1 Crucial lesson Jazz must learn from their showdown with Luka Doncic

The Utah Jazz may have gotten their third win of the season against the Dallas Mavericks, but overall, it shouldn't hinder their tanking efforts. 3-8 is a pretty solid start for a team aiming to be a bottom dweller.

However, like any tanker, the Jazz are doing this in the hopes of getting a franchise player in the lottery. Tanking helps with those odds, but there's no guarantee that they will wind up with the golden goose that changes their entire landscape. Even if they do, there's no guarantee that he won't have an exploitable flaw like Luka Doncic does.

Anyone who watched the Jazz-Mavericks game the other night knows how much Luka factored into how the Jazz pulled away from the win. His defense looked like something you'd see from NBA 2K where the player's controller stopped working.

Like seriously, what is this?

Remember when James Harden's individual defense used to be so bad that it became an internet meme? Even he would shudder at whatever Luka was doing during the game's most pivotal play.

Doncic is one of the NBA's best players and is a surefire Hall-of-Famer, but one of the primary reasons why Boston manhandled Dallas in the 2024 NBA Finals was because of how relentlessly they targeted Doncic on defense. One would think that would inspire Doncic to improve himself enough on that front that it won't be a problem.

If that's what he did, the early results are not promising, to say the least. As fun as it was to see the Jazz get the win, watching Luka do his best impression of a folding chair on defense should make them wary about who they perceive as their future cornerstone

The Jazz need a franchise player who plays on both ends

If and when the Jazz get their next centerpiece, they must emphasize that they need that centerpiece to be as far from the liability that Doncic is for Dallas defensively. Other historic NBA players known best for their offense have recognized that they can't be exploited on the other end.

Stephen Curry and Nikola Jokic are two of the best one-man offensive engines the league has ever seen, but one of the little-mentioned reasons they have succeeded as much as they have is that they worked hard enough on the other end of the floor to be respectable on defense. Not just average, but respectable.

As long as Doncic remains internet meme-level bad defensively for the Mavericks, their odds of winning a title are slim. The Jazz need to keep in mind that even if they get Cooper Flagg or someone like him, they need a two-way superstar, not a one-way juggernaut.

Of course, the Jazz would like a franchise player like Luka Doncic is for the Mavericks, but that franchise player can't have a weakness as glaring as kryptonite is to Superman.