The Utah Jazz are not used to tanking, which may explain why they're not considered among the absolute worst teams in the NBA. However, even if they may not be as bad as some of the other worst teams in the league, it may not be all bad.
Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes ranked the likelihood of each team who missed the playoffs and play-in of returning to the playoffs, with 10 being the least likely and 1 being the most. In the Jazz's case, he ranked them No. 6.
He explained why the Jazz aren't a hapless roster, but also why their playoff hopes aren't too strong.
"Lest the Utah Jazz's currently respectable roster makes you consider them a postseason threat, keep in mind that this franchise has aggressively pulled the ripcord in each of the last two seasons.
"Lauri Markkanen, Jordan Clarkson, Collin Sexton, and John Collins can all try their best to keep the Jazz around the .500 mark for as long as they're allowed to, but recent history indicates this franchise will do what it takes to finish the season in the lottery."
Why the Jazz being somewhat respectable isn't too bad.
It's already been explained why having a bad-but-not-too-bad season isn't the worst-case scenario for the Jazz. There's also more to it than that.
The NBA changed its lottery odds to try to dissuade as many NBA teams as they could from throwing away their seasons. In the past, the very worst teams in the league had much higher odds than the teams that also missed the playoffs. Because teams like the 76ers started getting a little carried away (which was hurting the league financially), the NBA tried to prevent that from happening again by distributing the odds a little more evenly.
Now, the three worst teams in the league have the same odds of getting the No. 1 pick at 14% while say the 5th-worst team in the league had odds of 10.5%. Sure, anyone would take the extra 3.5%, but it's not the worst place to be in.
In the past two seasons, the Jazz have been just a step below mediocre, which has led to them getting lower-end lottery picks. This season, the Jazz are expected to be worse than they have been, and it helps that several teams like the Grizzlies and Hornets -who were worse than the Jazz last season - are projected to improve.
So if the Jazz are the 5th-worst team in the NBA when the 2024-25 season wraps up, they may not have the highest lottery odds possible, but they still have high odds.
That doesn't guarantee they will get a top-notch prospect like Cooper Flagg, but having a better-than-terrible season isn't the death sentence it used to be for a team that was in the same place as Utah.
And hey playing the lottery is always a gamble no matter how one's season finishes.