Jazz CEO Danny Ainge Facing an NBA Draft Dilemma

The Utah Jazz went into Los Angeles with their in-season tournament hopes still alive. The Jazz needed to beat the Los Angeles Lakers and hope their point differential would be enough to either win their pod or claim the at-large bid in the Western Conference. 

Instead, the Jazz got shellacked by 32 points, easily their largest defeat of the year. The loss drops the Jazz to 4-10 on the season, which inches them closer to the bottom of the standings — or the top, depending on your perspective. 

Regardless, it was a disappointing performance for a Jazz team that had put together a couple of encouraging losses against the Phoenix Suns over the weekend. With the losses mounting, it’s probably time to examine where things stand with the club.

Half of the team's four wins came against the 3-10 Memphis Grizzlies — the other two were against the 3-11 Portland Trail Blazers and the 5-7 Los Angeles Clippers. It’s becoming clear where the Jazz rank in the Western Conference pecking order. 

Utah is better than the woeful Grizzlies and Trail Blazers, especially given their injury situations, and likely the youthful San Antonio Spurs as well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like there’s much room for elevation beyond that. The West is deep yet again, and the Jazz will have their hands full every night.

Due to the Derrick Favors salary dump in 2021, the Jazz owe a top-10 protected pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder this summer (insert eye roll). If the pick doesn’t convey this year, it rolls over as a top-10 protected pick in 2025, and finally, if the Jazz are bad yet again, the pick is top-8 protected in 2026. 

Conveying the pick in 2026 would render the pick swaps acquired from the Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota Timberwolves worthless though. Long story short, the Jazz have put themselves in a bit of a predicament.

Coming into the season, the Jazz made it clear they wanted that pick to convey this year, and we can hypothesize why. First, the 2024 draft class is viewed as a weak one. 

Sending the pick out this summer would leave the Jazz with three selections in a 2025 draft that's headlined by Cooper Flagg, which is viewed as a very good class. Secondly, conveying the pick would allow the Jazz a clean slate where they wouldn't have this awful trade hanging over their head anymore.

With the early-season struggles, the Jazz have an uphill climb just to get themselves out of the bottom ten of the draft order, much less actually making the playoffs. With another year of development for the Jazz core to go along with trade and free agency possibilities, it’s more than feasible they could push for one of those spots next year.

This begs the question: what’s more valuable, a possible top-5 pick in a bad draft or a mid-teens pick in a good draft? 

Due to having both Minnesota and Cleveland’s unprotected picks in 2025, I’d lean toward the former.

It’s also worth factoring in that the Thunder are tied for the second-best record in the conference right now. So even if the Jazz are able to climb out of the bottom 10, do we really want the team to gift another lottery pick to a division rival that might make a deep playoff run? I personally do not.

Backing up slightly, with 14 games in the books, we’re a little under one-fifth of the way through the season, a small sample size for sure. Whether the Jazz decide to be buyers, sellers, or a little bit of both, will have an impact on how the rest of the season plays out. 

I also expect that Taylor Hendricks and Brice Sensabaugh will both get opportunities to play real minutes as the season goes on. As history has shown us, rookies rarely have much of a positive effect on winning. 

With all of that said, watching how the Jazz’s draft dilemma plays out will be a key storyline to monitor in the coming weeks and months.