Utah couldn't have planned things out much better than this.
The Utah Jazz got out of the "being bad at basketball" business just in time, didn't they?
The book of the Utah Jazz in 2025-26 could have been titled: The Day I Became Public Enemy Number-One: Tanking Is a Target. That would have been a New York Times best-seller on day-one, have no doubt of that.
Despite tying for the fifth-worst record in the league, Utah was the poster child for the tanking epidemic. A black stain on the spotless image of professional basketball. The league fined Utah $500,000 for apparent tanking practices in two specific games (including in one game that the team won, and that will forever baffle Jazz fans as it did the team's owner, Ryan Smith, at the time).
The court of public opinion ruled against the prolonging of tanking in the NBA, and the higher-ups took notice. Potential solutions floated around the basketball universe for months before an increasingly popular proposal rose to the top; de-incentivize tanking by decreasing the bottom-four records' lottery odds below the 5-8th place teams.
That, plus teams like Utah could be barred from jumping into the top-five of the draft after two straight years in that promised land. Sorry, Memphis, but Utah's pick just became that much less valuable next season, because they're the originators of the pick, even though the rights belong to the Grizzlies.
The NBA is expected to vote on lottery reform later this week -- just as the Jazz are ready to win basketball games again.
Like Heath Ledger's Joker staggering away from a hospital as it goes up in flames, the Jazz's rebuild took shape just in time to get out before they found themself in the wreckage.
With young players like Keyonte George, Brice Sensabaugh, Ace Bailey, Cody Williams, and more developing well internally, Utah's once fledgling core has become one perhaps ready to breach the boundary of the Western Conference's status quo.
Trading for Jaren Jackson Jr. to pair alongside Lauri Markkanen and Walker Kessler in the front court sealed it; the Utah Jazz had their sights set on the Playoffs, not the lottery.
When Utah found themselves as the proud owners of the second overall pick in this loaded 2026 NBA Draft class, that was simply the icing atop the cake. No doubt about it, the Jazz front office will walk away from draft night with a player they believe could some day become an All-NBA talent, or even a league MVP -- AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson both fit this description.
Yes, the NBA is making radical overhauls with the lottery system, but that simply isn't the Jazz's concern anymore.
