OK, this is getting exciting. The Jazz are in the thick of it.
It’ll be competitive straight through to the end, and, as we speak, they have a wonderful shot at achieving what can — and if we’re being completely honest here, must — be accomplished.
Do something they’ve never done before, something that is hard to do, something only exceptional teams do, something to be hoped for, longed for, cheered for. Something you can tell your grandkids about a generation or two from now, something worth remembering, something that’s downright monumental.
Finish last. Dead last.
The clearest path upon which the Jazz can be resurrected, the fastest, surest route to new life in the confounded confines of the NBA is to be terrible. They’ve never quite mastered the early half of the biblical saying that the first shall be last, but the late half finally has dawned on them, that the last shall be first.
Whether we’re talking prophetically or politically or pro hoops-ally, it’s like this: The end justifies the means. Machiavelli in shorts always knew that. The Jazz have struggled not just to get to this point of desperation, but to understand its importance. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have fiddle-faddled around over the past two seasons, in each of which they started too strong, as though they actually wanted to remain in NBA purgatory, stuck between not being good enough and not being bad enough to make any kind of difference in the seasons ahead. They just didn’t get it. And if they did, they didn’t put into action what they knew.
The results have been mostly disappointing draft picks and a delay in utilizing the bounce at the bottom of the necessary nadir to rebound toward full recovery, toward respectability.
Yeah, there are explanations for their strategies that sound more like excuses. Whiffing on an improved chance to get legitimately in on the Wemby sweepstakes was — what’s the word? — dumb. For what? Yeah, finishing 37-45, instead. Was that worth it?
Talk back then about competitive integrity slipped straight on through their fingers like the sand they are currently pounding. It was a missed opportunity. OK, we’ve talked about that before.
That was then, this is now.
And the Jazz are doing a much better job of playing clown ball — all for the greater good. There’s still room for them to get better by doing worse, though. Just look at ‘em, sitting at present near the bottom of the Western Conference, but not at the bottom, with New Orleans the team out-bumbling the Jazz. C’mon, now. They are fully capable of doing and being worse. If you examine the East, the Wizards are winning fewer games and losing more. The Raptors and Hornets are clustered with the Jazz in glorious ineptitude.
It’s time to put the hammer on these other losers by blowing straight past their putridness. At this writing, the Jazz’s average point differential is just a minus 9.2. The Pelicans are a minus 11.5. Now, that’s how you do it. The Wizards are a truly admirable minus 14.8.
To the Jazz’s credit, they are last in the league, having committed the most turnovers. That’s what I’m talking about. They also are last in steals. But they are 11th in total rebounding, ninth in offensive board-work. They’ve got to knock that off. They’re also 15th in 3-point field-goal percentage, 17th in overall FG percentage. They can definitely miss more by just chucking those shots up and out there. The positive news is the Jazz are allowing opponents to shoot the ball as though they have a roster full of Larry Birds and Steph Currys. Still, as bad as it’s been, the defense can slack off a bit more.
It’s hard, nasty work, but work that must be undone. The mission must remain the top priority, come what may. Winning is losing. Losing is winning. It’s painful to watch, pathetic even, but nobody ever said championship building would be easy. And that’s what Ryan Smith and Danny Ainge said they were all about when they took over, when they disassembled an annual playoff team, saying they knew they couldn’t get where they wanted to be with the roster they had, a roster made up of three All-Stars that they had under contract, as a means to … to … ascending to the top.
That strategy, while being filled with hubris, arrogance that they could throw all that away for draft picks and flexibility, was thought by them to be on-point because they could outsmart the rest of the NBA en route to a title.
We’re still waiting on that. Waiting for that abundance of acumen to kick in and the great results to follow. Those who know about such things say good fortune has to play a role along the road to a championship, too. So far, Lady Luck has been as cruel a taskmaster as the Jazz decision-makers have been incompetent.
So, it really is a waiting game now. Lose and lose some more until the competence and the luck emerge in tandem. They will surface, right?
It’s exciting, then, the dark search for light. The tough part for anyone who still cares about and roots for the Jazz is that the long and winding road to winning leads straight through a whole lot of defeat. But it’s the journey. The only way out of this mess is to dive deeper into it for as long as it takes. And to hold onto hope that better days are out there, yeah, out there, way out there, somewhere.
