The Utah Jazz have shredded their roster of nearly every veteran this summer, and the real reason is now crystal clear. The Jazz have to tank into a superstar in 2026, because the 2027 NBA Draft is considered a disaster. One more year and Utah has to start climbing back up the ladder.
In the modern NBA, the incentives are clear: if you want to compete for championships, you probably need to be terrible for a few seasons, get lucky enough in the NBA Draft Lottery to gain a few high-end prospects, and then build out a supporting roster as those prospects grow into their primes.
That is not the only path, but the other paths take a lot more luck and some stupidity from trade partners. The Indiana Pacers came within a half of a title this season without a major tank, but they did so by fleecing the Sacramento Kings to land one of those superstar players.
The Oklahoma CIty Thunder, of course, developed a late-lottery prospect into a superstar in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, but their co-stars were draft picks as well, including the No. 2 pick Chet Holmgren. The 2024 champions, the Boston Celtics, had No. 3 picks Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum battling No. 3 pick Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks.
The Utah Jazz understand this; for as good as Lauri Markkanen has looked in a Jazz uniform, he is not a Top-10 player in the league and cannot lead a team to a title. Their draft picks during their rebuild have not yielded that can't-miss talent. They need to land at the top of a draft in a way they simply did not this year, when their No. 1 lottery slot resulted in the No. 5 pick and teams like the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks landed franchise-changing talents.
The clock is ticking, however. The Jazz could have gone into next season and replicated last year, but they were feeling the pressure of the league's ire on blatantly sitting their best players. Play too many veterans, and you risk being competent enough to fall down the ladder.
The 2026 NBA Draft is loaded with elite prospects. You can never be confident that elite prospects will become elite NBA players, but the track record is fairly strong. There are at least five players in next year's draft class -- the rising college freshman class -- who project as future All-Stars, if not more: Cameron Boozer, AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Nate Ament and Mikel Brown. A few other names could join them.
The 2027 NBA Draft looks like a wasteland
As reported by ESPN, however, the 2027 Draft class looks like a wasteland. Even the disappointing 2024 NBA Draft class had top-tier international talent like Zacherrie Risacher, Alex Sarr and Nikola Topic. In 2027 there are no obvious future stars, domestic or international. It's not simply ESPN, however; that is the consensus across the scouting community.
For the Jazz, that means they have to secure the worst record in the league once more. Not only would that give them the best odds at a Top-4 pick, it would guarantee them no worse than pick No. 5 -- a disappointing slide, to be sure, but given the strength of next year's draft it would likely secure them a shot at a future star.
The Jazz need a No. 1 player. They need someone to rise into superstardom. They almost had that with Donovan Mitchell. They almost had that with Gordon Hayward. They did have that with Karl Malone but couldn't get past Michael Jordan.
To bring a championship to Salt Lake City, the Jazz need a superstar. To get one, they need to draft him. And with the looming cliff of the 2027 NBA Draft, they now have just one chance to draft him.