The Utah Jazz are about to get back into the playoff race, a win over the Toronto Raptors on Friday night will see them move to 20-20 and compete a 13-4 turnaround that started in December. The team is on the verge of entering the Play-In portion of the playoff bracket and with a few more strong weeks, would likely take a seat in the top six of the playoff brackets in the West.
Despite this string of success, Brian Windhorst is reporting that the Jazz are still looking to "sell off" some players, and specifically noted those with expiring contracts. There's a push, for some reason, to get rookies like Taylor Hendricks and Keyonte George more minutes, despite the fact that the Jazz are playing great right now. This is how we expected the season to go, a team competing for the playoffs, so why would the Jazz trade away good players in the middle of a playoff race, just to see if a few rookies can play well right now?
It makes little sense, even less sense when you realize that Kelly Olynyk, Simone Fontecchio. and Kris Dunn, three key contributors to the Jazz's success as of late, are in the final year of their deals. We're not saying to not make a trade. We're asking that you not make a bad one that sends away key players to the revival of the team.
Hendricks and George shouldn't be handed more time, they need to earn it. If they're not good, why play them? Why give up a shot at the playoffs for the potential that some players could play slightly better than they've been?
It's ok to let George and Hendricks sit on the bench for right now. It's ok to keep most of the players on the Jazz right now. It's ok to see if you can make a run. It's even ok to make a trade to improve the roster right now.
Just don't give up on the season because you think you can get an extra second-round pick for Dunn. Let's be better than that as a franchise.