The Utah Jazz are back. Or … well, they’ll be back as something far better than the embarrassing smudge on our community they’ve been in recent seasons.
When, exactly? Soon.
The Las Vegas Summer League is underway, and I feel fine. I believe again. Let’s all gather in and give this a try. Everyone around here’s a bit rusty with this whole Jazz sanguinity thing. It’s been in short supply since management traded away so many All-Stars, players who are helping other teams win. But I’ve changed my outlook and my tune here. Join me.
Drop your negativity. Throw it away, like a Keyonte George entry pass or a heaved Isaiah Collier jumper; scoot right past it, like darn near every Jazz perimeter defender last season. Oops, that all came out wrong. Let’s start over.
Leave the cynicism at the curb. Put it in the rearview. Life’s too short. See the sunshine once more. Hop aboard a train of hoop optimism, with your wallet out and a grin on your face.
Makes no difference what anybody says, all the Negative Nancies and Debbie Downers out there, so many knuckle-dragging sourpusses and logical thinkers, the Jazz are done with the tanking, done with the trying to lose, done with shooting cannonballs as they shoot for a top pick in the next NBA draft, done with getting wiped out by 40 points on a random February night.
Just so you know, for demonstration purposes, there are 65 words in that last elongated sentence, one for every defeat last season. Here’s 17 more, one for every victory: (1)The (2)Jazz (3)are (4)done (5)with (6)all (7)of (8)that (9)nonsense (10)because (11)they (12)have (13)all (14)new (15)energy, (16)new (17)momentum.
See, that feels good, taking a load off, punching pessimism in the mug, exorcizing demons of seasons gone by, fooling ourselves into holding onto new hope.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Jazz forward Kyle Filipowski (22) as the Utah Jazz take on the Memphis Grizzlies during an NBA Salt Lake City Summer League game at the Jon M. Huntsman Center on the University of Utah campus, Monday, July 7, 2025.
I’m telling ya. The Jazz are on the rise. They are done, done, done with piddling around, done holding guys out of games on account of general soreness or a canker in their mouth or a ferocious case of dandruff or an acne outbreak or a bad dream the night before or Aunt Martha needing a ride to her nail appointment.
No. The Jazz will seek wins like they’ll seek Utah’s season-long inversion-soaked air to breathe. It’ll be like the old days when John Stockton and Karl Malone taped up their flesh wounds and went into battle. Only this time, it’ll be Flip Filipowski and Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk reporting for duty.
Yeah, they’ve got a new attitude and mighty mo on their side.
You can feel it. I can feel it. The world can feel it. OK, not a lot of the world, but a happy, blessed few.
The fact that the Jazz lost 21 of their final 23 games last season matters not at all. That was then, this is now, or it will be in October.
The fact that Vegas placed the Jazz’s over/under for total wins in the coming 2025-26 season at 18.5, lower than every other team in the NBA and lower than the number would have been for the Illawarra Hawks of the Australian league were they to compete in the NBA, is of no consequence. I don’t give a hoo-haw that some experts are predicting fewer wins this season than the Jazz got their last go-round.
Poor, poor pitiful doubters and doomsayers. What miserable lives they must live.
The fact that the Jazz traded away Collin Sexton, who averaged 18.4 points and 4.2 assists last season, and John Collins, who got 19 points and 8.2 rebounds, for what amounts to a couple plates of three-cheese lasagne, and also waived their most popular player, Jordan Clarkson, who had 16.2 points and 3.7 assists, as they continue to pay him for whatever team picks him up, should crease lines of concern across your forehead, nor anyone else’s who still cares about the Jazz, not one iota.
It’s all good. It’ll be OK.
How do I know this?
Knowing’s got nothing to do with it.
It’s just a hunch, a whiff of Jif blowing in the wind.
There’s a new sheriff in town, Austin Ainge, president of basketball ops for the Jazz, as of a couple of months ago, and Danny’s son, as of Sept. 29, 1981. You, too, heard what the sheriff straight out said with such boldness, such certainty, such conviction — the Jazz yielding losses with no intention of winning is a thing of the past. No more tanking. Is there an echo in here? I trust him. I do. Do you?
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Jazz forward Ace Bailey (19) takes on the Memphis Grizzlies during an NBA Salt Lake City Summer League game at the Jon M. Huntsman Center on the University of Utah campus, Monday, July 7, 2025.
So, maybe that depends on how one defines the word tank.
I looked up the verb, and the definitions went like this: 1. fill the tank of a vehicle with fuel, as in, the car stopped to tank up; (informal) drink heavily, become drunk, as in, they get tanked up before the game. 2. fail completely, especially at great financial loss, as in, the movie tanked at the box office; (informal) deliberately lose or fail to finish a game, as in, the lackluster performance prompted speculation that the team tanked on Wednesday night.
The Jazz will not be pumping gas at the local Chevron station, they will not be getting punch-drunk before games, they will not completely fail, not at a great financial loss — ticket prices continue to rise, they will not deliberately lose games — they will not be like your 6-year-old son at his soccer game, picking dandelions and chasing butterflies as the ball rolls by.
They’re gonna care … no, no, really.
And because of that single thing, Jazz fans are going to love these guys, all the young rookies trotted out on the court alongside Lauri Markkanen and Walker Kessler, players such as Ace Bailey and Walter Clayton Jr. and John Tonje.
Bailey and his team tore up the Big Ten conference last season at Rutgers. Hmm, OK, so that’s a lie. The Scarlett Knights had a losing record of 15-17, and an even losing-er league record of 8-12, failing to make the NCAA Tournament. But that wasn’t Bailey’s fault, it was Dylan Harper’s. Bailey was just the fifth overall pick in the draft, Harper was the second selection. Blame him.
Clayton Jr. led Florida to a 27-4 regular season, a run that ended in the NCAA Tournament only as the Gators won the national championship, that’s all. Kid’s a winner.
Tonje put 37 points on BYU, playing for Wisconsin in the NCAA Tournament in March. No wonder Cougar basketball owners Ryan Smith and Danny Ainge were impressed enough to draft him.
And don’t forget about picks of the recent past, such as Collier, who’s coming along nicely other than the inconsequential fact that he can’t shoot, Brice Sensabaugh, who might just be a serviceable NBA player, Cody Williams and Taylor Hendricks, uh — can we get back to you there? — and George, who’s a young promising playmaker, pay no mind to the facts that he’s inefficient and a lousy defender. He’ll come along.
I love this team. You should, too.
Come on, everybody in the pool.
Lose the losing attitude. Dump the defeatist vibe. Enough, already.
Will Hardy’s going to teach and teach and teach and turn these youngsters loose, allowing and enabling them to grow in space. They’ll play with intensity — good job, good effort-style — and give and give and give until it hurts. Jazz fans traditionally can’t get enough of that kind of play — diving for loose balls, hitting the boards, playing defense. Again, ignore that the Jazz were the worst defensive team in the NBA last season. This is an entirely new frame, a new frame of mind.
Will there be mistakes? Bumps and skids along the way? Sure, but that’s to be understood. It’s part of the climb. Just because, if you were to line up the Jazz roster against every team in the West, they would compare unfavorably is no reason for panic. It’s reason for empathy, as this embryonic aircraft carrier is turned around.
Culture’s the thing now built on one basic theme, a central bit that was so hard to find last season: Try, try real hard.
That’s the difference between what was and what will be.
Jazz fans recently were named in one survey the league’s most positive/least negative partisans among all NBA fan bases. In a perfect world, you all might be properly rewarded by team ownership with $2 tickets all around. They’ll be closer to $200, but don’t worry. Be happy.
The Jazz will shock the world — at least on some nights, a night now and again. For the first time in years, they’ll be almost worth the price of admission. They will be. Yeah, no, they will be.
Honest.
