My one true Christmas wish is that the 2026/2027 Jazz team is capable of getting defensive stops.
Game Thread Dec 23, 2025 07:00PM MT: Memphis Grizzlies @ Utah Jazz
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Added to Calendar: 12-23-25
True that, just happy for the dude, he's a beast for Australia at FIBA ball. He signed a terrible contract with the Rockets and had some difficult years there, Memphis is looking like a good situation for him.
Handlogten's Heros
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It’s the “will he ever get his athleticism back” talk that gets me. Y’all have the patience and vision of a toddler. His processing is horrible. It’s getting slightly better though. It will continue to get better with reps.
Go get some apple juice and watch a couple Bluey episodes and it will be time. Patience children.
He also put on a bunch of weight. His injury was also significant but not catastrophic. He will be fine but that will take some time to resolve both issues.
I agree that if he isn’t the defensive playmaker he was projected to be then he probably isn’t an NBA player. So I hope he’s starting to focus on that part more.
I mean we just don't have a huge sample of players who had the severity of injury Taylor had.
It was a fibula (probably the least-important bone in a person’s leg) fracture and dislocation. The injury itself should not have any long term ramifications besides the developmental disruption (that part is definitely real).
So force feeding the young guys minutes and tanking hard for two years must have been the secret to OKC’s development right?
Situations do matter. I lean towards going guys the freedom to play through mistakes. When I look around the league there sure seems to be a lot of teams with “losing culture” that ended up just fine. But the idea that it’s super important one way or another is ridiculous.
The best development teams are really just the teams who identify and acquire talent the best.
And/or teams that have infinity chances to take swings in the draft because they set themselves up.
framer
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There are also teams that have losing culture and then continue to lose. In fact, it is a long damn list.
fishonjazz
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The question there is are they losing because of culture or lack of talent. You didn't name any teams but lets just assume you are talking about brooklyn (or insert whatever franchise). If said franchise tanks and gets the first pick and drafts lebron james do they continue to lose due to their culture? I think the answer is no.
On the other hand there are other ways than the draft to acquire talent so the argument is there that if these teams would have just stopped tanking a long time ago or never tanked to begin with then maybe they would have been making moves to make the roster better all along and they wouldn't suck. Either way, I think the sucking is due to decisions made (to tank and to not make trades and free agency moves to improve) and bad luck (busts or bad lottery luck) rather than culture. No way to be sure though. I could be wrong.
Or, as it pertains to the jazz, if the jazz win 31 games this year and give their pick to OKC does that winning culture boost make them better next season than they would be if they won 21 games this season and got Boozer, AJ, or Peterson? I think the answer is once again, no.
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