The Utah Jazz officially ended the rebuild by selecting Kansas guard Darryn Peterson with the second overall pick in the 2026 NBA draft. Jazz fans finally have clarity on what this version of the team will look like heading into next season, and there is reason for excitement.
With Peterson in tow, Jazz are set to enter win now stage
One of the themes from the Jazz front office as they entered the rebuild was that the team would do it differently, this time around. They were tired of being in the middle; they needed to get the type of player who could lead the team to a title, and to do that, they needed to get high draft picks. That meant bottoming out and losing a lot more than Jazz fans were accustomed to.
The rebuild began with two very large trades involving the team's previous star duo, Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell. The seasons that followed dragged Jazz fans through one of the lowest winning percentage periods in franchise history. Not to mention a rebrand (that has since been corrected) that they would all sooner like to forget. It was slow and at times painful to watch.
But it wasn’t all bad; the Jazz used one of the picks they received from Minnesota in the Gobert trade to draft up-and-coming star guard Keyonte George. They also found solid late first and second-round players in Isaiah Collier, Brice Sensabaugh, and Kyle Filipowski. Lauri Markkanen (received in the Mitchell deal) also took his game to heights never before seen in his first two stops in Chicago and Cleveland.
Despite those positives, it has really been the last two NBA drafts that have made the biggest difference. The Jazz finally got the lottery luck to draft players that you can feasibly see turning into star-level talent. With Ace Bailey being drafted last year at number five, combined with this year's selection, you could start to see the vision the front office had all those seasons ago coming to fruition.
The drafting of Darryn Peterson signals the end of the rebuild in Utah. Peterson is the crowning jewel for a team that has set itself up to try to contend in the tough Western Conference next year. The Jazz went through all this intentional losing to grab a franchise-level guy, who had the potential to lead the team to a title down the line, and they were finally about to do that in this year's draft.
With last year‘s Jaren Jackson Jr. trade, the ascension of Keyonte George, and now drafting Peterson to go alongside Lauri Markannen and Ace Bailey, it’s safe to say things will look different on the court for Utah. Darryn Peterson has put the Jazz back in the competitive mix heading into the 2026/2027 NBA season, and fans are naturally very excited about it.
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