{"id":590702,"date":"2026-02-08T15:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T15:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/590702\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T15:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T15:24:15","slug":"jazz-execute-master-tanking-plan-with-lauri-markkanen-jaren-jackson-jr-decisions-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/590702\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz execute master tanking plan with Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr. decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jazz execute master tanking plan with Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr. decisions<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Utah Jazz<\/a> held a seven-point lead at the end of the third quarter on Saturday night against the Orlando Magic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Lauri Markkanen already had 27 points. New guy Jaren Jackson Jr. had 22 points. And neither played in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

Mission accomplished in the end: Magic 120, Jazz 117.<\/p>\n

Utah proved the big guys can play well together. And then the Jazz still lost to enhance their draft positioning.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0These highlight of 12-year old LeBron James are spectacular<\/a><\/p>\n

That wasn’t even the cherry on top of the tanking plan, either.<\/p>\n

Nope. With the Jazz down three and seven seconds left, Utah didn’t use its last timeout to set up a play and advance the ball to halfcourt.<\/p>\n

Instead, Isaiah Collier got to mount his attack from full court and missed the potential tying 3.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0This NBA Dunk Contest field is one of the worst ever<\/a><\/p>\n

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Utah falls to 16-37 with the loss.<\/p>\n

The Jazz traded for Jackson at the deadline because they saw an opportunity to add a star. They didn’t do it to win more games this season, though.<\/p>\n

Instead, they want to start being a contender next year. This campaign was too far gone, and they’d still like a good draft pick in a stacked draft class.<\/p>\n

Then they’ll add whoever that rookie is to a rotation that now includes two immensely impressive scoring big men in Markkanen and Jackson.<\/p>\n

The duo may sit out a lot of fourth quarters the rest of the way. But next season, they’ll be a problem for opposing teams, for sure.<\/p>\n

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More NBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jazz execute master tanking plan with Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr. decisions originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3785],"tags":[7,957,6684,423,976,185,79271,6,76,5592,422,427,3972],"class_list":{"0":"post-590702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-jazz","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-isaiah-collier","10":"tag-jaren-jackson","11":"tag-jazz","12":"tag-lauri-markkanen","13":"tag-lebron-james","14":"tag-mission-accomplished","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-orlando-magic","17":"tag-the-jazz","18":"tag-utah","19":"tag-utah-jazz","20":"tag-utahjazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116035706083641508","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}