The great thing about having a blog is that I can write about whatever is particularly on my mind. Typically, that's music and video games, but if I want to, I can write about politics and reporting, or for the first time ever, sports!
I've always been a sucker for the underdog. I'm a Cubs fan, a Browns fan, and I became a fan of the Utah Jazz while watching them get kicked around by Jordan in the 90s. I always rooted for the team that wasn't favored to win, for whatever reason. Perhaps it's my nature as an eternal optimist, but I love the fresh start of a year for a lovable loser, and the potential that they could ascend to the heights of their sport. That's why last year's Cubs team was the best sports year of my life. I, after decades of fandom, finally got to see my beloved Cubbies win the World Series, even if I had to stay up way too late on a workday to watch it.
The Jazz have always been the best of my three teams, until the Cubs passed them last year. The Stockton/Malone years were excellent, and they had a relatively small dip before beginning the Boozer/Williams era, in which they made two consecutive Western Conference Finals. Once Williams was traded to Brooklyn, the Jazz began a long tenure at the bottom of the Western Conference, but actually made those years very productive. Yet even those productive years highlight the enormous challenges of fielding a small market team.
The Jazz have made as few mistakes in the years following as could be hoped, and have had some huge successes. Draft night steals and excellent player development of guys like Gobert, Millsap, and Hayward have always kept Utah relevant in the Western Conference, if not always competing. They have played the free agent game as well as could have been hoped, acquiring talented veterans at reasonable salaries like Joe Johnson, Boris Diaw, and George Hill, while they avoided chases for huge free agents who could never be attracted to Salt Lake City (e.g. Lebron, Kevin Durant, etc.).
Yet simply making few mistakes has not proven enough. The reality is that in order to succeed in a league like the NBA, you have to not only draft extremely well, but also draft extremely well in a very tight time frame. As much as I love the Jazz' drafting and player development system, the reality is that the gap between the Millsap pick and the Hayward pick was too long to take advantage of that window, as was the gap between the Hayward pick and the Gobert pick. Utah has long been caught in the trap of being just too good to get top 3 picks (and largely wasting one on Enes Kanter), but not good enough to be at the top of the conference and build a reputation for winning that can attract big free agents (see, San Antonio).
Vaulting your lovable loser or small market team to the top takes a bit of luck, but you absolutely have to capitalize on the opportunity when you get it. Opportunities like the chance to get David Robinson and Tim Duncan on the same team don't come around often (due to Robinson's injury the year before Duncan was drafted), and draft successes like the Warriors in recent years (taking Curry, Thompson, and Green in subsequent years) simply don't come around that often. If the Jazz could have, for example, replaced Enes Canter with Tristan Thompson, Kemba Walker, Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard, Kenneth Faried, Reggie Jackson, Jimmy Butler or Isaiah Thomas (all taken lower than Canter, and only Walker, Thompson, and Thompson were taken above Alec Burks that year), then the story from this week could have been far different. Consider a Kawhi Leonard, Gordon Hayward, and Rudy Gobert led team. I truly believe that that team could have taken the Warriors this year, or come close at least. And that team may have been able to attract a Kevin Durant or Lebron type of free agent talent with that core, just like the Warriors did.
But of course, these tasks are simply so challenging. Even a good team with good management and good players can run up against the wall of being to good to rebuild, while being too bad to succeed (see the Hawks, Pacers, Rockets, Raptors, Wizards, Clippers, etc.). Capitalizing on a narrow window of failure has been the path to success in the NBA lately, and the Jazz did a good job at it. But not quite good enough, now that Hayward has signed with the Celtics. Ugh.
Oh well, there's always next tank!
-TRO
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