Has our future position gotten better, worse, or stayed the same since trading Rudy/Donovan?

[Hornacekamania]

I think it has gotten worse, but not because the path we took was the wrong path initially. I think that 2022 team had exhausted its opporunities for contention and we had extremely limited avenues for improvement. That was an aging team that didn't seem like they liked each other very much(especially the two stars of the team) and was asset poor(except for Mitchell and Gobert).

I still think Ainge and Zanik made a mistake not leveling the team to the ground the very first year in an attempt to extract some marginal value... and all we got out of those is what? LAL pick that will end up in the 20s. Those two years in limbo were horrible decisions where we tried to be competitive, failed and missed on the best prospects. I can't fault them for falling to 5 this current year. But what they did in 2023 and 2024 is definitely something that can be held against the FO. We wasted 2 years for nothing... For Taylor Hendricks and Cody Williams. I said it at the time and I will keep saying it - whatever you decide - you decide it and pick a lane. You don't try to balance between two different chairs because at the end you end up on the floor with none of the benefits of either path.

Completely agree with all of this. The 22-23 season felt like such a waste, and I really think the plan was to look average so they wouldn't be an embarrassment with the All Star Game. Last season as a mess.
I can't be mad at getting the fifth pick this year; I can be mad if they wind up wasting it.

 

[The Midnight]

I think it has gotten worse, but not because the path we took was the wrong path initially. I think that 2022 team had exhausted its opporunities for contention and we had extremely limited avenues for improvement. That was an aging team that didn't seem like they liked each other very much(especially the two stars of the team) and was asset poor(except for Mitchell and Gobert).

I still think Ainge and Zanik made a mistake not leveling the team to the ground the very first year in an attempt to extract some marginal value... and all we got out of those is what? LAL pick that will end up in the 20s. Those two years in limbo were horrible decisions where we tried to be competitive, failed and missed on the best prospects. I can't fault them for falling to 5 this current year. But what they did in 2023 and 2024 is definitely something that can be held against the FO. We wasted 2 years for nothing... For Taylor Hendricks and Cody Williams. I said it at the time and I will keep saying it - whatever you decide - you decide it and pick a lane. You don't try to balance between two different chairs because at the end you end up on the floor with none of the benefits of either path.

Pretty clear to me they didn’t wanna do that cos they wanted to keep selling tickets.

That’s the only explanation to the half-hearted approach.

The first 2 years of the teardown DA insinuated that he could go “big game hunting” and the local media and fans ate it all up.

Meanwhile we gathered enough rookies in the team and the fans continue to come to see them.

Go look at the ticket sales, they haven't dropped at all these past 3 years.

It was a calculated move by Ryan and DA to have the cake and eat it too.

Very smart on their part, but we were all fools for being a part of it.

Now we’re on a long road back to relevance and are back to square 1.

 

[Sardines]

LoL.. wayyy too many glass half-fulls on the forum.

The tanking route is a path that takes at least 4-5 years to bear fruits.

We’re at what, year 1?

Patience, my young padawan.

 

[Tanktastic]

I think there is a fundamental question here, that I don't have the answer for. Do teams who hit on later picks because they are good at drafting, or because they are lucky?

Teams make their own luck. You can't guarantee anything even by being the league's best at drafting. One Jokic can be luck. If a team is consistently either getting lucky or being unlucky, then that's proof of something.

It's also how much risk you take. If you pick the Taylor Hendricks type of players, no-one will probably blame you for messing it up, but the ceiling is extremely low. If you take risks with players that most have red flags on, you can get lucky. Like with Giannis (absolutely, completely raw), Jokic (fat, slow and what even is he) or Brunson (so, so small and no defense).

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Changed my vote to better, mostly because of Lauri. He's still a massive trade piece. He's the kind of player who can take a team from pretender to contender.

The teams at 2 and 3 are both perfect fits for Lauri. If they can get a deal done, I think everyone changes their minds on this question.

 

[homeytennis]

The monkey on our back at the moment is the pick owed OKC in the Favors salary dump. Thats on DL but Ainge hasn't exactly hit on his draft picks either.

 

[SoUjazzfan]

For me personally its gotten better. Around 240 hours a year now I can spend doing something productive other than watching Jazz basketball.

 

[Thee Idiotic Minivan K]

Can we trade Lauri for either pick two or three and keep pick #5?

 

[Thee Idiotic Minivan K]

The first 2 years of the teardown DA insinuated that he could go “big game hunting” and the local media and fans ate it all up.

Well he did try to trade for Bridges. Maybe that’s why the Knicks had to pay 5 picks for him.

 

[gomretat]

Easiest poll I have ever filled out on JazzFanz. Trading both of them made no sense at the time. And if you were going to trade both of them, blow it up and tank year one. This is the worst FO work in the NBA during this time period and the worst Jazz FO work since the moved to Utah.

 

[The Midnight]

Well he did try to trade for Bridges. Maybe that’s why the Knicks had to pay 5 picks for him.

And he would have helped us reach the Finals in the West?

No chance..

Smokes and mirrors all the way.

They planed to tank all along.. just delayed it so we don't have empty arenas over the past 3 years.

All comes down to $$$$ at the end of the day.

 

[nateboz]

As pissed as we all are. Think how Ainge, Smith, Hardy ect all are. The plan backfired.
Fan support will drop significantly from all of this. Most of my friends that grew up jazz fans don't even turn any of the games on this last year. Their kids don't watch or care. Once you lose them, you don't get them back.

 

[The Midnight]

As pissed as we all are. Think how Ainge, Smith, Hardy ect all are. The plan backfired.
Fan support will drop significantly from all of this. Most of my friends that grew up jazz fans don't even turn any of the games on this last year. Their kids don't watch or care. Once you lose them, you don't get them back.

Arenas’ still packed though.

We have enough young players now that fans wanna follow regardless of how the team’s doing.

 

[Thee Idiotic Minivan K]

And he would have helped us reach the Finals in the West?

No chance..

Smokes and mirrors all the way.

They planed to tank all along.. just delayed it so we don't have empty arenas over the past 3 years.

All comes down to $$$$ at the end of the day.

No trade the Jazz could’ve made was going to win us a title last year. Had we made that trade we wouldn’t have tanked.

 

[Schrödinger's Gerbil]

Interesting how tanking skeptics are suddenly emboldened to come out of the woodwork after a year+ of being brow beaten and marginalized by the vociferous pro-tanking crowd. The Jazz tanking "strategy" has been revealed for what it's always been: Let's give our consumers a shiity product and hope and pray we beat the odds and get lucky. "Wing and a prayer" strategy is a more apt term.

My answer to the question is that we are much further away from contention than we were before all this began. Rather than doing the hard work of building a team through creative moves and calculated risk taking, the Jazz FO decided to cross their fingers, rub their lucky rabbit foot, invoke the heavens for favor, and bet it all on a roll of the dice, so to speak. They followed the lazy path of least resistance, which has the added benefit of insulating themselves from criticism because they can always sell hope that maybe, just maybe this year we'll get lucky. And, if we don't get lucky this year, there's always next year. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Meanwhile, fans endure season after season of a crappy, uncompetitive, unentertaining product with the most likely outcome that the Jazz more or less become the team the FO blew up just a few years ago, competitive, entertaining, with some chance of relatively deep playoff runs, but not a championship caliber team.

God, I freak'n hate tanking. It sucks all the fun out of the experience.

That said, the FO may yet salvage the situation with some shrewd moves, thereby accelerating the path back to relevance. THAT is what I'm hoping for. I'm not pinning my hopes on dumb, random luck in some future lottery. It's time the FO stops doing so as well.

 

[Nate505]

Significantly worse. It's kind of amazing how bad it's got.

 

[infection]

I voted no, but I think it's really yes, mostly because of Lauri. He's still a massive trade piece. He's the kind of player who can take a team from pretender to contender.

The teams at 2 and 3 are both perfect fits for Lauri. If they can get a deal done, I think everyone changes their minds on this question.

The problem with this is that even if we were to have landed Flagg and kept Lauri, great. We're now somewhere in some kind of playoff mix soon. But that's kind of it. It would have still required grabbing another guy next year with a high pick if we're really wanting to become legitimate contenders. But we left our position of where we were (a team capable of winning out the regular season but not going as far as we'd want in the playoffs [that we thought]) and so simply getting a couple really good guys and only being... a playoff team... is shifting the goal posts, or at the very least a bait and switch.

That said, now let's subtract Lauri and Flagg for one of the not-Flagg picks. Where does that leave us? Not even yet a playoff team unless we strike gold again.

Such a **** show.

 

[homeytennis]

The problem with this is that even if we were to have landed Flagg and kept Lauri, great. We're now somewhere in some kind of playoff mix soon. But that's kind of it. It would have still required grabbing another guy next year with a high pick if we're really wanting to become legitimate contenders. But we left our position of where we were (a team capable of winning out the regular season but not going as far as we'd want in the playoffs [that we thought]) and so simply getting a couple really good guys and only being... a playoff team... is shifting the goal posts, or at the very least a bait and switch.

That said, now let's subtract Lauri and Flagg for one of the not-Flagg picks. Where does that leave us? Not even yet a playoff team unless we strike gold again.

Such a **** show.

Maybe Tay Henny and his new big body becomes the next Mailman and the Jazz start kicking sand in other teams' faces. I can dream can't I?

 

[framer]

We’d be in good shape had we made the necessary moves before the season started after we traded DM and Gobert. 10-3 start was devastating.

10 and 3 was the most fun I had as a fan for the past 4 years. I would kill for that over what we did yesterday.

 

[Strutter]

Where do the tank-haters think we would be if we hadn't made either of those trades? Genuine question.