Utah Jazz Mailbag: What Have Jazz Said About Tanking?
Mar 4, 2025, 3:47 PM
Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy looks at the scoreboard during a timeout in the game against the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (Photo courtesy of Laura Seitz, Deseret News)
(Photo courtesy of Laura Seitz, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY – Welcome to the Utah Jazz mailbag where this week we look at how the organization has approached tanking this season.
Each week we will send out a prompt on X and BlueSky asking for the questions you have about the Jazz.
Then, we’ll respond to as many as we can in that week’s Jazz mailbag.
Jazz Mailbag; What Has Team Said About Tanking?
I know we all KNOW the Jazz are tanking. Has a question been asked to a Jazz official to get it on record? Or do they just “no comment” all the time, and Walker really needs his rest?
— Jeremy Shaffer (@JeremyJShaffer) March 3, 2025
Question: I know we all KNOW the Jazz are tanking. Has a question been asked to a Jazz official to get it on record? Or do they just “no comment” all the time?
Answer: Acting in full transparency, I can tell you that I have never asked anyone associated with the Jazz specifically about tanking. I’ve never said the word tank, nor implied in a conversation that the team was actively trying to lose games on any given night, either on or off the record.
Why?
First, I don’t believe we have an accurate definition of the word ‘tanking’, and it can be a sloppy catchall to use when discussing the complex world of team building.
In a vacuum, tanking describes a team purposely losing games to improve their draft odds.
In reality, it’s far more nuanced than that.
While teams do welcome the higher odds of winning the draft lottery with the added losses, it’s just one piece of the puzzle that goes into constructing a contending roster.
On Monday, I asked Jazz head coach Will Hardy if he feels he has the uphold the sanctity of the NBA by playing to win every night.
Here’s what he had to say.
“The players that are playing in the games are competing every night. We have a young team, and we’re trying to develop them, we’re trying to learn about them as well.
It’s not just about development. We’re trying to identify the players in our program that we really believe in. And so I don’t know if it’s about maintaining any type of sanctity, but there’s a there’s definitely a feeling for me, like I’m proud of how our team goes about it every day.
I think that our guys go out there and lay on the line every night, and I know that our coaching staff coaches these guys hard. You know, developing young players is hard because this league is very unforgiving. So the results can, you know, elicit some emotional responses from people which I understand.”
In layman’s terms: The Jazz are prioritizing the development of their young players. Those young players are playing their hardest, but young players don’t know how to win games.
Does that mean the Jazz are tanking games?
In a sense, yes. By not prioritizing victory every night they step on the floor, they are by one definition tanking.
Breaking: @UtahJazz guard Isaiah Collier earns Rookie Of The Month honors for February! 🏆📆#TakeNote https://t.co/prQdX4wK0D
— KSL Sports (@kslsports) March 4, 2025
On the other hand, they believe that by developing the youth on their roster now, they’ll win more games in the future, both with players currently on the roster and with the added benefit of a player selected high in the lottery, at the sacrifice of wins today.
So in regards to losing games, how large of a sample size do we need to take before we’re comfortable labeling it as tanking?
Is it confined to a month, half a season, or perhaps a full season?
If the Jazz win more games in the aggregate over the next five seasons by prioritizing youth development this year, is that tanking?
What if a team that has locked up the top seed in the playoffs chooses to rest its players over the final week of the season to be healthy in the playoffs?
They aren’t prioritizing winning every game possible, but they are better positioning themselves to win a title.
How different is that from a team better positioning itself to win a title in 2027 by developing its lesser players in 2025?
One of these teams won’t get a 14% chance at Cooper Flagg
(multiple if, for example, teams 3 and 4 end up tied) pic.twitter.com/Cd7wSm45zQ
— Tankathon.com (@tankathon) February 27, 2025
But here’s the bigger problem, and the second reason why I haven’t questioned the team about the ethical nature of tanking.
I think tanking works.
In 2018, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was fined $600,000 by the NBA for admitting that he sat down with his roster and told them that “losing was our best option.”
Four months later, the Mavericks landed superstar Luka Doncic on draft night, and proceeded to make the playoffs in four of the next six years, including a trip to the Finals, and two trips to the Conference Finals.
In 2023, ESPN’s Tim MacMahon asked Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd why they rested four key players in the final game of the season, resulting in Dallas losing to the Chicago Bulls, and falling out of the playoffs in order to retain their first-round pick, here’s how he responded.
“Decisions sometimes are hard in this business,” Kidd said. “We’re trying to build a championship team. With this decision, this is maybe a step back. But hopefully, it leads to [us] going forward.”
What happened next?
The Mavericks used the first-round pick that they retained by losing to Chicago to select Dereck Lively who played a critical role in helping the Mavericks reach the Finals the next season.
On a micro-scale, the Mavericks prioritized losing in order to keep a lottery pick. On a macro scale, they lost one game to better position themselves to win 13 additional playoff games the next season.
Ultimately, failing to prioritize wins may feel unethical, but it’s not antithetical to winning championships.
The NBA created the draft lottery in part because it believed it would help its worst-performing teams return to competitive levels more quickly.
The league’s biggest problem is it was right.
Want to ask questions in next week’s Jazz mailbag? Give us a follow at @kslsports.
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Ben Anderson is the Utah Jazz insider for KSL Sports and the co-host of Jake and Ben from 10-12p with Jake Scott on 97.5 The KSL Sports Zone. Find Ben on Twitter at @BensHoops, on Instagram @BensHoops, or on BlueSky.
