While Lauri Markkanen is in EuroBasket making the Utah Jazz look smart, Jusuf Nurkic is doing the exact opposite. Not only did Bosnia lose their friendly matchup, but Nurkic's coach Adis Beciragic called out the Jazzman that not only makes him look bad, but also makes the Jazz trading for Nurkic look even worse.
After the game, Beciragic had this to say about Nurkic after Bosnia lost.
"Nurkic is out of shape and can barely run,” Beciragic said, per BasketNews.
This is not welcome news, as the Nurkic trade was already confusing enough, but his being out of shape also makes it frustrating. The Jazz didn't need frontcourt depth but they also gave up a solid player to get Nurkic and attached a second-round pick to make the deal.
Everyone knew Nurkic wasn't some golden addition made by the Jazz. He's not the player he used to be. In fact, his decline has been so swift that at best, Utah will depend on him for minutes as the team's backup center and potentially less.
But now that it's been confirmed that he's not in basketball shape, it just makes it worse for the Jazz. More than anything, this feels like a situation Utah could have avoided because Nurkic didn't really seem like a necessary addition to the team.
The Jazz made the right move the wrong way
The Jazz cleaned house this summer, so while it made sense to get rid of Sexton and the others, acquiring Nurkic for their troubles continues to make less sense by the hour. How much time is he going to get with Markkanen, Walker Kessler, and Kyle Filipowski all projected to be ahead of him in the frontcourt rotation?
If Utah had acquired Nurkic for Sexton straight-up without any other assets involved, and then dumped him, sure, it still would have been confusing, but fans would have moved on quickly. Nurkic still being on the team and costing Utah a second-round pick will only continue to rear its ugly head with each passing day.
The other factor at hand is that unless there's something the Jazz know that the rest of the NBA doesn't, Nurkic wouldn't appear to have any long-term future with the team. It makes for an even bigger elephant in the room that his Jazz tenure will be a one-year rental max.
It's also not like Utah screwed themselves over badly long-term, but news like this about Nurkic only fuels the narrative that this is one of the most perplexing moves the Jazz have made in recent memory.