2025 Utah Jazz Preseason Preview
The Utah Jazz finished the 2023-24 season with a record of 31 wins and 51 losses. The season projects to be the third in a row where Utah is in a holding pattern. Since trading away their franchise cornerstone players in Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell prior to the 2022-23 season, Utah has finished 12th in the Western Conference two years in a row, not good enough to compete in the playoffs, but with a roster holding enough talent to keep the Jazz from bottoming out in order to secure better odds in the NBA draft. With the extension of Lauri Markkanen keeping him on the team until at least February 7th of next year (and his max extension making his contract more difficult to trade) Utah agains runs the risk of being just good enough to miss out on the top of what is expected to be a talented draft class.
(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Markkanen turned 27 at the end of last season and it could be expected that he along with John Collins (27) and Collin Sexton (25) are all players who are entering their athletic prime and have shown they could be contributing players on playoff teams. At this point in their career one would expect all players to have a desire to compete in more meaningful basketball games than Utah has had the opportunity to play over the past couple of seasons. Their continued question begs the question once again: “Whats going on in Utah?”
The Jazz should be focused on ensuring their own pick this and next year is in the top 10, as it will belong to Oklahoma City if if falls later in the draft. They will be able to make 3 picks in this years draft, the best of theirs, Cleveland’s, and Minnesota’s next year, and then likely 4 the year after. This puts them in a strange place, and they potentially could offer roster spots to all 8 of these picks only if they find trade partners who would being willing to offer draft capital or promising prospects in exchange for Utah’s current top contributors.
Though the situation may seem lost, it would be foolish to assume Danny Ainge doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing. For a glimpse into his thought process one can look to his 17 years in Boston, where he left before the 2021-22 season, leaving behind the roster the grew into last years NBA champions. In 2013 the Celtics finished with a record of 41-40 and decided to hit the reset button by trading away Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. The following season Boston help a record of 25-57 and drafted Marcus Smart with the 6th overall pick. This would be the worst record Boston would finish with in Ainge’s time their. It’s clear Ainge has never been a fan of bottoming out, and built the Boston team using other teams picks. It is yet to be seen if his plan is for Minnesota and Cleveland to preform poor enough to land him a top 3 pick like Brooklyn and Sacremento did to net Boston Tatum and Brown. Otherwise Utah might have to do their own losing and things in Salt Lake City could need to get worse before they get better.
