While the current buzz on the Utah Jazz is that they will tank this season, the first two games of the season have not been evidence of that. A huge win over the Clippers and an overtime loss to the Kings shows that they might be a little more competitive than we thought. However, if tank plans remain unchanged, one West team could pose a problem: the Phoenix Suns.
Many thought the Suns would be worse this season after the Kevin Durant trade, which made a Jazz trade look pretty brilliant in retrospect, but we may have underestimated how much worse.
Losing Durant and Bradley Beal would certainly hurt, but we have to remember that even if they had them, the Suns missed the playoffs. They didn’t even make the play-in last year, then lost two of their three best players last season. So basically, this is something that maybe everyone should have seen coming.
Outside of Devin Booker, they have Jalen Green (injured, redundant next to Booker and still woefully inconsistent), Dillon Brooks (great glue guy on a contender that isn’t Phoenix) and ex-Jazzman Grayson Allen (perfect as a seventh man on a contender) as their best players on the roster in a Western Conference filled to the brim with playoff hopefuls.
Yes.
If that’s not bad enough, their center situation is still uncertain (although who knows what Khaman Maluach could become), and the Suns are pretty bare in terms of assets. Phoenix’s makeup is so bad that it seems inevitable that they will rank with the Jazz among the worst teams in the NBA.
The Suns’ bleak long-term prospects are good news for the Jazz, but their immediate prospects are so poor that the Jazz should fear the potential impact of their season on Utah’s chances in the lottery.
It also shows the Jazz that things could be a lot worse
The first two games may not show it, but the Jazz could lose a lot this season. It’s never fun to watch a team lose the majority of its games, but the Jazz can sleep at night knowing they might get their next cornerstone. The Suns don’t have that because of everything they’ve given up in recent years.
Phoenix is ​​pretty short on options right now, so as far as we know, Devin Booker isn’t far behind Durant and Green. While the Suns probably don’t want to tank for anyone else, a player can only lose so much before he wants out (unless he’s Lauri Markkanen).
The Jazz’s plans may not result in a title, but the path they’ve put themselves on could at least result in one. The Suns’ prospects are so poor that a title for them in the next five years seems completely out of the question. Despite everything that will be bad this season, the Jazz can be optimistic about themselves in the long run. The same cannot be said about the Suns.
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