The Utah Jazz nearly blow it with the NBA Draft Lottery

The Utah Jazz made a bold choice at the NBA Trade Deadline to trade away three key players, Kelly Olynyk, Simone Fontecchio, and Ochai Agbaji for a couple of late picks in the 2024 NBA Draft. Those paltry picks weren't the reason the Jazz made those moves, however. Feeling the team wasn't competitive enough to compete in the playoffs, the brain trust leading the Jazz opted to try and tank, with the hope of retaining their own 2024 first-round pick.

That pick would only be there, however, if the Jazz placed somewhere between picks #1 and #10 in the 2024 NBA Draft Lottery. If it fell at picks #11 through #14, the pick would go to the Oklahoma City Thunder instead.

So, had the Jazz tanked and still not gotten their first-round pick, fans would've been outraged and jobs may have been on the line. Thankfully, for the fans of the Jazz, that didn't happen, but it still wasn't a great outcome.

The Jazz ended up having the 8th best odds to get the first overall pick, which meant they would likely land at the 8th spot in the NBA Draft. They also had a pretty decent shot at landing in the Top 4. All three things didn't end up happening. Not only did the Jazz not land the top spot in the draft, or land in the Top 4 but they didn't even land in the Top 8.

Instead, the Utah Jazz barely kept their draft pick by landing at No. 10 overall, the last spot in the draft where they could land while still keeping their pick. The Utah Jazz avoided a disastrous scenario in the process and allowed them to keep a still somewhat valuable pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.

Of all the surprises, however, the Atlanta Hawks, with just the 10th best odds to land the first overall pick, and that's exactly what happened. Only the Chicago Bulls, Houston Rockets, Sacramento Kings, and Golden State Warriors had worse odds.