Best & worst case scenario for the Jazz in 2024-25 season

The 2024-25 season is about to commence for the Utah Jazz. The general feeling on them is that they should be among the worst NBA teams, but there's still just something about them that doesn't breed optimism for them as a tanker.

They're keeping Lauri Markkanen for the long haul, which is enough reason to think they may not be that bad, but they've got other veterans staying around until further notice. At the same time, they have so many young kids to develop that will definitely take up plenty of rotation minutes.

That'll make for some fascinating storylines this season. More than that, it's why there are so many ways in which the Jazz season could turn out

Best case scenario - The Jazz are fun, miss the play-in, but get Cooper Flagg

If there's anything to take away from the 2023 NBA Draft, it's that scenarios like this can definitely happen. The Atlanta Hawks had every intention of making the playoffs. While they failed to do that, they still came away with the No. 1 pick. So, who's to say the same can't happen for the Jazz?

In their best-case scenario, the Jazz manage to demonstrate that they are very much a team on the rise but don't do well enough to screw themselves royal - which is possible, more on this later - and still manage to come up with Cooper Flagg in the process.

Basically, they get to have their cake and eat it this season, which is what they want. It has been a little bit annoying to see the Jazz stray in no man's land, which has resulted in them not getting high lottery picks. Luckily, their competition should be tough enough this year for them not to finish as high as they have for the past two seasons.

There are many moving parts to make this scenario happen, but that doesn't mean it can't happen, period. That's why many hope the Jazz embrace the tank in full to avoid any potential complication with where they finish in the lottery.

Worst case scenario - The Jazz aren't good but do well enough to lose their pick

If it hasn't already been clear, the Jazz will lose their first-round pick this year if they finish outside the top 10 of the NBA's lottery. Thanks to the Derrick Favors trade, they would hand over that pick to the Thunder, which would be annoying since they are already a Western Conference powerhouse.

That would be more palatable if the Jazz take a legitimate step forward. In other words, they would have to be a high playoff seed, but we all know that's not going to happen. Too many freak occurrences would have to come to be for the Jazz to achieve that much.

Because that's unlikely, what would make it awful is if the Jazz still perform about as well as they have, if not slightly better, which could potentially give the Thunder another lottery pick. The Jazz can't afford to let that happen.

Being bad enough to miss the playoffs is not fun to watch, but to miss the playoffs and then hand over a pick to a team that's already super good. That would be a disaster, and it's in the realm of possibility.

The only way to know for sure where the Jazz stand is to see how things shake out for the first month or so of the season.

The irony is that if they are on track to play exactly as they have for the past two seasons, they could play well into their best-case scenario or their worst-case scenario, which highlights how having similar results can yield vastly different consequences for the Jazz.