The Utah Jazz started the season 7-16, now they’re a 500 team… 20 wins and 20 loses. They’ve elevated themselves from a bottom-5 team to play-in position. Such a move is unprecedented in the league this season.
Sounds like a great story, doesn’t it? One that people might want to know more about, might find interesting. NBA fans might want to find out why this is happening.
The Jazz’ unlikely turn around, which includes recent victories over the giants of the league like the Sixers, the Bucks, and the Nuggets, is surely the type of story that would pop-up on the headlines and front-page articles of the major NBA news outlets.
But it’s not. There’s nothing there.
I took a look yesterday to see what the national rags were saying about the lowly Utah team coming to life. I hit the ESPN link, moved over to the NBA menu, and clicked “News”. The lead ESPN story was on the Clippers’ return to the title race… okay, makes sense. I moved right to the “Top Headlines” block—nothing about the Jazz in that list. I learned instead about a LaMelo Ball tattoo, how player rest doesn’t limit injury, who was leading in the All-Star vote (certainly no Jazz player)… I was even offered a look at a 2025 NBA mock draft. Those were the Top Headlines.
That was fine I thought… still plenty of opportunity to find some well-written insight into the Jazz’ resurrection—the center panel of the ESPN webpage goes on through eternity after all. But for a long time, much scrolling, many pages, there was nothing about the Jazz, nada. The Celtics, yes. Why the Lakers are so bad, yes. The Hawks, the Warrior, even the Hornets were there.
Finally, six, seven, eight pages down maybe… there it was… a Utah Jazz blurb— “Utah Jazz Fans Erupt After Winning Free Chicken”.
The folks at ESPN are not thoughtless. They are certainly not unaware of the goings on in the NBA. What they are very aware of… extremely aware of, and mostly aware of is what people go to their web pages to see and what they click on. They are aware of that, and they provide information based on that awareness, because that’s how they make money. It’s the same for the other big boxes, NBA.com, CBS… I did all the same clicking and scrolling on those pages.
But Jazz fans know all this. They know that Utah is an obscurity within the NBA… within the nation for that matter. “You go play in Utah” (thanks Derek) lives on through time even as Utah has grown and changed, and its capital, where the Jazz live and play, has evolved into somewhat of a progressive oasis within the state. Such omissions are still expected by the seasoned and jaded Utah jazz fan. My single-day investigation is just another small, instantaneous indication of where the State and the team fit in the NBA universe. Utah and the Jazz are still uninteresting to much of the rest of the country or, at least, less interesting than many other teams and happenings in the league.
The story was a bit different when the team had Donovan Mitchell. He was very good and very interesting. But part of the interest in D-Mitch became where he would play next. He really didn’t want to be in Utah after a while. Many stars would rather not if they didn’t have to… and sometimes they say such to people with pens and microphones when asked. Utah is uninteresting to them. Utah is small. Utah is different, but not in a shiny way. The Jazz are not a team that people click on… unless you are from Utah, and there’s not that many of you… relatively speaking.
Un-newsworthy, un-clickable… these are expressions of the situation that Utah and other small, different places find themselves in while making their way in the league. Most big-name players want to be in clickable places. And teams need these types of players to win.
I said most players. There are some who don’t care as much. And that is why the Jazz should hold onto stars like Lauri Markkanen.
Okay, whew. Sorry. You thought this article was about lack of respect for the Jazz in the national media, put out there by me to feed into your already-established bias on the same. Now I’m talking about player retention. I apologize for the apparent switch-a-roo, but it is all connected.
The thing that makes Markkanen different, and that he shares with other players that feel similarly about place and fame, is that he is not from the United States. International players care less about the U.S. clicks. Heck, some even dislike fame (like The Joker) and wish just to be normal people… maybe in a place like Denver, or Milwaukee, or Utah.
If you are confused, then think about big name international players. Pick two or three that come to mind. Are they clamoring to leave their teams for New York, Miami, LA? Are they busy colluding toward another super team in a warm and wonderful place? Not so much. They care less about these things because this is not their home. They care for their home, as is natural, and less about shiny places and shiny things that have nothing to do with their home country.
Thus, the Jazz must Keep Markkanen… multiple first-round draft picks be damned. He’s good. And he’ll probably stay, if you ask him, for wherever this rebuild takes the Jazz. Jazz management must be clever enough to find more like him. Maybe not just internationals, but folks who might become invested in the team in a way that the shiny people don’t
Until then… keep reading Sara Todd and Andy Larsen and the others for the Jazz poop. And take comfort in the fact that the rest of the country, the mighty clicking nation, will at least know that those Utah folk sure do love their free chicken.