(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Jazz guard Collin Sexton (2) guards Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2), during NBA action between the Utah Jazz and the Thunder d Oklahoma City at Delta Center, Tuesday, February 6, 2024.
Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 119-107 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz writer Andy Larsen.
1. On reconstruction
How long did the Oklahoma City Thunder rebuild take?
It depends on how you count it, but between two and four seasons.
In the summer of 2019, they traded Paul George and Russell Westbrook for picks Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chris Paul. It turned out they were accidentally good in 2019-20, thanks to the play of these two players, so they traded Paul the following season. Then they competed in the lottery for two seasons, before reappearing last season in the play-in game and this year as the West’s No. 1 seed.
It went extremely well. Probably no team is more well-positioned for current and future success in the NBA than the Thunder.
So what decisions did they make to get here? Can we compare or contrast their approach to that of Jazz?
On the one hand, while they were surprisingly good immediately after their superstar trades, they embraced it for a full season before calling it quits — perhaps gaining valuable experience for players like Gilgeous-Alexander and Lu Sleeps.
Then they swapped out all the pieces that contributed to that run, except those that were under 22 years old. Chris Paul, yes, but also Dennis Schroder, Danilo Gallinari, Steven Adams against picks and coins. You couldn’t go a month without hearing a new “OKC trade X for a pick” tweet from Woj.
And as it turns out, they used their draft picks reasonably well. There are clearly some big hits – Holmgren, Jalen Williams – but also some mediocre picks: Darius Bazley, Theo Maledon, Aleksej Pokusevski, Tre Mann, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Josh Giddey, Ousmane Dieng.
I think what strikes me most is how committed they are to their path. They traded their old players for teenagers and picks. When they occasionally received extra senior salary in these deals, they also traded those veterans for picks. They were relentless.
Certainly, the Jazz traded away a lot of their veterans – Mike Conley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Simone Fontecchio and Kelly Olynyk. But even having these guys for the short time they did gave them dozens of wins, pushing them toward the middle. Then, the Jazz had difficulty finding buyers for Jordan Clarkson, Collin Sexton and John Collins. While Lauri Markkanen is great, he’s just older now than SGA was during the rebuild.
The Thunder sold out completely, while the Jazz held a sort of “open for business” sign on their door, even acquiring veterans at times. In the end, the backup sale approach worked very well, which is where the Jazz seem a little stuck.
Am I in favor of a Jazz clearance sale? I am not sure. But this has largely been a lost season from a directional standpoint, and in my opinion, another season in the middle would be a disaster. Something has to happen this offseason, in both directions.
2. On Talen Horton-Tucker
We called him the most overused cliché of all time: “The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. » But I don’t know what else to write about Talen Horton-Tucker at this point.
The Triple Team is back! But this time, as an email newsletter, delivered to your inbox after each game. To subscribe and read future iterations of Andy Larsen’s Three Points, enter your email address below:
