LeBron walks off the court, angry that his Lakers just got ousted from the playoffs by the Nuggets … again. Oh, my. Will the man who was once king stay with the Lakers?
Rumors fly that Frank Vogel might be fired by the Suns and that Devin Booker wants to play for the Knicks after Phoenix is swept by Minny.
Donovan Mitchell says he has to play better after a couple of subpar showings in the Cavs’s series with Orlando.
Man … anybody else around here miss the NBA playoffs?
After two seasons in which the Jazz haven’t sniffed the postseason and the Delta Center has gone dark in April, looking back at all those years when the Jazz qualified for the playoffs and then summarily got run out of them is enough to make you long for the losing. It wasn’t so bad, really, was it?
There are worse things than first- and second-round elimination.
Things like having no chance at being eliminated; things like propping hopes for some theoretical shot at an NBA title on selling off most of your best players — some of whom helped you compile the best regular-season record in the league not that long ago — for draft picks and financial flexibility and the chance to show how brilliant your front office is; things like wading through a largely hapless regular season in terms of true competitiveness in order to get to the best time of the year — the offseason, big-game hunting season; things like watching former Jazz players helping their new teams to playoff success; things like looking fondly back on and missing the days when the building was stacked with the highs and drooped with the lows of games — even if it was just a smattering of them — that really mattered.
Few crowds did playoff games like the Jazz’s crowd.
Can you remember?
The Delta Center being so loud that it sounded like a squadron of F-22 Raptors taking off from midcourt. Fans getting decked out in makeup and getups that made them look like Jazz enthusiasts from some other universe. Celebrations out on the plaza that seemed like real happenings, like events that had the power to bring a community together. Folks clamoring any which way for the hottest tickets in town. Guys camping up on billboards for one reason or another. Radio show listeners entering extreme contests to win tickets to games. Jazz flags flying out the windows of cars, making fans look as though they were part of a breakaway republic. Crowds screaming obscenities and throwing water bottles at refs over the years, from Joey Crawford to Dick Bavetta to Steve Javie to Ed Malloy to Violet Palmer to Scott Foster … ahh, yeah, my friends, those were the days, the days of wine and roses … or at least of Diet Coke and dandelions.
No matter how many times over the past three or four decades the Jazz made the playoffs and subsequently got bounced before the ultimate prize could be won, which was every time, fans held out hope and kept coming back for more.
The specific number is 31 times. The Jazz, since arriving in Salt Lake City, have made the playoffs 30-freaking-one times. Before they got to Utah, they never made the postseason. It took them a few years here before they qualified. Then, they went 20 consecutive years of not only making the playoffs, but here and there going deep into them. Next, there was a three-season absence, then a four-year streak of getting in, then a miss and a make, and thereafter four straight misses — a stretch of gloom and doom — and then six straight qualifications, and now …
And now, two straight misses.
Since the Jazz started qualifying for the playoffs in 1984, they’ve only had two regular seasons worse than the 2023-24 face-plant in terms of total wins: 2005 and 2014. So, this time around is about as low as the franchise has tumbled.
It’s easy to see some of the cratering has been done with a purpose in mind — to either tank or to develop young players or to preserve older ones to be dealt elsewhere or all three.
Danny Ainge said he’s aiming to hunt for a difference-maker or two or three or four or five in the months ahead, and we’ll see how that hunt goes. In the meantime, there’s new excitement in Utah’s sports realm with an NHL team coming here, owned by the same dude who owns the Jazz — You-Know-Who. A lot of people believe Utah’s hockey team is on the rise, with just a few needed adjustments and additions — and if you know anything about Wayne Gretzky’s game, you’re fully aware that NHL playoff hockey stands out as about the best, most thrilling in the world of sports.
Meanwhile, the Jazz operate under the banner of “Not Qualified.”
And teams from other cities enjoy and deal with the ups and downs of the NBA playoffs, fired up over advancement or possible advancement and bummed by elimination or possible elimination.
The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.
And the Jazz and their fans feel neither — sidelined by not being good enough to have earned the privilege of feeling one or the other, the way they have … what was it? … oh, yeah, 31 times before.
Those were the good ol’ days.
Were they really that good?
Somebody once said nothing is more responsible for the good ol’ days than a bad memory. Music great Dave Grohl said: “When there’s so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things [your team] has already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good ol’ days?”
A decent number of those days were, in fact, pretty good. Not all of them. Not a lot of trophies, but OK, we’ll focus on the things the Jazz have left to do, which, at present, is a whole lot to look at, to question, to wonder about and to consider.
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