue, and it has been so far in this season. The problem is that box scores don’t always tell the full story.
For fans who watch games consistently, it often feels tighter than the final score. The Jazz are consistently in games during the first half or even the first three quarters of the game before they allow the opposing team to pull away. Hardy has the team playing hard— it’s clear they still believe in their coach, or the previous years of Hardy’s tenure would have gone a lot differently.
How many coaches in sports fail and lose games, and the locker room is lost? How often do coaches only make it one year before they are fired? There have been no rumblings of discontent in the locker room or questioning of Hardy’s job.
This brings the question of the ‘Will Hardy’ problem into full scope.
Are the Jazz good enough to potentially reverse course and stop tanking? Maybe try to retool and add some more young pieces at the deadline rather than sell off veteran contracts? The short answer is no, but the longer answer requires real consideration of how much the Jazz front office believes in their coach. If the Jazz luck into the No. 1 overall pick, or even the top three in a loaded 2025 draft, will that be enough to begin a new direction looking to win games?
Do they need to lose a lot for one more season and look to the 2026 draft? The plans and direction of the franchise look to hinge on Will Hardy, who seems to be one of the premier young coaches in the NBA, and it could cause the Jazz long-term problems when it comes to losing.
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