With an up-and-down season thus far, the Utah Jazz are faced with a growing conundrum - keep trying to win with a flawed team, fall short of the playoffs and lose their 2024 NBA 1st-round draft pick, or embrace the youth and the associated growing pains that come with playing young, inexperienced players a lot of minutes at the expense of winning, while keeping a Top 10 pick this summer?
As currently constituted the Jazz are too good to tank. They're sitting at 9th in the lottery rankings, just inside the Top 10 (which keeps their pick from conveying to Oklahoma City from the Derrick Favors trade).
They have enough veteran players that they won't be a 25-win team, which would help them keep their lottery pick in 2024. Right now they are on track for a 33-49 mark, which is just below last year's 37-45 record.
At the heart of this, a big question looms - Should they trade Lauri Markkanen for a 'Godfather' offer to go all-in on a rebuild?
To answer this, we need to look at several other teams and their recent rebuilds briefly for comparison. To see what the Jazz should emulate from them, and what to avoid as they embark on their next steps in making the Jazz a better team, not just this year, but for the rest of the decade.