Since blowing it up, the Utah Jazz have definitely had some speed bumps in their rebuild. From being indecisive about what lane they were taking to taking a little too long to give up on veterans like Jordan Clarkson, there are certainly some decisions they've made in which they'd love a do-over.
As for this season, it's hard to think of what the Jazz would truly take back. Maybe not embracing the tank from the jump? Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes listed the Jazz's biggest regret as getting caught tanking. Or more specifically, that the league fined them for how they approached tanking.
Hughes also acknowledged that the punishment didn't fit the crime because, honestly, there was no crime.
"The $500,000 fine Utah incurred for resting healthy, high-end players in a handful of fourth quarters felt unfair in light of other teams' behavior around the league.
"A half-million dollars may not matter much to billionaire owner Ryan Smith, but the seeming injustice of the fine sure did. Utah finished with a win total in the 20s by design and secured Jaren Jackson Jr. for a run next year that will actually be competitive, so it probably has no real regrets to speak of.
"Other than not being creative enough to drop games without getting caught."
The Jazz got punished for being clever, not doing anything wrong
Look, Utah was blatantly tanking when they did this. That is inarguable, but what made this situation stupid is that they didn't break any rules!
There is no rule against teams keeping their best players on the bench for the start of the fourth quarter because, technically speaking, there is no objective distinction that makes players like Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Jusuf Nurkic their official "best players" compared to Kyle Filipowski, Cody Williams, or Brice Sensabaugh.
The fact that teams executed similar strategies after this incident and didn't get punished made it even more ridiculous. Now it's gotten to the point that the NBA is trying to change tanking itself (AGAIN) - which likely (and hopefully) won't be the Jazz's problem going forward) - but it's hard to see how they fix the problem, or if they do, they simply create more problems.
The Jazz should absolutely still be annoyed by how that situation turned out. On the flip side, if Utah's supposedly biggest regret is something that arguably wasn't on them, then it's fair to say that they should have no regrets, period!
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