Justice would be them dropping in the lottery, not jumping into the Top 3

When have we faked injuries

The image of Ainge doing it himself is very funny.

Yeah I think its most likely this. Injuries were real, but there was no reason to rush the recovery times considering the tank was on

I don’t deny the bullshit that was definitely happening, but it does make me wonder how much was bullshit and how much was brittle bones

I mean the national team coach said a year ago about his season ending injury that Lauri is only injured according to the front office and the Finnish fans don’t need to worry about the national team summer.

It’s ironic he broke his hand the way he did. Dude then tried to play with the bummed out hand but only broke it worse…

To be fair, I would also still be asleep at the wheel.

This is so much more in line with the spirit of the rule too. Why are we being punished because the Jazz tanked?

Issue with that is, if a team’s about to be blocked out of top 5, they might as well trade away the pick, since it’s worth more in someone else’s hands. And assuming they get approximately equal value for the pick, that defeats the purpose of blocking them out to begin with.

The lottery process is changed now. Instead of there being 14 balls labeled 1-14, and selecting 4 draws to see who gets which pick(based on known combinations for the 14 teams), now there will be 37 ping pong balls with each of the 16 lottery teams logo’s on them(each team will have between 1-3 balls depending on their draft position). When all of a team’s balls are drawn out of the machine, their position is locked in in reverse 16->1 order. Here is an ESPN simulator that shows the new process.

So there is no way to “redraw” a position anymore. If the Jazz are still in the pool when the 6th pick comes up, they automatically get slotted into 6th and their balls removed before selecting the top 5. And if any of the bottom 3 are the first teams drawn, they automatically get the 12th pick because they cannot have higher than that. Draws will resume for the 16th, 15th, 14th, etc., until all spots are drawn.

For real. He made the biggest blunder next to “never get involved in a land war in Asia” - he overvalued someone (Lauri) who never had any post season success. Similar to what the Pelicans are doing now. At least KG & Pierce were proven stars, even though they were past their primes and Brooklyn was desperate.

yea and i think Ainge wanted to include Podz + more picks in the deal

He chose that life. He had every opportunity to go to a contender.

Dude is getting paid insane money to basically just clock it in. Show up. Zero expectations. Clock out. Some players are not motivated by winning and are perfectly fine to get paid to lose.

Don’t think he cares about winning. The NBA to some guys is just a 9-5 job.

I don’t think it’s that he didn’t want to stay in Utah, he just wanted them to pay him what he’s worth

If they had offered him the Lakers deal he would still be there. They asked him to sit which lowered his value then lowballed him.

They tried to squeeze Walker in RFA.

Walker wanted to get a deal done in the 2025 offseason, but the Jazz didn’t even try to negotiate anything, figuring the RFA market would be hard for him in 2026.

I don’t blame Walker for wanting to leave after that.

Can you provide any source on that? The highest leaked offer from the Jazz that I can find is ⁵⁄₁₄₀ compared to ⁴⁄₁₃₀ from the Lakers.

Yeah the Warriors have been a nice surprise. I was a big Yaxel believer but he’s even surprised me

Spurs. I’m not saying it can’t be done, just isn’t always easy. Also none of those teams traded away their franchise center right before pivoring to win now mode…

The Thunder had a history of winning, and they even had that 2020 season when Chris Paul was there. Nobody expected them to be as good as they were that season

I just feel like if your team is relying that much on Jusuf Nurkic (who I will always love) in the big 26, you’re just not a very good team.

It is the opposite of overblown lol. But mentality/culture is different than just losing. You can still lose while building good habits. But teams where they just let players do whatever to lose games, that one takes time to turn around

He had no idea the trade was a blockbuster trade until just before it happened lol

draymond green is one of the best wemby defenders in the nba, and curry torched them bad last year in the reg season. not saying it’d be a clear win for the warriors or anything, but idk if they’re that bad of a matchup, especially if jimmy looks good coming back.

they just need to shoot well and it’s wraps

Spurs are the best team on paper but they’re extremely young. I’d pick them to win the title if I had to pick a team right now, but I truly don’t know what to expect from them in the playoffs (like in the WCF and/or Finals).

You can’t go into each season going “we can’t beat the best team so we should try.” Full strength it’s a tough matchup but you have to try to get through the playoffs and see what happens. I hope he stays healthy but it feels like a miracle that the alien hasn’t gotten more hurt so far in his career.

Teams like the Spurs and even OKC despite winning a championship have shown to be able to challenged by more veteran teams despite a talent disparity.

And Lauri Markkanen is not an answer for the Spurs either.

World doesn’t revolve around LA

It was. The revisionist history over the supposed “haul” the Jazz could have got for Lauri is crazy.

Moses Kuminga podz picks and a swap, not worth it at all

Kuminga and Moody doesnt sound bad, as they could be flipped to another team for more picks. forwards that can shoot and defend are always in demand.

carter would be so good on the warriors

It was Moody and Kuminga, not Podz. GS refused to put Podz in the deal.

Yeah people here are acting like the package was amazing and the Jazz are stupid but that was in the middle of tanking where I was willing to sell any player for younger future talent, and even I thought the offer wasn’t great.

An all star who’s never made the playoffs and never plays full seasons

Ya, and now he costs \(50 million a year and Yax is set to make \)8 million a year for the next 4 years. I’d argue that current Yax isn’t that far off peak Lauri already.

Who do you think Lauri Markkanen is? He’s a one dimensional tall shooter, no defense, can’t dribble and averages more turnovers than assists for his career .

I’d absolutely take Yaxel over him. Especially on a rookie contract vs Markkanen making $50 million

with the production theyre getting from Yax right now on a rookie scale contract, they would be objectively crazy to trade him straight up for Lauri making close to 50/yr over the next 3 years

Yeah, and Yax is also paid ¹⁄₅ of what Lauri makes. So Yax is significantly more valuable. He also plays lockdown defense.

Fakest all star since Jamal magloire

If things continue to play out like they have, Yaxel will be an all-star this year.

22/7/4 on 65% TS with decent defense on a top 4 seed is more than a fair amount of all-stars last year could say they brought to the table.

And Lauri has hundreds. Everyone should have seen enough to know he’s a fragile empty 20 ppg scorer who costs $50 million a year.

i feel like we should come back to this at the end of the season. yaxel already looks like the more complete all-around player and he’s still really raw. lauri is one of the more flawed all stars in the current game and can’t play a lick of defense. i think by the end of the season, it’ll be clearer what kind of player yaxel projects into when you add a couple more years of nba experience under his belt. he’s incredibly talented and doesn’t rly understand what’s going on on the court yet.

The story goes the new owners in 1979 didn’t think the team would last in SLC so they were like fuck it, just keep the name

Utah had sustained success for like 30 years before Ainge got to town

The problem is Lauri is 30 and they kept him through his prime just shutting him down. There was no reason not to trade him.

this shit is why i don’t flair up lol. i have zero problem admitting i’m a warriors fan when it’s relevant, but it seems so annoying to put thought into a comment only to have someone try to one up you by making an entirely unrelated jab based on the team you like.

Trey still has the same value. Herb should have already been traded but that’s kinda hindsight because no one really expected him to regress this much.

well hes talking about the jazz so

especially to the Lakers

Why?

It’s my hindsight i guess because I didn’t want to trade him at the time. I still would like to see them all play together healthy before shipping anyone out.

show me proof that loosing on purpose for 4 years works?

I’ll wait for you to share a specific example of where this worked

This criticism is never levied at the Spurs.