The Utah Jazz have 21 losses of 15 or more points this season. That’s more blowout losses than total wins — 18 if you’re keeping count.
And that’s putting it lightly; the Jazz have lost by 22, 23, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 40 and 45 points. Yes, five short of a 50-burger. In this economy.
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So it should come as no surprise that during head coach Will Hardy’s debriefing following Monday’s 20-point defeat in Houston, his frustration nearly seeped through the microphone as he demanded a level of professionalism and approach from his players — not simply in the sense of a game-to-game mentality, but almost as if they were conducting interviews for next season. In fact, Hardy did admit he was determining who would be sticking around for the future.
“I thought our physicality at the basket was poor defensively,” Hardy said that evening. “But in general, we could never really settle ourselves down. I think our physicality as a group has to continue to get better, and we will vet out who is willing to do that and who is not.”
Front offices and ownership groups aside, there’s a very fine line that exists between embracing tanking and a wholehearted commitment to winning basketball games. By the time the 2026-27 season rolls around, the Jazz will be welcoming back Jaren Jackson Jr. and Walker Kessler to the starting lineup, instantly forming one of the NBA’s most menacing frontlines with star Lauri Markkanen, who will miss time after reportedly injuring his right hip and ankle this week in practice. Add to that rapidly rising talent Keyonte George, who hasn’t played since early February, and Utah should be back in the thick of the Western Conference.
If you’re a Jazz fan — or a member of their front office, for that matter — with an eye on the incoming draft class, faced with the prospect of 80% of your starting lineup missing and wallowing at the bottom of the Western Conference, how do you salvage what’s left? There’s a gray area formed, knowing the buzzwords will go from “development” to “contention” in a few months. Such a strange space can be seen by simply watching and listening to Hardy, a coach who was born into winning cultures (as an assistant with the Spurs and Celtics) and parachuted into Jazzland.
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“My approach with our group is the same,” Hardy said. “These are our guys, and I’m in it with them. With our young players, my responsibility to them is to try to help them through this part of their career, but, more importantly, recognize where they are in their lives. These are young men who are maturing and improving publicly — that’s hard to do. We all have a responsibility to continue to push [our program] forward.”
The base sentiment is the same even on franchises where losing has become second nature almost. You’re always going to be hard-pressed to find individuals who enjoy losing. Yes, they embrace development and growth and understand diluted expectations. But tanking shouldn’t just be on the menu every night.
“Part of it is [veterans] and their example,” Kings head coach Doug Christie said following Wednesday’s blowout loss in Houston. “Part of it is them as communicators. Talking to the young players, those are things we depend on them for. … Some of our rookies are going to make mistakes and we’re willing to live with those mistakes.”
Welcome to Tank Week, live on Discovery Channel.
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It’s somewhat ironic that in the days following the All-Star Game — a celebration of the NBA’s elite and a sliver of hope for future competitive iterations — the league offered up Mavericks-Nets, Kings-Grizzlies, Kings-Mavs and Pelicans-Jazz. A relegation round robin.
Four of these teams currently own top-10 odds in June’s draft lottery and have full autonomy of their future selection, according to Tankathon. In Utah’s case, its first-round pick is top-8 protected (which is why you maybe don’t trade for Derrick Favors); if it falls anywhere from 9 to 30, the Oklahoma City Thunder will pick up the tab. Let’s not even worry about New Orleans right now, as the Pelicans will automatically fork over their pick to Atlanta (thank you, Joe Dumars).
You could be the most casual of college basketball observers. It takes about 30 minutes of research to see the hype surrounding the AJ Dybantsas, Darryn Petersons and Cam Boozers of the world. That list easily expands to Kingston Flemings, Darius Acuff and Caleb Wilson. The suits in control of losing franchises recognize that any of these blue-chip prospects could alter the course of their respective organizations, almost immediately. Hence, tanking.
It’s why some of the blatant activity from teams reached such a level of egregiousness that commissioner Adam Silver had to step in and do something. This incoming class is one of the deepest in the last decade and therefore has teams salivating.
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But back to this week’s festivities. Fancy a look into Sacramento’s Maxime Raynaud’s rim protection? Brooklyn’s Egor Dёmin’s improved shooting? Memphis’ Olivier-Maxence Prosper minutes at center? Who doesn’t love that?
And rest assured that no matter how bad the product looks, mysterious activity won’t just stop there. The Warriors have the 15th-best odds right now, but aren’t that far off sneaking into the top 14. Draymond Green, who played 32 minutes in a strange 113-109 loss to New Orleans on Tuesday alongside Gui Santos, De’Anthony Melton, Moses Moody and Pat Spencer, sat Wednesday (a win over the Grizzlies) with “injury management.” Between now and the end of the season, teams that find themselves in the play-in or out of the picture entirely will become more liberal with resting guys. No matter how minimal the advantage looks on paper, NBA franchises thrive on chances. It’s like PEDs to them.
So what can Silver actually do to curb tanking’s enthusiasm? It was reported last week that there was a meeting with NBA general managers in which Silver communicated the NBA plans to aggressively attack the source of tanking, with the hopes of eradicating it by next season by inserting rules to combat it.
One such potential rule discussed — preventing teams that make the conference finals from selecting in the top four the following season — would directly impact a team like the Indiana Pacers, who might be blessed with one of the aforementioned names after a season from hell without Tyrese Haliburton. Another approach — preventing teams from picking in the top four in consecutive years and/or after consecutive bottom-three finishes — would hopefully deter a 76ers-ish process, obtaining squatter’s rights at the bottom for years until stumbling upon a Joel Embiid type. But even other suggested ideas, flattening odds for all lottery teams, using a two-year window, loosening protections and freezing odds at the trade deadline — reported by ESPN — only partially fix the problem.
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This was a wonderful stretch of hoops this week, with the Pistons facing both the Spurs and Thunder, the Celtics facing the Nuggets, and the Cavaliers beating the Knicks on the road. We also were rewarded with Indiana getting thumped by 21, Washington by 21, Chicago by 32, Memphis by 21 and Sacramento by 31.
(Jevon Small is a sneaky-good, low-cost addition for Memphis as a hard-nosed guard shooting over 50% from 3. Ditto for the Kings’ Nique Clifford, who should have a role in whatever the future of that team looks like. But this is still one of the nastiest weeks in hoops history.)
Thursday brings us the mecca of tanking: New Orleans-Utah and Sacramento-Dallas. Someone has to win those games!
