Jazz Mailbag: Are the Jazz going to be too good to be bad?

We find ourselves in this place, the dog days of the NBA offseason, as we always do in mid-August. With only tidbits of inconsequential news trickling in — two-way signings, fringe free agent pickups, workout videos.

Training camp is just under seven weeks away and the season is set to begin on Oct. 22 this year. That means three things; that we have a lot of waiting to do; that a lot can happen between now and then; and that it is the perfect time to open up the mailbag.

Sarcasm or not, great question!

As it stands, the Utah Jazz have 16 standard roster players — Lauri Markkanen, John Collins, Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson, Walker Kessler, Taylor Hendricks, Keyonte George, Drew Eubanks, Svi Mykhailiuk, Brice Sensabaugh, Cody Williams, Kyle Filipowski, Isaiah Collier, Johnny Juzang, Patty Mills and Babacar Sanè — and three players on two-way deals — Micah Potter, Jason Preston and Oscar Tshiebwe.

Signings for Eubanks, Mykhailiuk, Juzang, Filipowksi, Tshiebwe and Sane were all made official this week. Sane is likely on a training camp deal and will not make the final 15-man roster. The Mills deal, while agreed upon , has not been made official.

While I would love to use this space to answer all the questions I received about Pokémon Go, Big Brother, and how I’ve spent the offseason, I’ll save those answers for social media and stick (mostly) to basketball here.

As I’ve said before, the upcoming 2024-25 NBA season is going to be a game of capture the (Cooper) Flagg , as the bottom teams in the league see who can lose enough to secure one of the most intriguing and polished young prospects in the world, and the Utah Jazz are going to be a part of that race to the bottom.

I do think that there is going to be more “massaging” of the roster as the season gets underway (more on that in just a minute), but even as things stand, I don’t think it’s delusional at all to think the Jazz can secure a top-five pick in the 2025 draft, even with Lauri Markkanen and the rest of the Jazz’s roster.

The Jazz had Markkanen, Jordan Clarkson, Collin Sexton, John Collins and Walker Kessler on the roster last season and they didn’t do very well. When they did play well, it was in the earlier part of the season with Kelly Olynyk and Simone Fontecchio still in Utah.

So let’s imagine that instead of starting out the year with Olynyk and Fontecchio, you insert a couple of the Jazz’s rookie or sophomore players. Let’s imagine that injuries are treated with even more caution than they were last season, and that the Jazz work to pare down some of the older talent on the roster at the trade deadline. Once that happens, you bring in even more young players for big minutes, and they struggle and learn on the fly and get welcomed to the NBA on a nightly basis by teams who see them as an easy W.

Then, as the season progresses, you call up guys from the G League while some of the more seasoned players (*cough, Lauri, cough, Collin*) get shut down for the final stretch of games. I don’t think that losing more than the Jazz did last season is out of the question at all.

A lot of people have been asking if this Jazz team is too good to be bad and too good to truly make a run at a high draft pick, and it’s a fair question. But, I think the Jazz are going to be really good at being bad this year.

The Jazz view Collin Sexton for what he is — a really good player who has shown improvement in all the areas he has been challenged to develop, who is one of the most fierce competitors in the NBA and is incredibly dedicated to the game. They want that trajectory to continue with the Jazz, and if it all works out and they can keep him and make him a part of the future Jazz team that goes for it, then great.

But I don’t think that there is anyone on this team that is untouchable. If the right offer were to come along, that would give the Jazz more leverage for the future, and that leverage (assets, cap space, flexibility, etc.) felt more valuable from a long-term view than having Sexton on the roster, then the Jazz will take that offer.

That said, Sexton has really shown that he is worthy of his contract and that he is a valuable player. So, it would take some convincing for the Jazz to give him up.

Having a whole slew of youngsters on this Jazz team is exactly what the Jazz want. But if the Jazz were going to package some youth with a veteran player to sweeten an outgoing deal, I could see them letting go of Brice Sensabaugh or Taylor Hendricks . It’s probably less likely that they say goodbye to the incoming rookies before they get a good look at them in some NBA games.

I have not heard that the Jazz are looking to deal any of these players, so this is just my opinion. But with a year under their belts, Sensabaugh and Hendricks have a lot to prove and are going to be climbing uphill in order to show that they have what it takes to last. If that mountain feels too steep, the Jazz could think about moving on.

First, I hate the idea of any deal that would put Ben Simmons on the Jazz roster (he’s not good, has only played 57 total games in the last three years, and is owed $40 million next season, albeit on an expiring deal). More importantly, though, what remains true for the Jazz is that there are always deals that can be made.

Now, those deals might not look very nice for the Jazz, and they might have to send out a young player or a future pick in order to flip some of the players on their roster, but there are certainly deals to be made. All it takes is two teams saying yes in order for it to get done.

Cody Williams .

The rookie looked so savvy and controlled during Summer League, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how much of his game he can translate to the big leagues right away. I know that there is going to be a feeling-out period for Williams and that there will be major growing pains, and that he will not be a focal point for the offense, but there are still ways for him to impact the game and I want to see how he navigates the NBA waters.

Early in the season, I would expect for the veteran players to still get quite a bit of playing time. But I think that there is going to be more of an emphasis to work in some of the younger players than there has been the last couple of years.

Also, if there are injuries and rest days (of which I expect there will be many) then that opens the door even more for the young players. And, of course, whatever happens at the trade deadline will dictate a lot of this.

I love guessing!

Giving multiyear deals with only the first season guaranteed to fringe roster guys is not something that’s out of the norm. It gives the Jazz ultimate flexibility and they don’t have to commit to anything while also maintaining some control if a player starts to really pop. With those type of contracts and assuming that the Jazz are able to get a good draft pick in 2025, I would guess the really big trades — the big-game hunting, if you will — would happen in the 2026 offseason.

It could happen sooner, but it also gives the Jazz plenty of time to really flesh out some of the young players and get them ready to go. You don’t want to bring on the big-game prizes when the team isn’t actually ready to win games.

Yeah, if you’re not following Markkanen on Instagram, you’ve been missing out on some humongous shoulder, bicep, tricep pictures and workout videos. But it’s not just Markkanen that’s been putting in the work.

I’ve got to give Taylor Hendricks some credit here; he has quietly had a great offseason in terms of his body and filling out to an NBA size. Brice Sensabaugh has also done a lot of work to slim down and add muscle.

Though I would suspect that Collin Sexton has been in the gym more than anyone because he’s a little bit crazy. If anyone has a chance to come into the season looking like Rahzar or Tokka from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze,” it’s Collin Sexton. I will always vote for him to be the person that is doing more than everyone else. (There was a Splinter/gym-rat joke to be made somewhere in here and I just couldn’t find it.)

I’m going to be completely honest, I have not read a book about the Utah Jazz and to be frank there aren’t really that many out there.

There are a few short compilation-style books here and there and there are a couple of player-specific books, but nothing that feels comprehensive. If I’m missing something, please tell me!

The best books about the NBA open up the conversation a little bit more. I love “Tall Tales: The Glory Years of the NBA” by Terry Pluto, and “Bubbleball” by Ben Golliver is an incredible look at the year the NBA shutdown and restarted in the NBA Bubble.

The best book about life?! My goodness, that’s a big ask. I’m going to cheat a little bit and go with recency bias. Last month, I read “Wandering Stars” by Tommy Orange and it was magnificent. It truly moved me and it’s a book that holds a very special place in my heart.

A book about books, hmmm. The “Dark Tower” series by Stephen King.