There’s a volcano ready to blow in the middle of Salt Lake City. For years, the Utah Jazz fanbase has been patient with the front office since they traded Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell in 2022.
As of recent times, fans on X argue over whether winning games is a detriment to the team this season. In a keep-the-pick-from-Oklahoma-City sense, yes, it can be detrimental to the team’s draft position. If you are talking about the development of players and the progression of the team, it’s a great sign.
Development and Culture
The NBA is a difficult league to win in. You have the best players in the world going toe-to-toe every night in the hopes of becoming an icon. Rebuilding teams send rookies to the wolves to help them develop quicker.
Every rookie has to face the gauntlet of figuring out how to win and play in the league, while hoping that their own stats can improve. In college, many players are the best on their teams before being drafted.
The average college ball game is shorter by eight minutes, and the NBA allows one more foul than NCAA regulations. Rookies also find the NBA to be quicker with a five-out and shoot-quick mentality. It usually takes a rookie an average of three years to fully develop their game and learn how to be an NBA-level player.
“The NBA will stop for no one, and our program will stop for nobody,” said head coach Will Hardy. “There needs to be accountability of self first, and everybody on our team needs to understand that opportunity should not be taken lightly.”
Playing harder has been Hardy’s MO since becoming the Jazz’s head coach. The quote above was from a post-game interview after a blowout loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on March 5, 2025, where the Jazz showed little to no effort in order to slow down the Grizzlies.
A similar message was given again by Hardy in a viral video where Hardy berated his players for not playing hard and getting blown out by the Thunder. Creating a culture requires buy-in from players and winning can help that.
Development in Progress
The whole point of a rebuild is to find and draft talent that will either become a building block for your franchise or develop enough to aid the team in winning. Even though recent wins hurt draft position, fans should be ecstatic that players like Keyonte George or Walter Clayton Jr. are helping with that.
A year ago, George was coming off the bench because of inconsistent play. Many sports entertainment hosts in the state of Utah had no idea if he was even going to be on the roster this year. Recently, George just scored a career high 39 points with eight assists and six rebounds to add a cherry on top.
Even though George is the fifth-worst defensive player in the NBA, he took the challenge to lock down the Grizzlies players during the fourth quarter to secure the Jazz a 130-126 win.
To add on to how good George played against the Grizzlies, his above stat line hasn’t been seen since Adrian Dantley scored 37 points and 13 rebounds on January 29, 1981.
Not to mention, Ace Bailey, the Jazz’s dynamo rookie, made a monstrous dunk and a clutch shot to help the Jazz seal the win that same game. Fans should rejoice that their young talent is figuring out how to win games. Come next year, the Jazz are looking to become competitive and you need proven talent to compete.
Plus, that’s the whole reason why you draft guys or trade for pieces in a rebuild. You hope for them to turn out like the Georges or Lauri Markkanens of the NBA world.
Players like them may not be centerpieces to a franchise, but they definitely can help when your team either trades or drafts one. Jazz fans already have talented pieces like a Bailey that can turn into the centerpiece through time.
The Coveted Pick
Undoubtedly, there are some Jazz fans reading this article and saying they’ll lose the pick if we win too much. Fans do have a right to be nervous about that happening, especially with the Jazz’s luck in recent drafts. In the 2023 NBA draft the Jazz fell to the ninth spot to draft Taylor Hendricks (they also drafted George with the sixteenth pick).
In the 2024 draft the Jazz were snake bitten again with draft luck and fell to tenth picking up Cody Williams there. Finally, the 2025 draft where the Jazz had the worst record in the league and fell to fifth. Luckily, they were able to draft Bailey in the draft but missed out on players like Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel.
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This year’s pick is top eight protected, meaning if the Jazz stay in the top eight of the draft they will keep their pick away from OKC. If it lands outside of draft positions one through eight it will go to OKC. It would be a blow to the franchise to lose such a pick in a draft with the likes of AJ Dybansta in it.
The other caveat working for the Jazz to tank is that they won’t be able to use the Minnesota Timberwolves and Cleveland Cavaliers pick if they lose their first-round pick to the Thunder.
The Cavs pick is very enticing for this Jazz franchise especially with the Cavaliers being .500 in their last six games and star rim protector Evan Mobley being out for two to four weeks.
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Gambling On The Future
The Jazz could do everything in their power to get the best draft position in this 2026 draft. The only issue is that their fate comes down to where the ping pong balls land.
Have you ever heard of that story where that one friend kept gambling away their money in the hopes of making it all back? That’s practically what the draft lottery is for teams now.
Ever since the lottery system was adopted by the NBA in 1985, the worst team in the league has only won the number one pick six times. The last time the worst team picked one was in 2018.
The Phoenix Suns picked Deandre Ayton with the number one pick that year. With how the odds have been the last few years the Jazz have a higher percentage getting into the top four if they had the fifth worst record.
Enjoy The Ride
The Jazz are going to lose games come the mid to late parts of the season. On December 15, 2025 teams can start to trade players to new teams. Most likely the Jazz will trade away older players for assets.
The Jazz are also twelfth in strength of schedule, meaning they have the twelfth hardest schedule in the league remaining. The losses are coming but fans should enjoy the wins as well.
Every win means the team is closer to becoming more competitive in the NBA and players are developing on schedule. So, go to the Delta Center and root for them any chance you get and stay positive on social media.
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