Danny Ainge wanted to draft Kevin Durant, but the 2007 NBA Draft’s ping pong balls didn’t fall his way.
So Ainge, then the man in charge of the Boston Celtics, had to settle for a kid out of Georgetown named Jeff Green. And then, Ainge found a way to trade for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. These two major moves led to the 2008 NBA championship, and the rest, as they say, was history.
That wasn’t the original plan for Ainge, who now makes basketball decisions for the Utah Jazz. But when an opportunity arose, he quickly pivoted and seized it.
Almost 20 years later, the Jazz are moving into an offseason with a largely clean slate. They will have two first-round draft picks, an early second-round selection, cap space and a significant amount of future assets to potentially trade for a star player. As Ainge said Tuesday morning: “We’re ready to go big game hunting.”
The lesson of the 2007-08 Celtics is that nobody truly knows what will happen in July. We don’t know which players will be available in a potential trade. The free agency market at this point looks murky at best, but that could change. The Jazz’s ability to swiftly move in different directions is key this summer. They can shape their roster in several different ways.
No doubt, the story of the 2023-24 Utah Jazz turned out to be a painful one. It started slowly. It peaked with a stretch of 15 wins in 19 games beginning in December when head coach Will Hardy figured out how to fit the pieces of his roster. A victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder right before the trade deadline was epic.
Then, for the second consecutive season, the Jazz tore the roster down at the deadline, recouped some assets and went young for the remainder of the season. The pain came from losing 24 of 27 games and in the form of disappointed players who wanted to compete for a spot in the postseason.
But what’s done is done. In an important summer for a rebuild that started two years ago, the Jazz’s decision-makers must find a way to push the franchise forward.
“You put yourself in position to take advantage of things when they come up,” Ainge said Tuesday. “We didn’t have a plan when we traded Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets. But then we got Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum in consecutive drafts. There wasn’t a plan there. But we put ourselves in a position to have success.”
The Jazz have one rock-solid piece in forward Lauri Markkanen. In Keyonte George, Taylor Hendricks and Brice Sensabaugh, the Jazz have three rookies who have shown flashes of real talent, but have been up and down like typical rookies. They have a second-year center in Walker Kessler who suffered through a difficult season on the floor. And they have a hodgepodge of veterans trying to gain footing as NBA players.
At a minimum, Utah’s summer league team should be stacked; Ainge and Hardy said the rookies and Kessler, along with whomever they take in June’s draft, will play in early July. But in a loaded Western Conference, this Jazz team isn’t close to good enough.
That’s one reason the Jazz front office took the approach it did at the 2024 trade deadline. The roster may have been able to compete for a Play-In berth, but, Ainge, along with Hardy and general manager Justin Zanik, are committed to building a team capable of competing for a championship. That meant further tearing down the existing roster, which, barring unlikely lottery luck, will allow the Jazz to keep the top-10 protected pick they owe to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
This is the offseason the roster will probably undergo some significant change. Guard Talen Horton-Tucker, who will be an unrestricted free agent after his fifth NBA season, is not likely to return next season, according to league sources. The Jazz have a decision to make with soon-to-be 32-year-old super sixth man Jordan Clarkson, who is still on top of his game and under contract through the 2025-26 season, but plays the same spot as Sensabaugh, whom the Jazz are trying to develop. More importantly, the Jazz finished the season without a prototypical small forward in their rotation, and that is arguably the NBA’s most important position.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Hardy said. “We are in a position where we have to improve.”
If you are looking for positives, Markkanen was again terrific this season, proving his 2022-23 All-Star season wasn’t a fluke. He’s a building block, mainly because he’s versatile, low maintenance and in his prime. Guard Collin Sexton, 25, had a whale of a year, averaging nearly 19 points and five assists per game while shooting close to 40 percent from 3-point range. More importantly, his decision-making improved. He became more selfless as a player, more willing to make the extra pass and the right read. Hardy coached him hard, and Sexton responded by improving significantly as a player.
But the Jazz are still in a daunting place. The Western Conference has been unyielding and will continue to be well into the future. Typically, the teams at the top of a conference are older and at the peak of their respective powers. But the Oklahoma City Thunder are younger than the Jazz, and just getting started. The San Antonio Spurs finished below the Jazz in the standings, but having Victor Wembanyama as a centerpiece gives them a head start on any rebuilding team. In truth, the conference was ridiculously good this season. The 10th-place team, the Golden State Warriors, won 46 games. The 11th-place team, the Houston Rockets, won 41. Had the Jazz not pulled the plug, the West could have had a 12th team at or close to .500.
So the Jazz have to get a lot better, a lot deeper and a lot more talented.
Utah’s advantage is its quantity of assets. The Jazz have three of the first 32 picks in the draft this season. They could have three first round picks next year. They own multiple years of unprotected picks and pick swaps from the Minnesota Timberwolves and Cleveland Cavaliers. They own the Los Angeles Lakers’ 2027 first-round pick . That’s why Utah’s flexibility this summer may be second to none in the league.
The Jazz have to stay ready. If there’s a sensible win-now trade that presents itself, they must be ready to make that move. If trying to chase a free agent of significance makes sense, they should chase that free agent. If standing pat makes sense, they should stand pat.
This is an important summer for the Jazz, but it must be a prudent and efficient one. And that’s what makes it so intriguing.
(Top photo: Rob Gray / USA Today)
