Gordon Monson: Is it pity or patience that Utah Jazz fans need most?

I pity Utah Jazz fans.

I do.

They deserve what they’ve never had — an NBA title. Now, not in 2029 or 2035 or 2050.

What they are going through at present is not the rapid approach of a championship, it’s more a kind of cognitive dissonance. They show up for games, believing the Jazz can win — sort of — cheering their heads off for them, rooting for them to beat teams that are better than they are, teams they have no business beating.

Sometimes, they do win. Why?

Here’s why: Because they have a player — Lauri Markkanen — who is far better than they thought he would be, and, even more importantly, they have a coach — Will Hardy — who has out-kicked their expectation.

If it hasn’t dawned on fans yet, the truth is, the Jazz — and by Jazz, I mean ownership and management — are not interested in winning. Not now. Not tonight. They want to win two or three seasons from now. It might take much longer.

As an observer, I’m not complaining about that plan. It’s a fact of life for a team in a medium-sized, non-destination NBA city, a place where free agents don’t normally line up to play. The draft is put upon a team like the Jazz, failing ridiculous good fortune, as the only way to build a team that has any chance of doing what the Jazz say they want to do — win you-know-what. Have the picks, make the right picks, or use the picks to trade for difference-makers.

When Danny Ainge took the reins before the end of the Donovan Mitchell-Rudy Gobert period, he looked around and saw what he didn’t want to see — an outfit that was miserable with itself, a group that had high goals and that, individually at least, wasn’t as good as it thought it was or wasn’t as good as friends and family told him/them it was.

And with no flexibility to improve the situation, no room to show creative genius, the Jazz did what their minds and egos indicated to them they had to do — blow the thing up.

So, that’s what they did. And that’s what they are still doing.

But they’re not very good at it.

Take that as a compliment or as criticism, but it’s more of the latter.

Everybody has seen what management has done. And there’s room for argument about the actions taken — get rid of Gobert, get rid of Mitchell, get rid of Mike Conley, get rid of dispensable pieces that might collectively bring the flexibility in draft picks that was previously absent. OK, then.

In the meantime, the Jazz have won more than anyone anticipated. They’re not great, they’ll never be great as presently constituted. Anybody with eyes to see can see that, including the players currently on the roster, the ones who have tried their best to play as well as they’re capable. Over the long haul, they can’t do better than that. And that, they know, too.

But what if the Jazz had taken a different path? What if they had unloaded Mitchell, but kept Gobert? They’d have fewer draft picks, but one could assume that they won’t use those picks they have literally as picks, but as trade bait. It’s fair to note, nobody knows how that will pan out. Still, if the Jazz had Gobert, hadn’t traded Conley, had Markkanen via the Mitchell deal, had Jordan Clarkson, would that have been the core of a winning team?

Either way, what the Jazz have done in the meantime, as has been previously underscored, is a job half-done. They’re not good enough to do much of anything profound, not bad enough to sink to the bottom of the league. We can quibble over guesses regarding the quality of coming drafts, including this next one, and the maneuverability the Jazz have to fiddle with, the positioning and conveying of picks, in a general sense, what they believe will be available to them and when. They must work within the limits of the framework before them. Understood.

We get it.

But when one compares the feeling on the team and in the locker room immediately before the trade deadline, when the Jazz beat OKC the other night in a rousing victory despite some deadline anxiety, with the feeling on the team and in the locker room after the deadline came and went, with the moves the club made, sending away Kelly Olynyk and Ochai Agbaji, and the moves the club didn’t make, the subsequent losses to the Suns, Warriors (twice) and Lakers had the feel of a dead team not just walking, but wondering.

The Jazz typically play hard, for what that’s worth.

But it’s a team reeling.

Maybe it will all work out. We’ve said that before. Patience in this particular instance isn’t a virtue, it’s a necessity — for coaches, players, fans, everyone. Nobody wants bad deals done just to make deals. Somebody with the Jazz once said the best deals he made were the ones he didn’t make.

Maybe the plan will turn the Jazz into champions — one day, some day.

But tell that to Markkanen now and especially to Hardy. Neither are punching above their class because … well, they’re both heavyweights, really good ones. And when the team has that kind of specific talent, but nowhere near enough of it, certainly not worthy of what they are capable of, what their abilities deserve, frustration is bound to mount.

Hardy must have known when he was hired that the ascent would be steep and arduous. But that’s not enough to stop him from utilizing his sizable acumen to get the most out of what he has. At 36, this young coach, with his brainpower, his humility and his diligence, is going to win somewhere — either with the Jazz or with some other impressed team that is going to throw a barge-load of cash at him for his services. He’s already shown that he’s that good. He’s under contract with the Jazz for a few more years, but … what are contracts these days, other than pieces of paper with a little of this and a little of that scratched out on them?

He’s part of the Jazz’s problem. Let’s reiterate that. He’s better than the Jazz thought he’d be, and he’s a big reason the team has won more games than anyone thought it would.

Markkanen, too. Although, it’s yet to be seen whether the much improved player is improved, or will still improve, enough to actually lead a team to elite status. Is he a No. 1 or a No. 2? He’s good enough to be averaging 24 points, 8.5 rebounds, to shoot 50 percent overall and 40 percent from deep. And to lead the Jazz to 26 wins, at this writing.

It will be interesting to see what happens now, with the losses stacking up. Can Hardy and Markkanen endure? Not just endure, but can they conjure and resuscitate and eventually elevate a winning attitude even as defeat blows in and blows on by, understanding and accepting what Ainge and Justin Zanik are attempting to do? Meanwhile, doing what they can on a nightly basis to subvert it, you know, when the ball goes up? Should Markkanen stay invested and play hard and well to increase his trade value, rather than to push a franchise forward — toward the wins on the nights after 200 or 300 or 400 tomorrows?

And as the fans pay for their tickets, their parking, their pizza, their burgers, their nachos, as they cheer for wins, for wins that will or at least could now and in future seasons mess over the plan?

I pity the fans.

People who feel no connection to the Jazz say it’s the fans’ own fault for being fans, for caring so much. But when that patronage is built up over many years, passed down even from generation to generation, it’s tough for them to simply shut it off.

So, instead, they hope for the wins, while they wonder, regardless of management details, what the far-off drafts and deals will bring them and if they ever will bring them what they want most, what they deserve.