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Utah Jazz fined 100,000 for violating league participation policy

Douchebag K said:
lol this is excellent. It just shows that we're appropriately pushing the boundaries of what is able to be done to maximise the benefit of the whole exercise I say well done to Jazz management.

And given all the bias towards arsehole franchises like the Lakers i say this to the NBA

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I would totally eat that dick. Looks delicious.
 
The Spurs have built dynasties by blatantly tanking without the NBA so much as batting an eye. Figures.

I understand why the Jazz are doing it, but it’s still pretty hard to stomach and I’ve started to realize that the longer Ryan Smith owns the Jazz, being a Jazz fan has become less fun for me. Thus far, Smith’s ownership of the team can pretty much be summed up with 3 major events:

1- Inherited the Gobert and Mitchell era only to be unable (or unwilling) to fix things as it grew toxic and imploded.

2- A completely unwanted and poorly executed rebrand that will go down as one of the worst in pro sports.

3- Presiding over a rebuild that’s centered around the idea of the Jazz sucking on purpose before they can get better. Hell, even if by some miracle we land the #1 pick and Cooper Flagg after this tank, the conventional wisdom seems to be that they’ll shoot just as hard for another tank in ‘26 in an attempt to maximize their chances at another potential franchise cornerstone. I know I can’t stay engaged if we’re having to endure yet another tank and I wonder how many other Jazz fans feel the same way.

I don’t know where everyone else’s apathy level is at, but at this point I’m starting to wonder if my excitement for Jazz basketball will return if and when this rebuild ends up paying off.

To be fair, it hasn’t been all bad. Ryan’s been able to do some good but the Smith/Ainge plan of attack after trading Rudy and Donovan his been clunky, indecisive, and sometimes has even come off as extremely half-assed. Hopefully Smith will eventually do just as good of a job rebuilding the Jazz as he’s done with BYU basketball….
 
Step-Back Lauri said:
These fines should be at least ten millions to have some impact.
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The only way to put some teeth to it would be to set a limit and then exclude that team from the lottery, like if you get 3 of these in a season you get kicked down to the next lower bracket in lottery odds regardless of your final record. So you could finish in the bottom 3 but get enough of these violations and you have the same odds as a team that finished between 7-10th or something like that.

But really nothing will change. The league likes sending its stars to LA to boost the money, and they don't care one whit about where the Jazz end up, as long as they can comfortably (and plausibly, that part is important) have a more prominent team leapfrog them in the pick order, like San Antonio, to help boost Wemby into winning status and get that extra cash rolling in. They will never make money promoting the Jazz in any way, so it just won't happen.
 
I also forgot to mention:

Does anyone remember when retired players were being used in "sign-and-trade" deals as salary ballast? Two examples include where Keith Van Horn (who had been retired for two years) signed a contract with Dallas (and traded to NJ) to make the Jason Kidd trade happen. Then Aaron McKie, who was actually on the Sixers' coaching staff, was included by the Lakers (the last team he played for) in a sign-and-trade to make the Pau Gasol trade work. We had a deal lined up (as told by Larry H. to local radio and later confirmed by Ostertag himself) where we were going to use a new Greg Ostertag contract as ballast but the league shut it down, citing the fact that Ostertag was retired.

I'm an out on us being able to land the top pick. Say what you will about conspiracies, but I just don't see the league tolerating the optics of allowing the #1 pick to land in the hands of someone they fined for that purpose.
 
infection said:
I also forgot to mention:

Does anyone remember when retired players were being used in "sign-and-trade" deals as salary ballast? Two examples include where Keith Van Horn (who had been retired for two years) signed a contract with Dallas (and traded to NJ) to make the Jason Kidd trade happen. Then Aaron McKie, who was actually on the Sixers' coaching staff, was included by the Lakers (the last team he played for) in a sign-and-trade to make the Pau Gasol trade work. We had a deal lined up (as told by Larry H. to local radio and later confirmed by Ostertag himself) where we were going to use a new Greg Ostertag contract as ballast but the league shut it down, citing the fact that Ostertag was retired.

I'm an out on us being able to land the top pick. Say what you will about conspiracies, but I just don't see the league tolerating the optics of allowing the #1 pick to land in the hands of someone they fined for that purpose.
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The conspiracy theories won't prevent it. Its literally just math. The fine was justified as it fits the leagues parameters and the other stuff doesn't. There is too much for the league to lose and no real beneficiary to pushing a guy to one market or another. The risk to reward for one party to rig a random lottery is just not there.
 
Lauri is hurt, but I'm pretty sure this is about the Jazz openly mocking the league by listing Walker out with rest and Sarah Todd releasing that article where Jazz sources were like "Yeah, we're tanking next year too, even if we get Flagg."

This feels like a warning shot.
 
HadAnEffectHere said:
Lauri is hurt, but I'm pretty sure this is about the Jazz openly mocking the league by listing Walker out with rest and Sarah Todd releasing that article where Jazz sources were like "Yeah, we're tanking next year too, even if we get Flagg."

This feels like a warning shot.
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Its public shaming and appeasing other teams who obviously complained. It just so happens that the other teams we are tanking against don't have a player that fits the league criteria as a star outside of Scotty Barnes. We did push pretty far and if we do tank next year we really just need to trade the players rather than sitting them like this. Its not fair to them and their earnings. Lauri we paid so its whatevs but the league is telling us we can't do that with Lauri now... so apparently we have to do a more ethical version of fraud.
 
Good job, Hardy and Jazz brass. If I knew we would get fined for not playing Lauri in some random game before the season I would have been much more optimistic about our tanking chances! This is just masterful tank job. Now lets finish it off the best way we can.
 
stitches said:
Good job, Hardy and Jazz brass. If I knew we would get fined for not playing Lauri in some random game before the season I would have been much more optimistic about our tanking chances! This is just masterful tank job. Now lets finish it off the best way we can.
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At least we now have documented evidence for the people who cry about the Jazz not tanking hard enough.
 
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