Whether the Utah Jazz wanted it to or not, the rebuild would end this upcoming season. The Jaren Jackson Jr. trade last season was a clear sign that the Jazz would be a competitive team. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was worried that the Jazz might not lose enough games once they had Jaren Jackson Jr. Luckily, the Jazz were willing to do everything it took to lose enough games, including receiving a hefty fine, to both trade for JJJ and, hopefully, draft in the top three in this upcoming vaunted
NBA Draft.
On May 10th, that’s exactly what happened, and it was a massive exclamation point to the end of the Utah Jazz rebuild.
It’s a truly massive way to end the rebuild. When this all started, the Jazz were surely hoping that at least one of these four seasons they would get lucky and jump into the top four of the draft. Last season, when the Jazz didn’t jump into the lottery, even with the worst record in the league, it felt like a huge letdown. That said, the Jazz did end up getting a prospect with incredible upside in Ace Bailey. Bailey has shown fantastic signs, but there’s still a lot of growth and consistency needed. Utah, knowing that they still needed to keep their pick, took one last shot at winning the lottery. That win could not have been sweeter with everything on the line.
Had Utah not won the lottery, you can bet they would likely have been making some sort of trade to improve the team. But now, with this upcoming draft, Utah will select a player who can be the cornerstone of an elite, winning basketball team.
Whether it’s AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, or Cam Boozer, Utah is going to have the second choice among those three players, and that player joins a core that’s already playoff-caliber. But now that they have this tier-1 prospect, the trades they make will be to mold the roster rather than try to get a cornerstone player. That means that Utah is looking to improve weaknesses rather than accumulating whatever talent they can, kind of like what happened with the Jaren Jackson Jr. trade. Jaren Jackson didn’t necessarily fit perfectly with the roster Utah had, but that wasn’t the point, they were trying to take advantage of a potential trade opportunity. But with either AJ Dybantsa or Darryn Peterson on the roster, they are now able to evolve the roster throughout the career of their young core.
On FanDuel, the odds that AJ Dybantsa goes #1 jumped up again to -500, so it’s looking like Darryn Peterson is the favorite to land with the Jazz at #2.
With how everything ended this season, even the most pessimistic have to be excited about what is certainly looking like the beginning of an incredible chapter in Jazz history.
