ESPN's Tim Bontemps ranked the best NBA rebuilds currently underway. Unsurprisingly, the Utah Jazz not only showed up but were ranked decently high. Bontemps ranked them No. 5 among the best rebuilds in the league.
The only teams that ranked higher than them were the San Antonio Spurs, Charlotte Hornets, Washington Wizards, and Brooklyn Nets. This isn't all that surprising because three of those four teams are among the Jazz's stiffest tanking competition.
Bontemps praised the Jazz primarily for how good Will Hardy has been for them as their head coach and how good things could get for them if they get their hands on Cooper Flagg. However, what should really catch the fanbase's eye is when Bontemps mentions the Jazz's immediate future past this season.
"Regardless of where Utah's pick winds up in the draft, the expectation is that the Jazz will be somewhere in the high lottery again next season. And the challenge of moving up the standings in the current Western Conference is daunting," Bontemps wrote.
It's not a bad thing that the Jazz will likely be a high lottery team again next season. Especially if they get rid of their veterans like many expect them to this offseason. However, Bontemps words about the Western Conference is very true.
The Jazz have every intention of building the best team possible to become a contender again, but there is going to be a lot of competition in the West for them to even get to the play-in.
The West has some of the NBA's best players guiding some of the best teams in the conference who are right in their prime, like Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who are widely considered to be the two premier candidates for MVP.
If that's not enough, the West has young phenoms who haven't even reached their prime yet, with Luka Doncic, Anthony Edwards, and Ja Morant, whose teams are also right in the thick of the playoff race.
Even aging all-time players like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kawhi Leonard are still battling their respective teams. Kevin Durant would be listed here, too, but his team stinks. However, that might not happen next year if Phoenix decides to trade him within the conference.
Because all of those players are on good teams, they will fight for what's theirs for as long as they can, meaning it could be a while before they truly decline. Yes, that includes the teams guided by the older players.
The overarching point here is that even when the Jazz decide to focus on getting back to the playoffs, they will have to fight tooth and nail to get there. It will take a few years for the Jazz to assemble their next playoff team, and it will likely take them longer for them usurp the conference's stiffest competition.
It also makes the last two years harder to stomach
The Jazz have made it clear that they want to rebuild. That much is certain, and it's better to see them pick a direction. What makes that decision is harder is realizing is that they probably should have doen that in the first place instead of flirting with a playoff run the last two years.
That had ramifications on their draft picks. They missed out on Victor Wembanyama on 2023 because of their surprising early success early on that season, then wound up with Cody Williams as their highest lottery pick after following the same blueprint the season afterward.
It wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that Williams' rookie season will end with more questions about him than there were when it started. The 2024 NBA draft class wasn't very exciting, and the Jazz wound up with two of its biggest steals anyway, but Utah probably wanted more from their highest pick.
There's nothing the Jazz can do to change their past, but one can only wonder where they would be right now had they run with the rebuild from the start in 2022. Because of their choices, the Jazz's path back to contention will likely take longer than it should have.