Hardy Talks of “Pain” in the Process; I Can Relate

Will Hardy has been vocal about the pain associated with rebuilding. (Francisco Kjolseth, The Salt Lake Tribune)

It was a grey, soggy day in December, with Christmas to-dos and awkward family parties on your mind as you slushed around on a long, dark day. Perhaps you just spent the 8-hour workday grinding on papers or spreadsheets or hammers and nails, exhausted by daily demands and the mental strain of just another hump day. You come home, and your partner is gone, so it’s leftover Costco lasagna with some microwavable peas. The kids, obviously, love this meal and dinnertime goes flawlessly as you can imagine: no backbiting, no whining, no forced persuasions, no threats. In fact, so flawlessly there are no mushed peas on the kitchen floor or heaps of dishes to load. Finally, it’s 6:30 pm — time for your regular escape from reality as the Jazz are about to tip off against the Mavs in Texas. All the battles of the day will evaporate as you kick off the shoes, put your feet up on the couch, and enjoy a good game of basketball with your favorite team. 

And then it tips off. 

The Jazz, you may know, are starless, while the Mavs’ duo of superstars seemingly can’t miss during the first few minutes of the game. Luka Doncic starts 4-4 from three and Kyrie Irving gets circus shot after circus shot to drop. Quickly, the Jazz are down double digits. By halftime, Doncic has a triple-double. The Jazz ultimately suffer their worst margin of defeat (tied) since the team played in New Orleans, 147-97. “That was an absolutely horrendous performance from start to finish,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said to sum up the 50-point loss. “That was a masterpiece of dogshit.”

Your mood is worse than when it started. What happened? 

Hardy has a knack for finding words and quotes to describe the disappointing efforts by his struggling Jazz team. Their defense stinks. Turning the ball over stinks. Their depth stinks. Life without Lauri Markkanen (still out with hamstring issues) stinks. Point guard shooting outcomes stink. After 23 games, the Jazz are 7-16 with pairs of wins against the bad Grizzlies and the bad Blazers and not much else. Instead of conversations about the up-and-coming young teams, teams fighting for a play-in spot, surprises of the season, or the over on the Jazz’s predicted 38-win probability, the Jazz are clumped together with teams like the Spurs, Wizards, and Pistons, only feeling slightly better than these peers who can’t buy a win to save their life. 

Perhaps a new week will lead to a fresh start. Jordan Clarkson is back in the lineup, perhaps he will catch flame and bring some offense to life. After an extended break due to the In-Season Tournament, perhaps the Jazz have the legs and guts to string together a pre-Christmas miracle and decorate the tree with some wins. With high hopes, you slog through another manic or mundane Monday, then find yourself again flipping on the television for another early tip, this time at 6:00 p.m. in Oklahoma City.

Only to watch a loss. Again. 

Within minutes, the Jazz miss their first six buckets as the Thunder burst to a quick 8-0 lead. By the end of 12, the Jazz are down 34-20, with that 14-point margin staying true at the end of the first half with a score of 66-52. That’s not terrible, you think, but as soon as the third quarter starts you regret all the hope you had as the Thunder outscore the Jazz 45-23 in that third stanza to bring the third quarter score to 111-75. Wave the towel, put in the reserves, lock it up for the night. 

The Jazz made the final score look better, a 134-120 margin, behind a garbage-time flurry by Keyonte George, who exploded for 30 points on 10/17 shooting including five deep bombs, not to mention seven dimes, too. Those deep cuts on the bench fought and clawed to flip the script by outscoring OKC 45-23 in the fourth. Luka Samanic, as one name to stand out, played 17 minutes to compile 14 points, seven rebounds, and an assist, while earning a whopping +22 differential. 

With any team and any sport, there are hills of excitement, fun and wins, but also valleys of losses and struggles. Sometimes those losses are in the name of development, a scheduled loss because of the calendar, or a moral-victory loss where the team plays hearts out even if they came up empty. You can swallow those Ls, but if they fall into a different category – being outplayed and outhustled, not having talent, consecutive losses – frustration builds as a fanbase. 

Want an emotional roller coaster? Read that paragraph again to create the setting after that night in Dallas versus the night the Jazz just had in OKC. Where do Jazz fans currently reside? Hopeful and hopeless, everywhere and nowhere.  

Making it worse, all around the NBA circle, there are fun and awesome stories of teams on the rise. Last weekend, the fast-rising Indiana Pacers played so fast, so fun in taking down the Boston Celtics for a spot in the In-Season Tournament semifinals. Their star, Tyrese Haliburton, is in the early season MVP conversation and came roaring after halftime to score or assist on 24 of the Pacers’ first 27 points. To ice the game, he led a 9-0 run with 90 seconds left to send the Pacers to Las Vegas. Similar recaps could be written in favor of the Bucks’ dominance, the Lakers’ tournament excellence, and the rise of the New Orleans Pelicans with Brandon Ingram playing lights out. It’s these four teams that went to Sin City to vie for inaugural in-season tournament glory, which has added excitement to this NBA season.

Elsewhere, Rudy Gobert is beasting as he leads Minnesota to the best record in the Western Conference. Gobert has averaged 18.5 points, 15.5 rebounds, and 3 blocks on 71% field goal percentage and a +55 on the floor in the last two-ish weeks, while becoming the favorite for Defensive Player of the Year (just like old times!) and online chatter to circle back on the narrative that the Wolves got fleeced in the deal with Utah. Or, what about Joe Ingles and the Grandchildren, the nickname for the surging Orlando Magic who sit in third in the Eastern Conference? Even the Houston Rockets, after three painful years, are fun and interesting. 

So what what can be done as a fan?  Turn it off? Pick a new team? Wait a year? Ultimately, that is the question that I am stuck flip-flopping with and I haven’t come to a certain conclusion quite yet. Luckily, Dan Clayton’s weekly Salt City Seven column this week went right at that question, appropriately titled, “How to Enjoy Following a Non-Competitive Team.” In it, Clayton writes, “Instead of living and dying by outcomes, it can be more enjoyable to watch with a sort of intellectual curiosity.” Doing so, he advises, could revolve around watching players develop or watching the team’s identity take shape. 

Hardy is similarly focused on the long term. “Our fans should want to win every game, like, that’s totally normal and healthy,” he said to reporters last week, “We understand we have one of the smartest fan bases in the NBA in terms of having perspective and understanding where we are in this process… And with that comes some pain. With that comes some hard moments and some tough lessons, and some crashing the car a little bit to learn how to win at a high level.”

The Jazz were supposed to have the growing pains last year, after they shipped their starting lineup out across the seven seas. Without superstars Donovan Mitchell and Gobert, along with veterans Mike Conley, Bojan Bogdanovic and Royce O’Neale, fans were expecting pain and losses. Instead, the Jazz surprised some folks, won more games than predicted, and in so doing raised expectations about year two being a solid step in the right direction. Instead, this has been the season filled with growing pains. As someone who came into the year with expectations, the setbacks are confusing. It’s also magnified when it’s a 50-point loss with very little to glean as a positive takeaway. 

If the Jazz can hit some benchmarks and grow, a keyword Hardy has used over and over this year, then I might be able to live with it. “If we go into a game and we compete with maximum effort and we play with as much physicality as we can, and we try to play as a team offensively, and the other team makes more shots than we do, I can sleep at night,” Hardy said. “You guys know me — I’m extremely competitive, I hate to lose; but losing that way, to me, is as acceptable as it can get.”

“Our ultimate goal in Utah is to win a championship, and building the foundation, and building the habits, and building the core tenets of our program, what we want to represent, takes a lot of work and takes a lot of focus,” Hardy said. “And that doesn’t mean that there won’t be ugly games and growing pains.” 

Fans should be part of those growing pains, too. 

Where do the Jazz go from here, you wonder. On Twitter, angst abounds as you play “Would You Rather” with John Keefer.  Are the growing pains worth it? Will I be watching the next game? I’m sure I will. Will I be happy about it? Probably not. If a life turned Jazz is a life turned torture, then I think we might be stuck in this rut for a while longer. There is a difference between being a fan with your heart and a fan with using your head. Can I be a rational fan, have perspective, and endure the pain, as Hardy suggests? Sure. But my heart doesn’t want to right now.

However, if there’s any solace, Utah did win a game in November, unlike Detroit who went a full calendar month without a win. After another one of their own losses Monday night, their streak is at 20 straight games without a dub. So it could be worse: Utah hasn’t bottomed out to that degree.