LeBron James joining the Philadelphia 76ers is only good news for the Utah Jazz, both currently and long-term, because he won't get in the way of what they want to accomplish or their draft assets. Now, he's back east, and it sounds like that's where his career will finish.
The Jazz should have no complaints about that, but what is sad to some degree is that LeBron finishing his career back east stopped him from ever becoming a Jazz rival. What I mean by that is that we never got see Utah become a part of LeBron's legacy.
By contrast, Utah was certainly a part of Michael Jordan's legacy, and they should take great pride in the fact that they were the one team Shaq/Kobe never beat, and in fact, motivated to get better before they started winning championships.
They never got that chance with James, though much of that had to do with the fact that he spent the majority of his career back East. Still, James spent eight years in the West, and not once did he and the Jazz go up against each other with high stakes. The Jazz are one of only six teams to never face James in postseason (Lakers, New Orleans Pelicans, Sacramento Kings, Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Clippers).
They had a very brief window
There were only four years in which LeBron and the Jazz could have been up against one another. The year he joined LA in 2018, the Lakers were too dysfunctional to make any real noise that season.
That changed when they got Anthony Davis the following summer, but that coincided with what may have been perhaps the most dysfunctional Rudy Gobert-Donovan Mitchell season. While the Lakers went on to win the title, the Jazz got ousted in the first round.
The Jazz turned it around the following season, but because it was a COVID year, the Lakers got snake bitten, so the two didn't see each other in the postseason. The last year these two could have faced off in the playoffs happened to be the disastrous Russell Westbrook disaster in LA, so it never happened.
In fact, the only time LeBron and Utah really got involved with one another during his time with the Lakers was when the Jazz agreed to take Westbrook off his hands for their expendable parts (Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt).
It's not like anyone in Utah will lose any sleep over this, but it is a shame to some degree that Utah took no part in LeBron's legacy. They kind of did when they pried Carlos Boozer away from Cleveland back in 2004, but that's about it.
Now if Utah and Philly were to meet up in the NBA Finals, that changes things up a bit, but let's not jinx anything.
Add us as a preferred source on Google