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

January 14th, 2024 | by Steve Godfrey

Hardy’s Jazz are finding success after a dramatic turnaround. (Francisco Kjolseth, The Salt Lake Tribune)

It was a gray January day, with 2024 ringing in the cold air and early sunsets. For much of the week, the weather app was calling for dump loads of snow, on one afternoon you got a warning squall. Squall, you wondered, have I ever heard of that vocabulary word before?  When the snow finally came, you spend the day shoveling a few inches here and brushing off the driveway car there, and the mound surrounding the mailbox was beginning to disappear. There would be bills in that mailbox, probably some credit card spam, too, and you knew the mailmen resented your road because easy access hadn’t been cleared away yet. Nonetheless, you trudge home after a week of work — the grind never stops — as the real snowstorm finally hit, 8-12 inches of snow expected in your area in the next 48 hours. Does the snowblower still work? At least, you thought, if I have to wake up early to work on snow removal, at least back-to-back evenings with the Raptors on Friday night and the Lakers on Saturday night would be the way to end the day. 

And then, when they tip off, everything is right in the world. 

You may have noticed, that the Jazz are playing pretty good basketball. And you may recall, almost perfectly a month ago, they were not. And I whined about it. Life as a Jazz fan, I argued, is a life lived tortured. The guard rotation wasn’t working. Lauri Markkanen was out with some injury challenges. The defense was nonexistent. For a while there, they stunk like hot garbage. 

Yet, opposition must exist in all things. If the Jazz were never bad, could we ever enjoy the good? 

And for a month now, boy has it been good. Consider: 

  • After a blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on December 11, the Jazz were 7-16. 
  • After their big wins this weekend, the Jazz have gone 14-4 in their last 18. This run is tied for second-best in the league. Embedded in that, the team has won five straight – the longest active win streak in the league. 
  • For the first time since the first few games of the season, the Jazz are above .500. This is better than last year’s run, by a slim hair as the team went 20-21 in the first half of last season to 21-20 this year. 
  • The Jazz own the 12th best offense and complement it with the 10th best defense. And those numbers aren’t too shabby, but within the last few weeks, they become more attractive. Within the last nine games, when the team deployed a new starting lineup, they have the fifth-best defense and sixth-best offense. 
  • This one is my favorite: in 2024, the Jazz are exploding on offense. They average nearly 130 points per game (128.9),  they scored the most points in the Delta Center (148, with overtime), and then they scored the most points in the Delta Center during regulation (145). 
  • Oh, and Jordan Clarkson broke the triple-double curse, adding the first to the record books since Carlos Boozer in 2008. 

What’s happened? 

That new starting lineup is a good place to start. With Kris Dunn at point guard, Collin Sexton has been excelling as an aggressive combo guard. Dunn is a perfect floor general as he sets up the offense, pushes the pace, and gets everyone involved. On top of that, he is an excellent on-ball defender. Sexton is on a tear in his new position, as is Clarkson who moved to the bench to support this guard rotation. In the starting frontcourt, Simone Fontecchio may not be a household name yet, but he is well on his way to becoming a Royce O’Neale, Joe Ingles Jazz development story of a guy who plays hard on defense and knocks down deep shots. Then, you have Markkanen who is playing at his familiar all-star level, and then John Collins, instead of Walker Kessler, as the center to unlock this versatile, high-scoring offense. 

The bench mob is certainly another big adjustment that is working, with Clarkson and Kessler shredding second units, alongside Ochai Agbaji and Kelly Olynyk who are perfect role players to do whatever job is needed at the moment. Rolling nine deep, sometimes ten, the Jazz have a plethora of lineup combinations for whatever situations winning needs.

Best of all, each is happy for the other in whatever role is given and taken for the betterment of the team. It’s been a team-first mentality, team-first effort, and a lot of team-focused coaching, too.  If you’ve paid attention, the Jazz have galvanized collectively to win with defense, or great game plans, or hot shooting, or led by this player, or that player, or just in-game adjustments. Jazz coach Will Hardy told Ryan Miller of KSL, “I’m just really happy with how the team is approaching these games. I know it sounds corny, but that’s a team in that locker room.”

Ultimately, mad respect needs to go to all players for enduring the pain of blowout losses and cold Decembers to keep grinding away at the process and buying into what Hardy was preaching. In a different Miller article,  Hardy commented on this by saying, “What you’re seeing is the culmination of a lot of work on (those little) things.” He added, “You try things early in the season, you talk about them, you practice them, but you’re not quite there yet. I think what we’re seeing now is it’s all starting to make a little bit more sense.” 

Losing streaks makes you question things. As a fan, we know this. Should the Jazz blow it up? Is this player worth it anymore? Let’s tank. What about that protected pick? I’m antsy and I’m sad and I’m depressed and I just want a few things to go right, but now I question everything and the universe is falling and I must get on Twitter to let it known to the world that the Jazz suck. Right?

Hardy gets it. Ben Anderson of KSL published another piece on this in-season turnaround where Hardy gets real with his similar emotions. “I’m a human being and there’s definitely days of doubt and there’s moments where you’re driving home going like, is this actually going to work?” 

Yet, “When everything was at its quietest and you got to really sit down and think about it – like this is what you believe,” Hardy said. “Don’t let the emotion of the moment take over and make you cut bait on something that you do truly think is going to be the key to where (you) want to go.” 

“The way that they’ve really banded together lately is fun,” he said.

And right now, where I want to go is anywhere with alley-oops to Sexton. That’s fun. 

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