\u201cWhat the Utah Jazz are doing is messing around with the integrity of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bobby Marks took to national television<\/a> to reiterate the discourse that has been poisoning recent NBA discussion \u2014 the Utah Jazz are dismantling the sanctity of competition. They\u2019re shredding the fabric of competition; defiling the tapestry of professional basketball. How are they doing this? By losing basketball games<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Utah Jazz have been at the forefront of NBA debate for the past few months, taking digital body blows from outraged observers and tanking scrutinizers.<\/p>\n Assuming you haven\u2019t kept a tight watch on the bottom of the NBA standings, you\u2019d understandably assume that a team sparking so much controversy would be far and away the ugliest example of their strategy. Surely, considering the growing wave of scrutiny, the Utah Jazz must have the worst record in the league, right?<\/p>\n Nope.<\/p>\n Bottom three?<\/p>\n Wrong again.<\/p>\n Utah sits with a 17-37 record, which is currently sixth-worst in the NBA and 5.5 games ahead of the last-place Kings. So what\u2019s the rub?<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n I have a theory, but let me warn you that I\u2019m about to get biblical.<\/p>\n On the Day of Atonement, the ancient Israelites would ritualistically place the burden of their nation\u2019s sin upon a goat. This animal\u2019s role removed all guilt of wrongdoing from its community as it carried the nation\u2019s burden into the wilderness. Distancing themselves from all of their shortcomings and wrongdoings<\/p>\n The Utah Jazz are not the villains of the NBA; they\u2019re the scapegoats. The poster boy for the tankathon. They\u2019re the tanking franchise bearing the weight of the basketball world\u2019s sins.<\/p>\n The Utah Jazz are not the villains of the NBA; they\u2019re the scapegoats.<\/p>\n The fans paid for tickets to watch the Utah Jazz, and that is exactly what they got: Lauri Markkanen, Keyonte George, Ace Bailey, and the newly-acquired Jaren Jackson Jr each appeared in this game to Utah\u2019s advantage, pushing the visiting Jazz ahead by as many as 17 points before the game turned to the fourth quarter and those starters reclined on the bench. Fingers laced behind their heads, legs outstretched with ankles crossed, Utah\u2019s stars would not re-enter the game even as the Magic whittled their lead down to single-digits, then one possession, until eventually claiming the lead and victory away from the tanking Jazz.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Coach Will Hardy employed a similar strategy in the next game, pulling his starters in the fourth quarter and watching as the second unit beat Miami outright, thanks in part to a clutch three-pointer courtesy of third-year player and former first-round pick, Brice Sensabaugh.<\/p>\n Will Hardy has every right to employ the lineups of his choice \u2014 that\u2019s what it means to be a head coach \u2014 and the NBA won\u2019t punish him or the Jazz for the players he opted to play in crunch time. The moment Adam Silver steps in to declare who can and cannot play in the fourth quarter of a basketball game, that is when the integrity of competition will be compromised, not when a subpar team gives playing time to its bench.<\/p>\n Possibly the loudest whistle-blowers regarding Utah\u2019s sins are the Dallas Mavericks. Yes, that\u2019s right, the very same team that traded away Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis in a \u2018win-now\u2019 move to push themselves closer to championship contention. That team was rewarded with a shocking jump to the number-one pick and Cooper Flagg. Just one year prior, the Mavs were hit with a $750,000 fine for tanking, the largest such fine in league history.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Yet it\u2019s Dallas, the team with the seventh-worst record, just behind the Utah Jazz, who choose to virtue signal, casting the finger of shame toward the unethical Utah Jazz all across social media. They started the movement, and the NBA community is running with it.<\/p>\n \u2018Ethical tanking\u2019 is a myth. It\u2019s baffling to suggest that one team\u2019s intentional losing is commendable while another\u2019s is vile. It\u2019s hypocrisy. It\u2019s selective outrage. Yet this perspective has leaked into the mainstream, as evidenced by Mark\u2019s ESPN spot.<\/p>\n \u2018Ethical tanking\u2019 is a myth.<\/p>\n Where is the outcry toward Washington, a team resting its two All-Star acquisitions, as Davis was announced out for the season<\/a>, and Young still awaits his debut? Where is the hatred for Sacramento as they sit their core on the way to a league-worst standing? The Indiana Pacers, last year\u2019s NBA Finals runners-up who are clinging to a top-four protected pick, announced that their newest center, Ivica Zubac, won\u2019t be making his debut any time soon.<\/p>\n But the Utah Jazz are ridiculed for running their best players for three quarters and cratering in the fourth? Those outraged at the Jazz\u2019s tanking methods are misguided. Tanking is tanking is tanking. Regardless of execution, plenty more NBA teams are losing deliberately \u2014 they just have far less press coverage<\/a>.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Internet sleuths have their magnifying glass hovering directly over the Jazz; there\u2019s no escaping their dutiful watch now. But the Jazz didn\u2019t invent tanking, nor are they the only one of the NBA\u2019s 30 teams to employ tanking strategies this season or any of the last decade-plus since Philadelphia installed \u201cThe Process\u201d.<\/p>\n The system is flawed, and smart teams (especially those who historically struggle to lure in top free agents) are taking advantage. Don\u2019t hate the player, hate the game, because the Utah Jazz are just one cog in the tanking machine.<\/p>\n So what can we do about tanking?<\/p>\n Seemingly, everyone has an idea about how to solve tanking in the NBA. Ideas span from flattening draft odds, employing lottery bans for teams that received a top pick, and even eliminating the lottery altogether, opting for a 30-team rotation that shifts one spot every season.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n I won\u2019t pretend to know the solution for the NBA\u2019s tanking problem \u2014 and yes, it is a problem that teams don\u2019t want to win \u2014 but I\u2019d suggest that all proposals are taken to Occam\u2019s Razor. In other words, the best solution is often the simplest solution. I don\u2019t subscribe to the idea that small-market teams should be barred from building through the draft in subsequent years. A one-and-done type of draft would be both complicated and unusual.<\/p>\n Basketball is a simple game at its core; complication isn\u2019t the cure for its shortcomings.<\/p>\n Flattening the odds accomplished its original purpose: being detrimental to the worst records in the league and minimizing the reward for hunting that bottom spot in the standings. Since flattening lottery odds, the number-one odds have never been actualized into the number one pick.<\/p>\n Few understand this better than Utah (a franchise that has never had the pleasure of drafting first overall), which finished with the top lottery odds and a 52.1% chance of landing in the top four before sliding to five and picking up Rutgers\u2019 Ace Bailey with their pick. Bailey is the symbol of Utah\u2019s punishment for playing the game the \u2018right way\u2019 in 2025. He\u2019s evidence that being the very worst guarantees nothing in the draft lottery, and the physical manifestation of his team\u2019s shortcomings.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The idea behind dissuading tanking was sound, but more teams than ever are still hunting lottery odds. Utah is no exception, nor are they a red stain on the flawless reputation of the NBA. There are at least seven Utah Jazz equivalents in 2025-26, and it\u2019s time we stop singling out the Jazz for their part in the movement.<\/p>\n Calvin Barrett<\/a>\u00a0is a writer, editor, and prolific Mario Kart racer located in Tokyo, Japan. He has covered the\u00a0NBA<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0College Sports<\/a>\u00a0since 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat the Utah Jazz are doing is messing around with the integrity of the game.\u201d Bobby Marks took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3785],"tags":[224,495,7,10511,225,149,126,532,496,423,955,976,368,295,6,1220,76,678,986,422,427,3972],"class_list":{"0":"post-596757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-jazz","8":"tag-ace-bailey","9":"tag-anthony-davis","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-brice-sensabaugh","12":"tag-cooper-flagg","13":"tag-dallas-mavericks","14":"tag-indiana-pacers","15":"tag-ivica-zubac","16":"tag-jaren-jackson-jr","17":"tag-jazz","18":"tag-keyonte-george","19":"tag-lauri-markkanen","20":"tag-luka-doncic","21":"tag-miami","22":"tag-nba","23":"tag-nba-finals","24":"tag-orlando-magic","25":"tag-philadelphia","26":"tag-sacramento","27":"tag-utah","28":"tag-utah-jazz","29":"tag-utahjazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116052331465883419","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596757","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=596757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}