Inside the NBA’s 2025-26 Gamble: Which Teams Will Rise to Glory or Crash and Burn?
— Read Dan Devine’s full preview
Utah Jazz
Best-case scenario: Lauri 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 Danny Ainge can scrounge up.
Ace 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.


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