“If you study the free agent trends — and this is not unique to the Jazz, this is every other team that’s not on a coast — that the actual depth and quality of the free agents is not great, and it’s not going to get any better,” Zanik said. “That doesn’t mean it’s completely out, but it’s just not going to be a main driver of how you build teams. The main driver of how you’re building teams is developing your players and adding by trade.
“We’re in a more unique position than some other teams that are faced with the same free agent list that we’re looking at,” he continued. “Not only just the flexibility we have but just the multiple assets we have to deal.”
The Jazz have several additional future first-round picks from Minnesota and Cleveland due to the Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell trades, Larsen notes. Zanik made clear Utah is looking to add star players who may find themselves at odds with their current teams in the future.
“We’ve talked before about trying to predict the NBA drama that happens,” Zanik said. “You just sit there and wait for it to come, but we’re ready.”
“Lauri’s a hugely important piece for us now and going forward,” Zanik said. “I don’t want to waste any years of that, but you also have to do it within the timeline. We’re not trying to say, ‘Hey, Lauri, we’ll make you happy because you’ve never made the playoffs, so we’re going to burn all our picks and get some marginal improvement from an overpaid player so that maybe we’ll be a seven seed.’ Our goal is to make the playoffs and then grow from there
According to Larsen, Zanik thinks there’s too much talent on the current roster for that [tanking] to be feasible, and he also thinks it’s unnecessary.
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2024/04/jazz-notes-zanik-future-markkanen-hardy-lofton.html
Definitely kills my "Jerami Grant for John Collins and a pick" idea.
Overall, I don't... really understand anything they're doing here. The Jazz are wildly less appealing than their small market peers in OKC and SAS (as those teams have championship caliber #1s) and are obviously a no go for any player wanting a bigger market.
