The Utah Jazz are having a confusing season, something Jazz fans are getting used to. Like the first two seasons post the Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell trades, the expectation of what is happening is much different than fan expectations. Those first two seasons, we expected the Jazz to lose games, mostly because it was the smart thing to do, and they won much more than expected.
This season, Jazz fans probably expected a lot of minutes for Taylor Hendricks. In what is now becoming the norm for this
Jazz front office and team, that hasn’t happened. Instead, we have gotten a lot of minutes for Svi Mykhailiuk, Jusuf Nurkic, and Kevin Love.
For the season, Taylor Hendricks has just 4 total minutes more than Walker Kessler who has been out most of the season because of shoulder surgery. Meanwhile, Svi Mykhailiuk is third in total minutes for the Jazz behind just Lauri Markkanen and Keyonte George. The focus on the development of Svi Mykhailiuk is not something I expected this season. Joke’s on me, I guess.
Clearly, I misjudged the focus and priority of the front office and ownership for this season. With a generational draft that could see the Jazz draft a player top-3 that could change the franchise forever, the logical conclusion would be the Jazz might want to focus on that, considering they had the worst record in the league last year. Nope, instead we’ve seen the Jazz focus on winning with Svi Mykhailiuk, Jusuf Nurkic, and Kevin Love while forcefeeding Lauri Markkanen almost every possession on the offensive end. Who cares about finding superstar talent, right?
But this can be fixed easily. Utah, who has been doing everything they can to win games, is 9-15. Their focus and intention this season has been a failure, they are not even a .500 basketball team. They could pivot their thinking now to what it should have been from the start, the development of their young talent, and working towards one final run at the top of the draft. Don’t forget, the Jazz have Ace Bailey on their roster and have decided to exclude him on the majority of possessions by sitting him in the corner.
All the Jazz have to do is play their 1st-round picks from the last three drafts. Utah has to give Taylor Hendricks some minutes this season. His ability to defend while also hitting threes on offense is an important skill set lacking on this Jazz team’s 29th-ranked defense. And if Hendricks struggles, who cares? That will lead the Jazz to losses that they desperately need. On top of that, they have to find more minutes for Cody Williams. Yes, he might be a flat-out bust, but you’d better be completely sure before you jump ship. And just like with Hendricks, if he loses you some games … that’s not a bad thing!
Now, I want to make this clear. This isn’t just a coaching thing that needs to happen. The front office 100% should have had better foresight on this. Who wants more minutes for Svi Mykhailiuk? Seriously, who was asking for that? Kevin Love, who didn’t even want to be here before the season started, is now getting important minutes and has helped the Jazz win their way out of their draft pick. Why are we not giving those backup center minutes to Taylor Hendricks? Again, it’s not like the Jazz are even winning, it makes no sense that Hendricks isn’t playing. How is he ever going to get better?
Tomorrow is December 15th, and it’s the unofficial beginning of trade season because players signed last offseason are now tradeable. Utah better make some moves TOMORROW if they know what’s good for them. If Will Hardy won’t play the young players, you have to make the trades that give him no choice.
But much like has been the case with Ryan Smith, Danny Ainge, Justin Zanik, and now Austin Ainge, what happens will probably be the opposite of what I hope or expect.
