Don’t take the Utah Jazz from us yet

We hold The Right Way of building a franchise in high esteem. Draft superstars like the Thunder did! Develop your players like the Spurs always do! Leverage success into years and years of success like the Warriors are doing! After a long time of working upwards, the Jazz finally cracked the playoffs and shook the Western Conference out of stasis. In a very literal show of symbolism, their come-up in the first round might end up being the final nail in the coffin that undoes one of the West’s mainstays and our collective sworn enemies, the Chris Paul and Blake Griffin-era Clippers.

It took seven years in the NBA for Gordon Hayward to get here, but finally, he’s here. He was an All-Star for the first time in his career at age 26, and more importantly for the Jazz, he’s cemented himself as one of the top 20-something players in the league, the kind of which that can carry a team to the playoffs and help them to continue growing. Though he didn’t have the one skill that could blow people away or capture the imagination, he kept working at the little things and everything. His footwork improved. He added strength. He learned how to blow-dry properly (hot first, cool after).

In the time it took Hayward to become a viable No. 1 option, the Jazz played all of their cards right. They drafted well, developed their players well and nailed all of the moves on the fringes to lay the foundation for success. Rudy Gobert, selected with the 27th pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, was groomed into the upper-most echelon of defenders, right there with Kawhi Leonard and Draymond Green — and after this season, a legitimate offensive threat as well. To fill various positional and experience-related gaps, the Jazz added George Hill, Boris Diaw and Joe Johnson last summer — and as much as we’re beholden to potential (happily, damnit), they don’t make the playoffs without that extra dose of Already Good. Still waiting in the wings are Rodney Hood, Dante Exum and Trey Lyles.

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So congratulations to the Jazz! Potential, fulfilled. Hope is an intimate thing, but when you can check your growth against 29 other times and come out looking real, now you stand for the future. This season’s win total of 51 feels like a baseline for what this group of players could accomplish down the road, especially given the injuries that rocked Derrick Favors, Hill and Hood.

The future should be bright, after working so hard towards that end.  It’s just reaaally unfortunate that things came together in the year that Hayward’s contract expires.

Everything could be settled on Thursday, when the All-NBA teams are announced. If Hayward makes the cut, then he qualifies for a higher maximum salary from the Jazz as a “veteran designated player” under the new CBA — in excess of $200 million over five years. He’d have to opt in for next season at $16.7 million to meet a criteria for years of NBA service before he can sign the extension, but you’d think all of that money probably makes the overarching free agency decision easier.

Hayward figures as an outside shot to make an All-NBA team, if just barely, and what happens with him probably has a trickle-down effect on Hill’s free agent decision. If both leave, it’s doom. People don’t really know about Hill. They kind of do — great defender, shoots 3s, easy fit in Utah’s dynamic offense — except by that definition, we might as well just call him a role player or a game manager. (Uselessly vague terms, but you already know about the negative connotations at work.) Nobody thinks of ‘the George Hill type’ as the guy who averages 12.4 shots per game, second only to Hayward on the Jazz. Even within their equal opportunity offense, the reliance on Hill’s shot creation is telling. Nobody’s trying to go back to the days of Raul Neto and Trey Burke.

There should be a space to worry about the upcoming summer’s decisions later and celebrate a successful season now, but the charm of this Jazz team hinges on what’s still to follow. Their arc is incomplete; a second round sweep by the Warriors isn’t what this meticulous team-building was supposed to lead to. They have all of the pieces they need, really — the growth of their young guys should allow them to phase out the veterans organically, and continue striving forward.

There was an expectation that Hood would take a step forward this season, and that hasn’t quite happened yet; he looks like a classic example of letting possibility define reality a little too early. But Iso Joe is still going strong, with that perfectly washed mid-post game, and there’s little sense of urgency for Hood to have his breakout season. His game is too pure to miss yet.

Exum and Lyles have proven less, but Utah is deep enough to let those 21-year-olds take their time — they barely even figure into a rotation that still has to find room for Favors, Joe Ingles and Shelvin Mack. And Favors, though he was rendered ineffective and something close to an afterthought by a knee injury this season, is still just 25. Heck, Alec Burks is still just 25, and nobody’s talked about Alec Burks in years. The look in Quin Snyder’s eyes is the look of a man who has gone deep into the a.m. hours with depth chart possibilities and a whiskey or few. With this roster, the injuries might actually have saved him stress.

The depth of talent on this roster is telling of the time and manpower invested into assembling a team worth their future, but it won’t save them. It’s easy to wish the Jazz well, to want them to succeed. Nobody is really punching up to the Warriors any time soon, but in theory, the Jazz have a lot of the individual elements that you’d want for it. Give them a few more cracks at that matchup, and maybe they could make something interesting happen. If nothing else, this team looks like it could shake up the stale West for years to come.

It just sucks, then, that they’re looking at their future with a lack of control. Media voting is a tough way to have your rebuild busted.

If Hayward, stiffed on All-NBA money, looks at the Celtics and decides that’s a better future for him, then more power to him. It’s hard to win a ring, and especially to do so now. Even the Celtics are probably getting swept, sealing the inevitable Four-Four-Four/Four-Four-Four Finals, but the thought that a Hayward-led Celtics team jumps LeBron James sooner than the Jazz do Steph Curry and Kevin Durant isn’t a bad one. Hayward seems genuinely attached to Utah and the Jazz, and I don’t doubt it, but that’s never the only factor.

Everything falls apart for the Jazz if they can’t keep their best guy. This is blatantly unfair. Here’s some good sports fear-mongering for your butts: The Right Way is a false icon, fed to us by the blindly optimistic looking for competitive advantage within the CBA’s granularity. There is no Right Way. Timing and luck can blink a franchise out of existence as easily as it can make one. The Jazz have done their best, which is all you can ask, and you’d just like to see their faith in the work fulfilled. We want more!

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Without knowing what’s next, we should try to remember the Jazz of this season for everything they were. They were a fun time, a group of young truths looking to prove themselves as real. They did, because they are. But if this is where it ends, I just don’t think I’ll forget any time soon how much they were defined by the promise of lasting.