Although Napoleon Bonaparte may have said it, along with a number of other historical figures at various times and in various ways, in sports, New York Yankees pitcher Lefty Gomez is credited with popularizing the saying back in the 1930s.
“It’s better to be lucky than good.”
Don’t the Utah Jazz know it.
They are not good and they are not lucky.
They fell to No. 5 in the lottery on Monday night, the absolute worst they could do under the rules. The worst record in the NBA gave them the worst position they could’ve possibly had. Maybe everyone can admit now that blowing up a perennial playoff team with All-Stars and other talented players on it — granted, some of them disgruntled — with no financial flexibility for a bunch of future draft picks and room to show how smart Jazz executives are wasn’t such a bright idea.
Not without luck lending a hand.
All it has offered is a backhand.
The Jazz knew they were not good this past season, never even tried to be good, so they threw in with the fates. Big mistake. They should have known. They’ve never been favored by fortune in draft positioning. And they still aren’t.
A blind man could have seen bad luck coming, just as I guessed for the Jazz a couple of days ago, in the run-up to the lottery. For whatever reason, it’s written in the stars. A paranoid person might believe the grand puppet-masters in the league office might have something to do with that, not wanting a future star like Cooper Flagg to end up in the outback of Salt Lake City. I don’t buy into any such conspiracy, but I do buy that Lady Luck, while extremely useful and helpful and loving for some franchises, is a lousy partner to count on. She bats her eyes and then leans away, breaking the Jazz’s heart.
Utah had a 14% chance at the No. 1 pick, and a better than 50% shot at slipping into one of the top four spots. And … yeah, No. 5 it was.
(Nam Y. Huh | AP) Duke's Kon Knueppel, left, and Cooper Flagg, right, smile at the NBA basketball draft lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025.
The whole of it made so many of those competitive collapses the Jazz suffered from October to April neither worth it, nor worthwhile. It benefited them not enough to absorb six straight losses to start the season, then a four-game skid, then a five-gamer, then another five-gamer, then an eight-game flop, then a 10-game skid, then a nine-gamer, with all manner of defeats stirred into that sorry mix.
Remember the 41-point loss to Golden State? The 26-point disaster to Denver? The 27-point crushing at OKC? The 44-point defeat at Sacramento? The 37-pointer at L.A.? And so many of the other losses … all 65 of them … not … worth … it. At least there was You-Know-Who to hope for, to soothe the pain.
Not anymore.
Cooper Flagg, the Boy Wonder from Duke, we never knew ye. And maybe the lousiest part of what happened to the Jazz here is that the Dallas Mavericks, the same Mavs team that traded Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis, the team that made worse front-office decisions than the Jazz did in recent times is the team that wound up with the top pick that can give them Flagg, if that’s what they want.
There are those who believe the Jazz will make an attempt — somehow, some way — to move up in the draft, now that they sagged to five, that they are desperate to get the kind of young player who can pull them up and away from the worst season in club history. They do not want to suffer through the misery again next season that they suffered this last go-round.
The Jazz do have assets to deal, enough first-round picks to get the attention of many NBA teams. Are the Mavs one of them? Not even the Jazz know about that, not with any exactness, not yet.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Ryan Smith as the Utah Jazz host the Oklahoma City Thunder, NBA basketball in Salt Lake City on Friday, April 11, 2025.
What they do know is that losing the way they did in 2024-25 is embarrassing — to a team with a proud history, to a fan base that deserves better, to the small smattering of talented players they have in the fold who are tired of being held back, restrained from giving their best efforts to win because that’s what the franchise actually wants them to do.
The questions of the day are these: Will the Jazz use the fifth pick on a player who isn’t Flagg, but who can still help advance their cause, preferably in a hurry? Is that guy out there? Or will they try something more dramatic than that? Spend those future assets and perhaps some of what they already have — overspend, if they must — to lift the Jazz out of a funk of which even passionate fans have grown weary?
Talk of patience and player development, after two lousy, uninspired seasons and one horrible one, have worn folks around here a bit thin. Since luck isn’t willing to give the Jazz much of a boost, it’s time for Jazz execs to use some of their self-assigned brilliance in conjunction with their assets and coveted flexibility to make something good happen.
It might be better to be lucky than good, but it’s a whole lot better to be good than bad and unlucky. Napoleon and Lefty knew that, what about Ryan, Danny and Justin?
