Blazers at Jazz Preview – Blazer’s Edge

The Portland Trail Blazers travel one more time to Salt Lake City for their final road game of the season. The Blazers will take on the Utah Jazz on Wednesday at 6pm Pacific. Portland has won three out of the last four, most recently defeating the San Antonio Spurs 120-109 on Sunday.

The Utah Jazz have had a wretched season, putting them in the running for the worst record this season in the NBA. Talk in Utah these days is more about ping pong balls and dreams of players not yet on the team than anything actually happening on the court. To demonstrate why, Utah has lost nine in a row and 19 out of the last 20. On Sunday the Jazz lost a laughably high scoring game to the Atlanta Hawks, 147-134.

Portland Trail Blazers (35-44) at Utah Jazz (16-63) – Wed. Apr. 9 – 6:00pm Pacific

How to watch via antenna or cable: See your options on the Rip City Television Network

How to watch via streaming: BlazerVision in Oregon and Washington; League Pass everywhere else

Trail Blazers injuries: Deandre Ayton, Scoot Henderson, Bryce McGowens, Jerami Grant, Robert Williams III (out), Anfernee Simons, Deni Avdija, Duop Reath (questionable)

Jazz injuries: Taylor Hendricks, Elijah Harkless, Jordan Clarkson, Cody Williams, Lauri Markkanen, John Collins, Walker Kessler, KJ Martin (out)

SBNation Affiliate: SLC Dunk

Blazer’s Edge Reader Questions

Corwin71:

What is the existential reason for this game to exist?

“The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn’t the search for meaning; it’s just to keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you’ll be dead.” – Mr. Peanutbutter in BoJack Horseman

FlyingOutlaw:

Would a starting lineup of Banton, Rupert, Minaya, Murray and Walker be tank-y enough to beat a starting lineup of Juzang, Sensabaugh, Filipowski, Collier and Sexton?

For whatever it’s worth I think Utah’s lineup as stated above is better. I just have no idea how things will actually play out on Wednesday. Will either team be playing to win? How many players on both teams have checked out? Does Billups know what his future looks like? All of these things might contribute to whether we see the Blazers’ worst-case yet positionally plausible lineup or not. Of course generally speaking, the lower down the depth chart you go the more effort you are likely to see, so putting the least amount of experience on the court doesn’t always “pay off” with a loss. With Utah still having something left to not play for I can’t imagine the Blazers will out-tank the Jazz. DraftKings agrees, with Portland currently -205 as I write this.

From GrantToGrant2:

As far as I know Michael Malone, unlike Danny Ainge, doesn’t have any particular connection to Utah. Without such a connection I can’t really see Utah getting rid of Will Hardy for Malone with another two seasons left on Hardy’s contract. It could happen though. Danny Ainge hasn’t given Hardy much to work with, but the Jazz have been terrible without a ton of reassuring improvement from many of their youngsters. If Ainge is feeling a bit of heat maybe he’ll decide to pull the trigger and can Hardy. Portland doesn’t currently have a head coach under contract for next season, but that doesn’t mean Chauncey Billups is definitely on the way out. I’d like to think that if both jobs are open the Portland job is more attractive, but personalities can play a huge role. Would Malone get along with newly-extended Joe Cronin? Who else might be in the hunt for Malone’s services? Sorry, but I have more questions than answers.

What to Watch For

Evan Turner??? Evan Turner! I was honestly struggling to come up with a compelling reason to watch this one, but the Blazers came to the rescue. Evan Turner will be substituting for Lamar Hurd, joining Kevin Calabro on the Blazers’ broadcast Wednesday. It might be entertaining and good, it might be entertaining and a train wreck, but I just can’t imagine that it won’t be entertaining.

What Others Are Saying

Ryan Smith, owner of the Jazz and the Utah Hockey Club, is co-founder of a new venture. Jacob Feldman of Sportico reports on Halo Experience Co (HXCO).

HXCO is not focused on strictly sports tech companies—as past endeavors have—but rather any company that could use professional sports or live entertainment as a source of clients or attention. That includes a tech company that started by selling to sports organizations but is looking to branch into healthcare or education. It could also include a business software startup that might benefit from the exposure and legitimacy sports or entertainment partnerships provide. HXCO doesn’t plan to invest in teams themselves.

“A lot of people are doing sports funds; that’s not what this is,” Smith said. “We’re bringing tech into sports.”

An exhaustive look at top prospect Dylan Harper from draymottishaw of SLC Dunk.

I do not want to take away from how great Dylan Harper *can be* in the league, he is expected to be freaking awesome. I believe that he will be great, and I am super excited to watch him play once he enters the league. He has the skills, IQ, size, and game processing speed that makes a guard great. I think that he definitely has multi-time all-star potential and can score over 20ppg in the NBA as soon as his rookie year, I do.

However, my question would be how impactful he can be when it comes to winning basketball games? I am riding with the analytics and historical data and am willing to be wrong when it comes to drafting Dylan Harper. Dylan Harper is the projected No. 2 pick in the NBA Draft, and if the Jazz were to land the 2nd pick, I would trade down to 3 or 4 or maybe just take either of the other 2 (VJ or Ace) with the second pick — maybe this is why I will never become a General Manager, lol.

Pat Kinahan for KSL.com looks at how the three players Utah drafted in 2024 have fared. For Cody Williams, not so well.

Playing second fiddle to two other NBA draft picks on Colorado’s roster, he showed enough in 24 college games to draw plenty of interest from NBA scouts. But at 6-foot-7 and a mere 190 pounds, Williams was always going to be a project destined to need several seasons.

Even still, with low expectations, Williams failed to come close to meeting them. To put it mildly, it’s hard to find many positives in his first season.