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What should the FO do if we are 0.500 by January?

If you were put in charge of the FO, what would you do if the Jazz were 0.500 on January 1st


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If what Keyonte and Lauri are doing right now is sustainable, then we currently have 1 all star level player and 2 starting level players. I think that is a foundation you can build on. For example what if we traded for Jrue Holiday and Brandon Ingram (ignore the cap stuff for now). Keyonte, Jrue, Ingram, Lauri, Kessler could be a top 6 team in the West in my opinion. That's not a championship level team, but a good team that is capable of winning a lot of games.

Should the FO put off winning forever at the expense of chasing the next MVP level player through the draft?

FWIW, I think we are all mostly aligned. It didn't make sense chasing wins this year with our 2026 draft pick on the line. Next year, if we can maintain a foundation worth building upon, we should try to add to it as responsibly as possible.

I think the issue with like a Keyonte/Lauri/Walker/Brandon Ingram-like team is that this gets extremely expensive extremely fast for a first round exit. Like, that's probably already close to the tax in two years.

If Ace starts showing signs of life, maybe we could trade him and our pick this year for a genuine star who isn't overpaid I guess, but Ace's trade value is obviously not going to be fantastic unless he starts flashing any star potential.
 
I think the issue with like a Keyonte/Lauri/Walker/Brandon Ingram-like team is that this gets extremely expensive extremely fast for a first round exit. Like, that's probably already close to the tax in two years.

If Ace starts showing signs of life, maybe we could trade him and our pick this year for a genuine star who isn't overpaid I guess, but Ace's trade value is obviously not going to be fantastic unless he starts flashing any star potential.

The capstuff makes it trickier, which is why I was only using that example as an illustration. The point is at some point you have to start adding to the team once you have the foundation. In my opinion two starter level players and an all star level player is a good enough foundation vs waiting forever to have that happen through the draft.

FWIW, the most likely outcome of any rebuild is a cap constrained team that could also lose a first round matchup.
 
The capstuff makes it trickier, which is why I was only using that example as an illustration. The point is at some point you have to start adding to the team once you have the foundation. In my opinion two starter level players and an all star level player is a good enough foundation vs waiting forever to have that happen through the draft.

FWIW, the most likely outcome of any rebuild is a cap constrained team that could also lose a first round matchup.

On one hand, yes, on the other hand, we blew up a 2nd round contender with a 26 year old Hall of Famer under contract for three more years to tank for four years and blew up a 2nd round contender with tons of cap space at the following trade deadline instead of building around a 25 year old all-star (so we could tank for four more years).

I don't know if Ainge can just go "whoops, was wrong about everything because my drafting was really bad, lol, let's go back to being a luxury tax constrained first round contender for a couple years" when he personally just seems like a bored old guy.

Mechanically, there's also a ton of weird moving parts to handle in that most stars don't want to get traded to this team (because we're so bad) and the team has not wanted to trade for stars that don't want to be here. Kessler is also an abysmal fit with Hardy's bizarre schemes and probably has to be moved for a center that plays non-drop coverage and can get back in transition and is skilled offensively (and getting one of those guys is super super hard). It's not clear how many years it would take for these guys to become available and Lauri only has a couple years left.
 
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Should the FO put off winning forever at the expense of chasing the next MVP level player through the draft?
Forever? No. I haven't seen anyone say that they want to avoid winning forever.
For 1 more year while we have a draft pick with protections on it? I could handle that.
 
The capstuff makes it trickier, which is why I was only using that example as an illustration. The point is at some point you have to start adding to the team once you have the foundation. In my opinion two starter level players and an all star level player is a good enough foundation vs waiting forever to have that happen through the draft.

FWIW, the most likely outcome of any rebuild is a cap constrained team that could also lose a first round matchup.
There is that forever word again. I feel quite confident that if the jazz tank this season, it will be the last time and they will start building up the team to win immediately after this season concludes.
I don't think we need to worry about the jazz trying to suck forever.
 
Did you not read the paragraph immediately below the one you quoted?

There are definitely posters on this board who think we should tank until we have an MVP level talent.

FWIW, I'm not for tanking until we have an MVP, but I do think we need a lot more tanking to set ourselves up for a sustainable multi year core that can reach the 2nd round every once and a while. The goal is to be the Pistons, not the Thunder or Spurs.
 
Did you not read the paragraph immediately below the one you quoted?

There are definitely posters on this board who think we should tank until we have an MVP level talent.
This paragraph?: FWIW, I think we are all mostly aligned. It didn't make sense chasing wins this year with our 2026 draft pick on the line. Next year, if we can maintain a foundation worth building upon, we should try to add to it as responsibly as possible.

I don't see anything in that paragraph talking about posters who want to tank forever.

There might be posters who want to tank until the jazz draft a player who they think of as The Guy. I can dig that. I think that is a less amount of time than forever though. I think you were probably just being hyperbolic since forever is like an insanely long time. Like literally the longest time lol.

I was simply nitpicking/taking issue with the word forever. Like I don't think any posters want to tank for the next 100 seasons in a row even. Much less forever. Sorry for the nitpick.
 
This paragraph?: FWIW, I think we are all mostly aligned. It didn't make sense chasing wins this year with our 2026 draft pick on the line. Next year, if we can maintain a foundation worth building upon, we should try to add to it as responsibly as possible.

I don't see anything in that paragraph talking about posters who want to tank forever.

There might be posters who want to tank until the jazz draft a player who they think of as The Guy. I can dig that. I think that is a less amount of time than forever though. I think you were probably just being hyperbolic since forever is like an insanely long time. Like literally the longest time lol.

I was simply nitpicking/taking issue with the word forever. Like I don't think any posters want to tank for the next 100 seasons in a row even. Much less forever. Sorry for the nitpick.
Ok, got it, yes you were nitpicking. I guess I should have used the word indefinitely, instead of forever.
 
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