The 2025-26 NBA season is here! Over the next few weeks, we’re examining the biggest questions, best- and worst-case scenarios, and win projections for all 30 franchises — from the still-rebuilding teams to the true title contenders.
2024-25 finish
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Record: 17-65 (15th in the West, missed playoffs)
Offseason moves
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Additions: Ace Bailey, Walter Clayton Jr., John Tonje, Jusuf Nurkić, Kyle Anderson, Kevin Love, Georges Niang
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Subtractions: Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson, John Collins, Johnny Juzang, Jaden Springer
Will Lauri Markkanen be on the move this season? (Grant Thomas/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
The Big Question: Where do the Jazz want to go, how do they want to get there, and will any of these players still be on the roster when they arrive?
After the 2021-22 NBA season, the Jazz made dual dynamiting deals, ending what had been a successful-but-not-championship-level era in Utah basketball and heralding the start of a new one. And three years later … well, it’s not clear anything has actually started.
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The Jazz own the NBA’s fifth-worst record since those trades and finished with a league-low 17 wins last season. Unfortunately, the vicissitudes of a lottery-based draft system have kept them from reaping the maximum benefits of all that badness. Rather than landing an über-prospect like Victor Wembanyama or Cooper Flagg, the Jazz have compiled a surfeit of mid-to-late-lottery types who haven’t yet shown they’re capable of turning things around.
There is talent here, headlined by Lauri Markkanen. After struggling through back injuries and, shall we say, strategic absences last season, the sweet-shooting 7-foot wing looked to be fully back to All-Star level in a strong summer turn for Finland at EuroBasket:
In theory, pairing Markkanen with fourth-year center Walker Kessler — quietly one of the NBA’s top shot-blockers and screen-and-dive big men — should give the Jazz a frontline capable of propelling them to something approaching stability. Fun fact: The Jazz, who have been outscored by 4.9 points per 100 possessions over the past three seasons combined, actually have a positive point differential in the 2,573 minutes Markkanen and Kessler have shared the floor!
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Add in 2024 second-rounder Kyle Filipowski (who averaged just under 14 points and 8 rebounds in 25 minutes per game on .608 true shooting after the trade deadline before winning Summer League MVP), mystery-box 2023 first-rounder Taylor Hendricks (reportedly ready to go after missing nearly all of last season with a gruesome leg injury) and 6-foot-8 wing Bailey, a home run swing with the No. 5 pick in June’s 2025 NBA Draft, and Utah could have the makings of a fairly nasty frontcourt rotation.
In practice, though, the Jazz have continued to suffer from an inability to develop quality backcourt complements capable of efficiently generating NBA offense. Keyonte George has juice off the dribble, but shot under 40% from the field in each of his first two pro seasons and has seen his comportment come in for criticism. Last year, George lost his starting job to Isaiah Collier … who, for all his gifts as a facilitator, shot just 31.2% outside the restricted area last season.
Clayton Jr., the Most Outstanding Player of Florida’s 2025 national title run, brings the promise of higher-ceiling shooting as a rookie; as an undersized, offense-first guard, though, he also brings some of the same potential pitfalls as Collier and George. Cody Williams, the 6-7 swingman Utah took 10th overall in 2024, brings more size, length and theoretical versatility … but missed more than two-thirds of his field-goal attempts and nearly three-quarters of his 3-pointers as a rookie, looking miles away from consistently contributing.
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That level of uncertainty isn’t really what you’d prefer to see three years into a rebuild … which is why it’s interesting that Sarah Todd of the Deseret News reported in March the Jazz “do not view the 2024-25 season as the third year of a rebuild,” but rather “as part of the teardown” for a rebuild that hadn’t yet begun. It also seems notable that new president of basketball operations Austin Ainge said the Jazz wouldn’t prioritize losing games just to improve their draft position … and then promptly moved on from veterans Collins, Clarkson and Sexton without making any significant free-agent additions.
In a related story, the Jazz owe their 2026 first-round draft pick to (who else?) the Thunder, dating back to the 2022 trade that dumped Derrick Favors’ salary on Oklahoma City. The pick only conveys if it falls outside the top eight, though — a fate the Jazz can avoid by finishing with one of the four worst records in the league this season, at which point the pick obligation is extinguished, and Utah doesn’t owe OKC squat.
That’s a pretty good reason to, if not outright tank, then, um, “continue to prioritize the development of our young prospects, without worrying too much about wins and losses.” But how does that square with the commitment Utah made to Markkanen, now 28 years old, on the books for just under $196 million through 2029 and likely to be one of the most sought-after trade targets in the league? What does it mean for Kessler, who’s poised to hit restricted free agency next summer if he doesn’t reach an agreement on an extension before the season? And at what point might Will Hardy, now entering his fourth year on Utah’s bench, actually get a roster with a legitimate chance to compete? (Judging by that contract extension, it might be a while.)
Best-case scenario
Markkanen carries over his EuroBasket form long enough to remind a league desperate for difference-makers that there’s one available in Salt Lake City, and the Jazz command a king’s ransom for his services. The newcomer vets spend the season’s opening months showing the kids the ropes before heading off to sunnier climes come February, in exchange for whatever pick compensation Ainge can scrounge up.
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Bailey hits the ground running, looking like a no-back-injuries variant of Michael Porter Jr. — high-end tough shot-making, real juice as a finisher on the interior and in transition, complementary rebounding and rim protection — to establish himself as Utah’s premier bona fide building block. Several other members of the 22-and-under crew — including, ideally, at least one of the guards — seize the opportunity to join him, allowing the Jazz to hit mid-April with both a bad enough record to keep their 2026 first-round pick and legitimate reason to hope they’ve drawn meaningfully closer to a return to competitive basketball.
If everything falls apart
Markkanen stumbles, gets hurt or both, scuttling any ideas of turning him into a bounty of picks and/or higher-upside young talent. Bailey struggles to get shots off against bigger, stronger, more athletic defenders, effectively neutering his impact. The rising sophomores and third-year pros all underwhelm, leaving lingering questions about whether any of the prospects Utah has drafted of late can be part of the next competitive iteration of the Jazz.
And, to top it all off, outbreaks of rancid incompetence elsewhere in the NBA — looking at you, Bottom of the East — result in the Jazz finishing with the fifth- or sixth-worst record in the league rather than a bottom-four mark … and, thanks to a brutal bounce of the ping-pong balls on the night of the draft lottery, Utah hands a mid-to-late-lottery pick over to the defending champions in Oklahoma City.
2025-26 schedule
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Season opener: Oct. 22 vs. LA Clippers
While it’s not impossible to put together consecutive sub-19-win seasons — the Wizards just did it, the Pistons did it in 2022-23 and ’23-24, the Process Sixers did it a decade ago, etc. — it is pretty hard to be that bad in back-to-back years, even if you’re incentivized (say, by trying to keep a draft pick) not to try too hard to win.
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If the Jazz get mostly healthy seasons from Markkanen and Kessler (who combined to miss 59 games last year), if they get any progress from the likes of Williams and Collier in Year 2 (who graded out as two of the least valuable rotation players in the league as rookies) and if Bailey offers any spark, they’ll be … well, they’ll still probably be bad. But more like “win total in the low-to-mid-20s” bad.
More season previews
East: Atlanta Hawks • Boston Celtics • Brooklyn Nets • Charlotte Hornets • Chicago Bulls • Cleveland Cavaliers • Detroit Pistons • Indiana Pacers • Miami Heat • Milwaukee Bucks • New York Knicks • Orlando Magic • Philadelphia 76ers • Toronto Raptors • Washington Wizards
West: Dallas Mavericks • Denver Nuggets • Golden State Warriors • Houston Rockets • Los Angeles Clippers • Los Angeles Lakers • Memphis Grizzlies • Minnesota Timberwolves • New Orleans Pelicans • Oklahoma City Thunder • Phoenix Suns • Portland Trail Blazers • Sacramento Kings • San Antonio Spurs • Utah Jazz
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