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You need to look at value to the league over time. They are not concerned with a single year, when things can get fickle, they care about the long haul. I previously posted an analysis showing the Spurs were like 8th in total revenue, including TV viewership estimates, for the past 20 or 25 years. The Jazz were something like 24th. I am sure the years the Jazz went to the finals they were in the top 10 in the league for revenue, but still lower in driving TV ratings, as I remember those years and was shocked that we were leading the league for record almost the entire year and yet we had like 3 nationally televised games but the Lakers, Mavs, Knicks, Spurs, Sonics, Rockets, Bulls (of course - Jordan), and others all had more. Even leading the league we didn't bring in viewers so unless we were playing a "popular" team we didn't get TV slots. We are a useful farm team, that is about it. Spurs are a known popular commodity over the long term. They are the better "investment" for talent, from the league's perspective when considering future TV contracts where the real money comes from. Simply put, more people want to watch the Spurs than the Jazz. Pretty much anyone except maybe the Pelicans will get watched more than the Jazz. So it doesn't pay to stack us with talent, unless we get lucky later in the draft, as with Mitchell and Gobert. Other than Mitchell being extremely dissatisfied and basically "quiet quitting" on the team in the playoffs (played ZERO defense), we would have been better off retooling around them and adding Hardy than hoping we could get a top pick to replace them.