Ya like Jazz?

    Due to the soul crushing loss by the Eagles last night, I've decided for my mental health that I should talk about the Utah Jazz, specifically Head Coach Will Hardy. Yesterday, CBS Sports (https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/ranking-every-nba-coach-for-2024-25-season-jj-redick-at-the-bottom-pop-outside-top-10-and-no-1-in-own-tier/) put out a ranking of every NBA head coach and put them into specific tiers, Will Hardy was put into Tier 3 "the Wunderkinds" and ranked as #7 overall in the NBA. Not bad for a coach who's team has been more or less a bottom feeder for the last few years. Lets get into it

    A point that I have strongly believe in and tried my best to get out there is that Will Hardy is getting a pretty raw deal. He's obviously a great coach, to begin the year for the past 2 seasons, the Jazz have outperformed expectations and have been in a playoff position. That is until the trade deadline when the front office completely dismantles the team and then the Jazz fall off a cliff and end up out of the playoffs. 

    Will Hardy is absolutely the guy to lead us into the next era of Jazz basketball, the only problem is that he is such a good coach and the team obviously loves him and plays hard for him. That's an issue for the Jazz who are middling between trying to compete and trying to tank. In my opinion, and of course I'm just a dumb fan, we should tank. And tank HARD. Cooper Flagg is the consensus #1 pick for the upcoming season, we'll see how he does at Duke but based on the clips that have been put out, the guy is going to be a generational talent. Pair him with Lauri and we have a perfect pairing moving forward. 

    That bring us up against the Will Hardy problem, again. What is the team to do when the coach is doing his job extremely well? Maybe too well? In my mind, there's only one answer. Lets the kids play! The team is extremely young. 6th youngest in the NBA averaging at about 24 years old. There's going to be a lot of growing pains with the young guys and it might suck for Will Hardy and Lauri but I think that's going to be the answer. Play the kids, play Lauri and let them grow together. I don't think the roster is good enough as currently constructed to make the playoffs or win a ton of games so why not let the kids grow and lose together. With all the assets that the Jazz front office have accumulated there is enough in place to make some trades next summer after (hopefully) securing a top pick in the draft lottery. The lottery gods have been unkind to Utah in the past so we need to force their hand by having the best odds. It's going to be a very long season but in my mind the main goal should be development for the young guys and continue to build the chemistry for next season. Don't dismantle the team at the trade deadline and let that chemistry continue to gel. 

    The future of the Jazz does look bright, even if current circumstances look less than. Many Jazz fans online are extremely pessimistic because lets be honest, the Jazz are not a losing franchise. We have constistently been in playoff contention, minus the Ty Corbin years which tested the fandom of all of us. We will get back to the top and compete for championships but for now, we need to be a bad team and hope that Will Hardy and his stuff is as good at developing players as they are at playing and preparing them. Cheers, Jazz fans!