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How interested/engaged/enthusiastic are you about the Jazz right now?

How interested/engaged/enthusiastic are you about the Jazz right now compared to in the past?

  • More interested than normal

    Votes: 8 11.6%

  • About the same level of interest as normal

    Votes: 14 20.3%

  • Less Interested than normal (but will likely be more interested once the team starts winning)

    Votes: 21 30.4%

  • Less interested than normal (but will be more interested once a player/coach/FO member(s) changes)

    Votes: 3 4.3%

  • Less interested than normal and not likely to regain normal interest level

    Votes: 18 26.1%

  • I'm more interested in a specific player(s) than I am the Jazz as a team

    Votes: 5 7.2%
  • Total voters
    69
KqWIN said:
Regular season is the same for me whether we're winning or not. When the Jazz had the best record in the league, we were constantly reminded of why it didn't matter, and it was true in a championship or bust league. But that's just me speaking as a "special interest" kind of fan. For most people winning is going to be better than losing by design. But whether you are winning or losing, the NBA does everything it can to tell you that the night to night action does not matter.
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That is my #1 pet peeve: being constantly told by NBA writers, podcasters, commentators, and others that the regular season doesn't matter and that all that matters is winning in the playoffs. How could we be so naive as to consider it an entertainment product and want, therefore, to be entertained? Don't we know it's ALL about winning a title, and nothing else matters? Pity us, poor rube fans who actually care about the regular season, attending and watching games because we genuinely enjoy it, or want to enjoy it, without compulsively obsessing about winning a title and yoking our fan experience to this expectation.

One can almost draw a straight line from this Rings Culture BS to the modern NBA tanking phenomenon.
 
Schrödinger's Gerbil said:
That is my #1 pet peeve: being constantly told by NBA writers, podcasters, commentators, and others that the regular season doesn't matter and that all that matters is winning in the playoffs. How could we be so naive as to consider it an entertainment product and want, therefore, to be entertained? Don't we know it's ALL about winning a title, and nothing else matters? Pity us, poor rube fans who actually care about the regular season, attending and watching games because we genuinely enjoy it, or want to enjoy it, without compulsively obsessing about winning a title and yoking our fan experience to this expectation.

One can almost draw a straight line from this Rings Culture BS to the modern NBA tanking phenomenon.
Click to expand...

Tanking is not new and existed before rings culture existed. What is new is that the regular season does not matter for anyone including the good teams. If my interest in the Jazz is waning, it's not because they're losing. It's because even if they were winning the media and culture around the NBA would do anything and everything to tell you why it's not important. Everyone knows about the incentive to lose on a given night when tanking, but there really isn't much incentive to win either unless it's the playoffs..

My theory is that the league becoming so LeBron centric contributed to it being this way. He's done everything there is to do, so all there is to do is win more titles and I think that's fine for him. The problem arises when we view the entire league this way. There is only one LeBron, not everyone should be hyper fixated on counting the rings. For everyone else, there should be meaning to other things besides a championship. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but maybe once he retires the NBA can return to more normalcy and we can appreciate something that isn't judged on this LeBron Legacy scale.

The ironic part about rings culture in today's media environment is that it's not really about who wins the championship, it's about bringing down those who did not. The culture around the NBA is talking about how much the players suck and who is fraudulent etc. and the only thing that can absolve you of that toxicity is winning the title. And when you do win that title the reward is like a few months of not being **** on. It's a negative reinforcement model where the real reward in winning a title is avoiding the backlash of being one of the losers.

This is compounded by other factors like 82 games being too many. What you get is a long season that feels like a pre-season. Compare that to the NFL or EPL where every game feels massive.
 
KqWIN said:
Tanking is not new and existed before rings culture existed. What is new is that the regular season does not matter for anyone including the good teams. If my interest in the Jazz is waning, it's not because they're losing. It's because even if they were winning the media and culture around the NBA would do anything and everything to tell you why it's not important. Everyone knows about the incentive to lose on a given night when tanking, but there really isn't much incentive to win either unless it's the playoffs..

My theory is that the league becoming so LeBron centric contributed to it being this way. He's done everything there is to do, so all there is to do is win more titles and I think that's fine for him. The problem arises when we view the entire league this way. There is only one LeBron, not everyone should be hyper fixated on counting the rings. For everyone else, there should be meaning to other things besides a championship. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but maybe once he retires the NBA can return to more normalcy and we can appreciate something that isn't judged on this LeBron Legacy scale.

The ironic part about rings culture in today's media environment is that it's not really about who wins the championship, it's about bringing down those who did not. The culture around the NBA is talking about how much the players suck and who is fraudulent etc. and the only thing that can absolve you of that toxicity is winning the title. And when you do win that title the reward is like a few months of not being **** on. It's a negative reinforcement model where the real reward in winning a title is avoiding the backlash of being one of the losers.

This is compounded by other factors like 82 games being too many. What you get is a long season that feels like a pre-season. Compare that to the NFL or EPL where every game feels massive.
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Well said. The only point I take issue with is the prevalence of tanking. Sure, tanking in one form or another has always existed. My frame of reference is the structural tank, defined as follows: The organization conducts a strategic, structural teardown of an existing team, trading established veterans for draft picks and/or other players to maximize draft prospects and accumulate tradable assets over multiple years, aka "The Process." The structural tank tends to share the following characteristics, which together constitute a distinct type of tank from those that existed prior to "The Process."
  1. Strategic Non-Competitiveness: Making strategic organizational decisions that prioritize future potential over current competitiveness.
  2. Draft Position Focus: Strategically emphasizing obtaining high draft picks over winning, particularly draft picks in the lottery (top 14) and ideally in the top 1-5 selections.
  3. Asset Accumulation: Trading established veterans for future draft picks, young players with potential, and/or cap flexibility that increases the organization’s ability to make strategic trades and other moves down the road.
  4. Analytics-Driven: Adopting analytical approaches that value draft position and cap flexibility over marginal wins.
  5. Timeline Shift: Focusing on development with a long-term competitive horizon rather than immediate success.
  6. Public Discourse: Acknowledging and accepting tanking as a legitimate (and often preferred) team-building strategy among front offices, ownership, the media, and fans, often using terminology like "rebuild," "process," or "timeline" to frame the approach.
In other words, there was no "Process" before 2013.
 
Schrödinger's Gerbil said:
Well said. The only point I take issue with is the prevalence of tanking. Sure, tanking in one form or another has always existed. My frame of reference is the structural tank, defined as follows: The organization conducts a strategic, structural teardown of an existing team, trading established veterans for draft picks and/or other players to maximize draft prospects and accumulate tradable assets over multiple years, aka "The Process." The structural tank tends to share the following characteristics, which together constitute a distinct type of tank from those that existed prior to "The Process."
  1. Strategic Non-Competitiveness: Making strategic organizational decisions that prioritize future potential over current competitiveness.
  2. Draft Position Focus: Strategically emphasizing obtaining high draft picks over winning, particularly draft picks in the lottery (top 14) and ideally in the top 1-5 selections.
  3. Asset Accumulation: Trading established veterans for future draft picks, young players with potential, and/or cap flexibility that increases the organization’s ability to make strategic trades and other moves down the road.
  4. Analytics-Driven: Adopting analytical approaches that value draft position and cap flexibility over marginal wins.
  5. Timeline Shift: Focusing on development with a long-term competitive horizon rather than immediate success.
  6. Public Discourse: Acknowledging and accepting tanking as a legitimate (and often preferred) team-building strategy among front offices, ownership, the media, and fans, often using terminology like "rebuild," "process," or "timeline" to frame the approach.
In other words, there was no "Process" before 2013.
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Eh, I could not care less about establishing black and white definition of what constitutes a tank.

My point was just to say that I am losing interest to the Jazz, but it is not tied to the Jazz tanking or the reasons listed above. It's a larger issue with the NBA product as a whole: the 82 game season does not matter. My day to day interest has more to do with "does this game matter" and less to do with "are the Jazz winning these games".
 
jazznik said:
Who IS a fan of the Jazz team and not a fan of specific players? Players are not interchangeable and not fungible. If the owner of the Jazz somehow pulled a swap and got an entire 2025 OKC team in the Jazz uniform would you immediately start cheering for them? And if this OKC squad wins the championship in the Jazz jerseys would it not be hollow?

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I would not cheer for or follow that and any success would be hollow in my opinion.
 
The Jazz are going to have a down year this year, but they're doing the right thing. Draft another All Star talent to put next to Ace and Lauri and things will start moving.
 
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