The Nerds Were Right

The "should-be-tanking" Utah Jazz are atop the Western Conference and nothing makes sense anymore.

Before the season had started I stumbled across several advanced metrics projecting out the records of every team for the season based on some concoction of maths and spreadsheet lunacy that I can only dream of understanding.

In all these projections, the Jazz were slated to land somewhere around the 36-38 win mark, comfortably good enough for a play-in spot going off last year’s standings.

I was sure that was a massive overshoot considering their offseason activity and subsequent lack of true high-end talent, but maybe I just don’t know ball after all.

Coming out of last season, which culminated in yet another early playoffs exit, the rumours began swirling around a potential teardown in Salt Lake City. The Jazz had exhausted their core’s potential and the NBA is as much about capitalising on your assets via removal as it is via winning championships.

Take a look at the hauls the Jazz got for three of their top contributors.

RUDY GOBERT - Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Walker Kessler, Leandro Bolmaro, Pat Beverley (who would be moved on to the Lakers) and a slew of draft picks from Minnesota.

DONOVAN MITCHELL - Collin Sexton, Lauri Markkanen, Ochai Agbaji and once again, draft capital from Cleveland.

BOJAN BOGDANOVIC - Kelly Olynyk and Saben Lee (later waived) from Detroit.

On face value, and with the benefit of hindsight, those are excellent hauls both in quantity and talent, but I think a lot of the casual analysis immediately surrounding the Jazz was heavily skewed to one side of the equation.

People, including myself, had the tunnel vision for who the Jazz had let go, while basically ignoring or dismissing the value the Jazz got in return.

Malik Beasley is one of the best high volume shooters in the league, capable of breaking the 200 made threes barrier every season at a better than 37% rate.

Jarred Vanderbilt is the perfect complimentary starting forward next to a new age stretch big man like Olynyk and Markkanen, with his defensive prowess and rebounding acumen, it was baffling Minnesota were so blasé in letting him go given his pairing with Karl-Anthony Towns.

Lauri Markkanen has built on his successful season with Cleveland, proving he can play in a triple-big lineup as a gigantic small forward, his versatility allowing him to shift between playing the three up to a small ball centre. His rebounding this season has been particularly surprising and useful.

Collin Sexton has found a (somewhat surprising) niche as an explosive sixth man, given his entire career has been spent as a starter on a bad Cleveland team (I’m not counting last season where he barely played through injury when I call Cleveland bad).

The difference between the Jazz and their presumed (in my eyes anyway) ping pong balls counterparts in teams like Houston, Orlando, Detroit, San Antonio and Oklahoma City is actually stupidly simple once you look at it.

Age.

Take a scroll through the main rotations of those other teams and you’ll see a litany of first, second and third year players dominating the minutes and usage. Detroit is rolling out a backcourt of Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey, Houston are letting Jalen Green work it out next to Kevin Porter Jr and Jabari Smith Jr, the Spurs have “young vet” Keldon Johnson, while Orlando’s three biggest contributors are rookie Paolo Banchero and sophomores Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs.

Even OKC, led by certified superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, have filled out the rest of the roster with mostly children.

When you look at the haul the Jazz got for their plethora of contributors, it’s a collection of legitimate, functional NBA players with defined roles and years in the league. Besides Walker Kessler, everyone in the Jazz rotation has at least three prior full seasons of NBA experience.

In fact, of the entire haul the Jazz have received over the last year and a bit (including the previous deadline acquisition of Nickeil Alexander-Walker and the other summer trade that landed Talen Horton-Tucker), only Kessler and Ochai Agbaji are rookies.

When a team hits the full teardown, you generally trade your known stars for swings on high-upside players, praying that you can hit on one or two future stars down the line (think OKC with Shai for Paul George).

The Jazz have built a team that many would term low-potential, not very exciting, lacking a true shining star, but the flipside of that is that this team is very unselfish, extremely high-character, and high-floor.

You know what you’re getting every night from guys like Vanderbilt, Beasley, Sexton, Markkanen, and that’s before we even mention their rock-steady existing veterans like Jordan Clarkson and Mike Conley.

To win in the NBA you eventually need a hit of true superstardom to roll through town. Gone are the days of the 2004 Pistons or the 2015 Hawks where it was all about the team and you’d cast a disparaging eye over the roster at the lack of a true star (which is incredibly reductive to guys like Ben Wallace but that’s a discussion for another day).

For now, the Jazz are a sustainable kaleidoscope of youthful exuberance, without childlike brashness and innocence.

A collection of players that will use the branding of being “given up” or deemed “not worth keeping” as their prior teams chased the aforementioned stardom and the lustre of the next step to contention. Sometimes it’s validated immediately, like in Cleveland. Sometimes it’s shoddy and disjointed out of the gate, like in Minnesota.

But that doesn’t matter to this ragtag band of castoffs and superstar trade bait. They’re 9-3 in the Western Conference, rewriting the book on competitive tanking, and bringing a stale franchise into a fresh new dawn.

COME WATCH THE NBA TOGETHER

Last week I announced I had launched a live watch party room over on Playback.

Over the weekend I had my first watch party, with the Thunder taking on the Bucks.

This weekend I’m scheduled to host live watch parties for the Cavaliers @ Golden State and Brooklyn @ the Clippers.

Join the party at the link below now, verify your League Pass credentials, and then come hang out and watch the game together. You could even be invited “on stage” to chat during play. It’s pretty cool.