The Utah Jazz accomplished their goals this season. It was pretty apparent from the jump that they intended to be one of the NBA's worst teams, and they ended the season with the league's worst record.
Doing so means they have the best odds of the lottery not being a complete disaster for them, which is the best they could have hoped for. However, with the Jazz about to get their highest draft pick in a decade, a certain narrative has formed about them that isn't entirely accurate.
Detractors that the Jazz have finished Year 3 of a rebuild and don't have any exciting prospects to show for it. While it's true that the Jazz opted for the tank this season, the notion that they were rebuilding the last two years is a complete fallacy.
The more accurate way to describe the last two years has been more of half a rebuild and half a retool. It was supposed to be a rebuild from the start, but Will Hardy turned out to be pretty good at getting the most out of his players. More importantly, Lauri Markkanen went from being a slightly disappointing former lottery pick to an All-Star big.
That put the Jazz in a bit of a bind. When finding an All-Star player in his mid-20s out of the blue, it's hard to decide whether to go after the best young talent possible and waste his prime in the process or try to build the best team around him by adding win-now stars.
The previous two seasons, the Jazz have tried to have their cake and eat it, and they've learned the consequences of that strategy because they have tried to build a better team around Markkanen. Though it's not their fault, they have failed in that regard. It has also led to them getting lottery picks, but not particularly high ones.
Making it look worse is that one of those picks suffered a season-ending injury just a few games into his second NBA season, while the other looked like a boy among men in his first NBA season.
Where the Jazz are now can be attributed to trying to have it both ways the last two seasons. That has not been the case this year, as the Jazz made it clear that they are embracing the youth movement even with Markkanen on the roster.
Hence, it's Year 1 of a rebuild after two consecutive years of an unknown direction.
That doesn't make the last three years any better
It's not that the Jazz shouldn't be criticized for how the last three years have gone. Rather, it's saying that their rebuild has not gone well over the last three years is simply inaccurate because they weren't really a rebuilding team until this season.
However, it doesn't make things any easier. The fact that the Jazz have only now decided to get younger makes their decisions since 2022 look even worse in hindsight. The critics aren't wrong that had Utah gone all in on the rebuild from the start, they probably would have better young prospects right now.
It wouldn't necessarily have been enjoyable to watch, but like this season, the fans would have understood. Now, everyone has a read on where the Jazz are gong, but it's a little frustrating that no one had for two whole years beforehand, and it hurt them.
But, hey, that's how the cookie crumbled for Utah, and now they have made their choice. From here, there shouldn't be any setbacks.