Regardless of their draft pick situation, the Utah Jazz are in a pretty good spot right now. Now Jaren Jackson Jr. and Walker Kessler will likely return at 100% next season, there is a lot to like about their prospects. What would take them from good to scary is not only keeping their pick this year, but also winning the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery.
As the Jazz try to avoid the sticky situation they’ve put themselves in with the Thunder, which OKC is trying to crack down on, not many people have thought about the prospect of them winning the lottery. However, Michael Pina of The Ringer recently the idea came up while discussing teams that would benefit the most from winning the lottery.
(Of the nine teams Pina mentions, the Jazz came in at No. 4)
“Just how good would the Jazz be next season if they got the top pick? Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr., Keyonte George and a potential superstar on the horizon? These could be scary hours,” Pina wrote.
Utah will be a playoff contender no matter how the lottery luck goes. They will be more than happy with their choice period, but winning the lottery gives them so many options for where they can go.
If they have a franchise player in the works on top of the core they have now, they basically get the rare privilege of building for now and beyond. They will have veterans like Markkanen, JJJ and Kessler, but they will also have an exciting youth movement that can step in and take over, including No. 1 pick George and Ace Bailey.
An argument can be made that Utah is in danger of having too much talent, but even if that’s the case, it’s a good problem to have.
However, history is against them
As exciting as this prospect is, the lottery hasn’t been too kind to the Jazz. Because of how exciting Bailey is, it’s very easy to forget that the worst-case scenario happened to Utah in last year’s draft lottery.
They were the worst team in the league and still ended up with the No. 5 pick. And that’s not the first time this has happened. They’ve moved up before, like the year they had the Nets pick in 2011 and got the No. 3 pick, but that was very much the exception and not the norm.
But that’s the lottery for you. You never know what’s going to happen. Teams that haven’t had much success in the lottery suddenly find that they’ve had just as much success. The Mavericks never seemed to have that much luck until they captured the Flagg last year. Still, part of the reason jazz fans pay more attention instead of seeing how high it could go is that their unfortunate history doesn’t make them as excited.
While Jazz fans will settle for keeping their picks, adding the No. 1 pick to a team as talented as Utah will likely put them in a golden situation next season. So much so that it would be difficult to figure out what the limit of their ceiling would be if they ultimately won.
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