Aging veterans
This was supposed to be a good year, maybe even the year, for the Utah Jazz.
Players that are in their 30s tend to be playing at the pinnacle of their career. They play smarter, more unselfish, and are typically chasing that elusive championship in whatever way they can.
They may not have as much spring in their legs as they used to, but they sacrifice for the team and play the season smart to make sure they are ready to go full-throttle in the playoffs.
The Jazz added a few guys in their thirties last offseason in a push to win now. They added Mike Conley (32), Ed Davis (30), Jeff Green (33), and Bojan Bogdanovic (31), all veteran players who would figuratively help the Jazz get over the hump.
Although Green (waived) and Davis (benched) didn’t quite work out in Utah as we would have liked them to, there was still plenty of hope for Bogey and Conley to show us their finest versions of themselves in the stretch run and the playoffs.
Joe Ingles (32) was also probably looking forward to redeeming himself in the postseason after his putrid shooting effort in the spring of 2019.
The consequence of the NBA, and the Utah Jazz sitting out the rest of this season is that by 2021 all of these guys will be a year older, and Father Time will have that much more of a grip on them.
Father Time is undefeated, which means it’s imperative for older rosters, such as the Jazz, to make their playoff runs as soon as possible before the legendary figure takes his players from effectively playing the game of basketball.
On top of all that, the Jazz don’t exactly have the smartest contracts laid out for Ingles, Bojan, and Mike. All three of them will be making more money on their deals next season, and because of this pandemic the salary cap may plummet.
In other words there’s a good chance these guys are getting overpaid just at the decline of their careers and the decline of the salary cap, which will make it awfully hard for the Jazz front office to have any wiggle room with making the team any better.
When it comes to the Jazz, my gut feeling is that what you see is what you get, simply because of all these aging vets on lucrative deals.