The Utah Jazz have been pretty inconsistent since Danny Ainge was hired to lead the team. He's made it pretty hard for teammates to get to know anyone, or for head coach Will Hardy to field a consistent team as everything changes constantly. In fact, one could say the only constant thing this franchise currently is the fact that things will change in a hurry.
It's no way to build a winner, in fact, it's a great way to get a bad reputation. A reputation that Ainge has developed over the years while leading the way in Boston. His reputation is murky at best and the Jazz were hoping that he could spark a little magic with his arrival. Something he's yet to do, but what he has done is made a lot of people doubt their future, just ask Lauri Markkanen.
Another player who was unsure of what was happening next was Patrick Beverly, who was with the Jazz for a cup of coffee in the summer of 2022. He was quickly dealt to the Los Angeles Lakers for Talen Horton-Tucker, but Beverly's time in Utah was memorable, for only revealing how difficult it is to get an answer from the Jazz's top brass.
Speaking to the My Take Podcast (via Sports Illustrated), Beverly highlighted how it was when he arrived in Salt Lake City. A veteran with a family and a need to know what his future held so he could plan accordingly, Beverly revealed that he
Sick story, I get traded to the Jazz and I don't know, they just literally traded everybody. Donovan Mitchell is gone, Rudy Gilbert is gone. I'm like, okay. Are you guys being competitive? You know? But I really don't know anyone because I just got traded there and I'm like, I don't know what's going on. I show up everyday 5:30 am six days in a row. Show up every f****** day 5:30. I'm the first m******* there. By the time I'm done, GM’s are just walking in.”
“Are we trying to win, just let me know. Let me know if we’re just trying to win. I got m******* out they beds 6:00 in the morning. I'm talking about professionals I see a GM, he walking there with his son. I go — I got to take my son to school. Hey man, you know what, I'm glad you said that because I'm trying to see where I'm gonna take my son to school this season. Am I going to be in Utah? I need to know."
While Sports Illustrated seemed to suggest this was a "positive experience", it seems like anything but with how Beverly spoke in the interview. The restlessness that comes with constant trades and roster overhauls takes its toll on a player, and Beverly's statement seems to suggest that the team's GMs weren't there very early. It's also implied in his statement that Beverly went six straight days of showing up to work before anyone really told him what was going on.
Now, if we can believe Beverly, which why wouldn't we be able to, it seemed like the Jazz's GM at the time, Justin Zanik (the same one we have in 2024), was dismissive of Beverly. The way Beverly told the story, it's that Zanik didn't want to discuss Beverly's future with him, at their place of employment. That's telling, it's telling that the team didn't want to approach the players and tell them what was going on, or that they had no clue what was going on when the question was asked.
Either way, that shows there's either a disconnect between the front office and the players or a lack of focus on what the team should actually be doing.