The Portland Trail Blazers’ 112–90 win over the Utah Jazz (who celebrated Halloween by playing like a bunch of zombies) was about as ugly as it gets. Both teams shot poorly, a bunch of fouls were called, and the game featured nearly as many turnovers (36) as assists (39).
It can be difficult to draw inspiration from a victory when the result is achieved through such an aesthetically displeasing process—one that looked more like a series of misadventures than a defensive slugfest.
Still, the outcome
left absolutely no doubt who the better team was. The Blazers completely outclassed the Jazz, who already seem like they’re destined to end the season at 82 games. It’s impossible to be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs in October, but I think they’ve already been emotionally eliminated.
They look defeated.
They competed with an effort resembling a bunch of lethargic teenagers told to do chores, probably because some of the players have barely entered adulthood. Their defense is terrible, they turn the ball over a bunch, and their offense looks like it has regressed from last season. But hey, at least they don’t have any roster depth, either.
After four years of tanking, this was supposed to be the year we finally saw them turn the corner — where they started to reap the rewards for all the time spent in the Western Conference cellar. If they do end up turning the corner, it’s going to take an M. Night Shyamalan plot twist, just as implausible as sci-fi or fantasy.
Injuries offer some excuse for the Jazz. But then again, what NBA team isn’t dealing with players missing time? Yearning for a Jusuf Nurkic return to save the season just reserves your seat on an emotional rollercoaster — getting your hopes up, just to give them a longer dive down. Jaren Jackson Jr. is out until mid-December, at least. If the Jazz are as bad as I think they will be, there won’t be much reason to rush him back to the court.
Last season’s midseason deal that brought Jackson to Utah in the first place is confusing in hindsight, given that the Jazz went on to trade away Walker Kessler, who looks like he would be a great frontcourt fit with the former Grizzly. Pairing a win-now move with one designed to win later is a great way to tread water, but the Jazz have been drowning in losses for years.
What good are the picks they got for Kessler when the first one doesn’t convey until JJJ enters his age-31 season? I would like to think any roster choices should be crafted with his prime years in mind, but I guess not.
Poor management has been the Utah front office’s forte, at least since their decision to break up their winning squad after the 2021-22 season snowballed into this avalanche of failure. The key players they traded away in that tear-down, Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, have been linchpins on teams that have gone to three Conference Finals since their time in a Jazz uniform. It doesn’t take a wild stretch of imagination to think it was possible to build a competitive roster around the two of them for the past four years.
Instead, Jazz fans get to root for this: a franchise trying to dig their way out of a hole that keeps getting deeper. Time will tell if any of these young players reach the heights of the team that was torn down, but Keyonte George is starting this season at the same age Donovan Mitchell was when he first became an All-Star.
The reasoning behind the tear-down was that the Mitchell-led team had already peaked; it would never be good enough to win the NBA Finals. That “championship or bust” mindset sure nailed half of the equation, because the current iteration of the Jazz looks straight busted.
I know the Blazers’ own on-court product still leaves a lot to be desired, but watching them blow out the Jazz on their own home floor was a very “there but for the grace of Deni go I” moment. The Blazers organization didn’t hitch their whole rebuild onto the draft-day wagon, and we’re better off for it.
Unlike Portland, which surrounded Deni Avdija with winning pieces after he became an All-Star at age 25, Utah failed to build a proper supporting cast around Lauri Markkanen when given the same opportunity. They chose a losing path, thinking it was only a matter of time before they could step off.
That hasn’t proven to be the case. And it might not ever be if they don’t start changing things beyond the roster. The only real shakeup in the front office happened before last season, when CEO of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge named his son, Austin, the CEO of Business Operations. Nepotism doesn’t tend to cure bad management—usually it proves it.
I know I’m feeling thankful after the wrong holiday, but the Utah Jazz’s frightening Halloween performance gave me a glimpse of an alternate reality where the Blazers whiffed on a few key decisions that spared them from the same rudderless, losing fate.
Tanking for the future yields trick-or-treat results. The consequences for the Jazz have been anything but a treat.
