Four of the Utah Jazz’s next five games could end up being the most important games of the season.
Those games are against the Charlotte Hornets, the New Orleans Pelicans (two games) and the Washington Wizards.
These certainly aren’t the most exciting opponents on the Jazz’s schedule this season, but the upcoming games will likely end up having major draft lottery implications.
The reason the games are so important is because the Jazz need to lose them in order to stay on the path toward a bottom three regular season record and the best odds at the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft.
The problem is that the Jazz are completely capable of winning these games.
Now, if you’re someone who hates the idea of tanking and disagrees with it as a strategy in rebuilding, that’s fine, you can disagree all you want. But the fact of the matter is the Jazz are one of the teams that are tanking and the prize to the three teams that do the best job in racking up losses is a greater number of ping pong ball combinations in the May 12 Draft Lottery.
But here’s the rub — the Jazz aren’t the only team wearing Cooper Flagg-tinted glasses this season, hoping for the No. 1 overall selection. There are at least six other teams that want to reach worst-record status this year and that is who the Jazz are playing in the coming days.
Wins against those teams are doubly bad for the Jazz because they count as a win for the Jazz and a loss for the teams they’re competing with for top lottery positioning.
Moreover, if the Jazz end up with the same record as one of these teams, they could end up with worse odds than their lottery position normally would have come with.
Tiebreakers in the draft lottery
When teams have identical records heading into the draft lottery, a random draw determines who gets the higher lottery spot and then the possible number of lottery drawing combinations are combined and split between the two teams.
For example: Last year, the Charlotte Hornets and Portland Trail Blazers had identical records; they were tied for the third worst record.
Without any ties, the teams with the three worst records are each assigned 14% (140) of the 1,000 possible number combinations that can be drawn from the lottery machine.
By random draw, the Hornets were placed in the third spot and Blazers in fourth. Then, the 14% of combinations were combined with the 12.5% of combinations awarded to the fourth place team and split between the two teams. The Hornets ended up with 13.3% (133 combinations) and the Blazers ended up with 13.2% (132 combinations).
Even if you’re getting just a handful fewer combinations assigned to you because of a tiebreaker situation, that can be a big deal. Especially if it could have been avoided with just one more regular-season loss.
Where the Jazz stand
Currently the Jazz are 10-28 on the season. Meanwhile, the Pelicans (8-32), Wizards (6-32) and Hornets (8-28) are leading the tank charge and close behind are Portland (13-25), the Toronto Raptors (9-31) and Brooklyn Nets (13-26).
In fairness to all the tanking teams out there, I truly don’t believe that there is a single player who wants to tank or is trying to lose games, and for the most part, I believe that coaches are trying to win games with the hands that they’ve been dealt.
Of course, there are directives that coaches have to follow — like giving priority to inexperienced players in crunch time, or managing minute restrictions, or trying out different lineups to try to squeeze out every last drop of analyzing how players impact one another on the court.
And when these tanking teams meet one another, it usually makes for some wacky basketball (which is great for those of us who live for the wacky moments).
Like when the Jazz played the Nets on Sunday. The Jazz’s starting lineup included two rookies and a two-way player because a number of players are injured and 23-year-old Walker Kessler apparently needed a day of “rest.”
On the other side, the Nets basically didn’t play anyone who averages more than 10 points a game and made sure to pull Ben Simmons right at the end of the game, despite the fact that he’d just scored (because his minute restriction just was not malleable at all).
The Jazz can certainly continue to rest and keep players nursing minor injuries to try and keep the roster as bare bones as possible, but even so, this roster is full of hungry players who are often better than some of the scrubs playing for their tanking counterparts.
Last season the win totals for the three worst teams in the league were 14, 15 and 21. The Jazz are on pace for about 21 wins this season and that might take them out of the running for the best lottery odds this year.
So, with four upcoming games against other tanking teams, this could end up being the most impactful stretch of the season for the Jazz.