Jazz Were ‘Buyers or Sellers’ at Trade Deadline per GM Justin Zanik
Winning games hasn’t been easy for the Utah Jazz since the February 8th trade deadline. After Wednesday night's loss to the Chicago Bulls, the Jazz are 2-9, and the ship has sailed on a shot at postseason play.
Jazz fans are divided about whether selling at the deadline was the right call. Even in hindsight, we’ll never know the answer to that question.
That said, Jazz GM Justin Zanik is on the record, stating that Utah was open to being buyers if an opportunity presented itself prior to deadline day. Zanik made the claim when he joined The KSL Sports Zone on 97.5.
“We looked at the opportunity to be buyers or sellers because of the flexibility and if there was an opportunity during the deadline for us to add people to our core that were needle movers and fit our age timeline to move us forward, we would of absolutely done it. If you go back to what happened at the trade deadline and the player that were actually moved, I don’t feel like there was anyone there that we missed out on an opportunity that we should have gotten. Those opportunities to propel the team forward in a short timeline weren't there at the deadline.”
This is the second time Zanik has gone public on the topic in the last month. It does feel more like damage control, considering it’s the second straight season Utah’s front office has pulled the rug out from a fan base whose team was in the playoff conversation.
From this point of view, the frustration isn't from Utah not upgrading the roster at the deadline. Even if Utah upgraded and made the playoffs, they would likely have been bounced in the first round.
The frustrations stem from sacrificing the season and Ochai Agbani for a late first and second-round draft pick. We know that Kelly Olynyk and Simone Fontecchio were never in Utah’s long-term plans, so selling off the season would have been justified if the return was a real difference-maker.
However, Agbagi, for two players who will spend next season in the G-League, didn’t feel like was enough of a return to write off the year with an emotionally invested fan base and players who work hard in the offseason for an opportunity at post-season play. Remember, Lauri Markkanen and Collin Sexton have yet to make the playoffs.
The silver lining in Utah not playing meaningful late-season basketball is that rookies Taylor Hendricks and Brice Sensabaugh are getting valuable live reps that wouldn’t be here if Olynyk, Fontecchio, and Agbani were still in the fold. Although we're early in their development, the results thus far have been encouraging.
But we'll never know whether the extra reps will make a difference in the long term, and taking the foot off the gas midseason isn't suitable for the locker room culture or building trust with the fan base moving forward. What's transpired over the last month isn't helping a franchise still searching for an identity.
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