DALLAS — If the Dallas Mavericks had any notion that they could out-tank the Utah Jazz this week, they were wrong.
The Jazz’s losses in Dallas on Thursday and Saturday marked the official halfway point of another season that was never meant to produce wins, but Utah has had to be more intentional about losing than team decision-makers originally thought would be the case.
For example, even with Lauri Markkanen sidelined because of illness, the Jazz needed to field their youngest possible rotation in Dallas to make sure they got the tank job done. That meant healthy scratches for Kevin Love, Jusuf Nurkić and Svi Mykhailiuk.
Because when the Jazz roll out their best lineups, a mix of young talent and veteran wisdom, they’ve actually had some really impressive wins and some valiant battles against good teams.
Markkanen has been as good as ever, Nurkić has been a steadying frontcourt presence in the absence of Walker Kessler, Mykhailiuk has been one of the Jazz’s most consistent players and the emergence of Keyonte George as a legitimate NBA starter has helped Utah see a vision for the future.
At the same time though, there have been some deeply concerning moments over the course of the first 42 games of the 2025-26 campaign.
“Mostly I would sum it up by (saying) we have a very wide variance,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. “We have played a lot of good basketball. We’ve had some really high-level team wins...We’ve also had some really ugly moments.
“The extremes — the really great wins and the really bad nights — are the ones that stand out in all of our minds, and the reality is we’re somewhere in between those things when it comes to who we actually are today.”
The lowest of moments and the worst of the losses have usually come on nights when the Jazz aren’t playing their best rotation, which is to be expected. But some of the lows that need to be addressed in the future have to do with how many of the Jazz’s young players have struggled this season.
“We’re a phenomenal team when everybody plays and guys understand their role and understand what shots are going to be there for them going into the game,” George said.
“When guys go through injuries, get sick, life happens, we’ve just got to kind of understand that we can still play the same way.”
It’s nice for George to say that, and it’s the right attitude to have, but the truth that has been laid out in front of us this season is that it’s easier said than done.
The Jazz feel they are just scratching the surface with Ace Bailey, who only turned 19 in August, but there is a lot of concern when it comes to players such as Taylor Hendricks, Cody Williams, Kyle Filipowski and Isaiah Collier.
Hendricks still looks like he’s trying to get back to just playing at a normal speed, and he’s really struggled to live up to the defensive hopes that the Jazz had for him before last season’s injury.
Filipowski has been unfortunate in how much five he’s had to play when that clearly isn’t where he can thrive in the NBA, and it’s not clear that he can be an effective power forward either.
Williams has had to strip back his game completely, and though he’s played better of late, he also set the record for the worst single-game plus-minus in NBA history.
Collier continues to show that speed and force are strengths, but he is also foul prone, not respected as a shooter, is undersized and gets caught without a plan in the trees.
It’s probably unfair to have expected the Jazz to create some sort of solid identity at this point of the season, especially when the roster is once again being manipulated to hold them back, but it is something that needs to be discussed and addressed in the near future.
After this season, it’s time for the Jazz to actually try to win games. That’s not far away, and the extreme variance does not paint a clear picture.
But, for the next 40 games, Jazz fans should expect more of the same. There is no reason for the team to change course at this point.
They need to lose games and continue to see if there is any more potential they can squeeze out of some of the fringe youngsters on the squad.
While that could reveal some untapped talent and some unexpected pleasant surprises, it is more likely a recipe for some of the low lows Hardy was talking about.