Desmond Bane, Udoka Azubuike, Derrick Favors and what could have been for the Utah Jazz

A couple of days ago, Donovan Mitchell was back in Utah with the Cleveland Cavaliers, which gave an opportunity to ask, what if? What if the Utah Jazz had decided against tearing down the Mitchell-Rudy Gobert team?

Ultimately, I agree with what Mitchell said — that the team had run its course, that the iteration of the Jazz he played for missed its window. But, as I wrote on Sunday, a more fair question to ask is probably, could the Jazz have done more in the way of roster construction to give the Jazz a chance leading up to their 2021 and 2022 playoff runs?

There’s a good argument to be made that the Jazz’s 2020 offseason decisions were the worst of the Mitchell-Gobert era, and it all started with the 2020 draft, when the Jazz had a chance to draft Desmond Bane, and decided against it.

*Note: The Jazz could have also drafted Jaden McDaniels, Isaiah Joe, or any other number of players. But today we’re talking about Bane.

The Jazz had just one first-round draft pick in 2020, which was held on Nov. 18 following the suspended-bubble-COVID 2019-20 season. The Jazz used the 27th pick to select Udoka Azubuike, which for about 24 hours seemed like a reasonable, though unexciting, selection.

If the Jazz were looking for a seasoned college player who showed marked improvement over their collegiate career, and one that could come in and play backup to Gobert, then Azubuike made some sense.

But on Nov. 20, the first day of free agency in 2020, the Jazz agreed to sign Derrick Favors for a second stint with the Jazz, this time on a three-year deal worth $27 million, which would account for the entirety of the team’s mid-level exception.

Pretty immediately the obvious question was, if you were going to use the full mid-level on Favors, why would you use your sole first-round pick on a player that would likely not get playing time and had a skillset that was not as versatile or coveted in the modern NBA? Also, Favors was at the absolute tail end of his career and was not nearly the player he once was.

Meanwhile, the Memphis Grizzlies used the 30th pick in 2020 to select Bane, a four-year 6′6″ shooting guard out of TCU who was a sniper from 3-point range. Though there were questions about Bane’s ability to operate as a facilitator and whether he could hang as an NBA defender, what was certain was that he excelled at the most valuable and prized NBA skill — shooting.

Bane immediately stood out for the Grizzlies, playing heavy minutes for Memphis throughout the season and into their first-round playoff appearance. By his second season, he was a full-time starter, perfectly complimenting Ja Morant.

The Favors experiment lasted just a single season for the Jazz and the team had to tack on a first-rounder when they wanted to dump his contract the next offseason. That first-rounder impacted so much about the Jazz’s trajectory over the last three years.

The pick sent to the Thunder was top-10 protected in 2024. If it didn’t convey, it would be top-10 protected in 2025, then top-8 protected in 2026. Only if it doesn’t convey after 2026 does the obligation extinguish.

The Jazz originally thought that they would be able to play poorly enough in the 2022-23 season to be in the Victor Wembanyama race, and if they were able to land Wembanyama, it probably wouldn’t make that protected first-rounder look so bad, especially if they quickly became competitive.

But the Jazz saw that they were good, not great. They decided to pull the plug and go full teardown/rebuild. The early-season good results hurt the Jazz’s tanking hopes for the 2023 draft, where they eventually ended up with the 9th overall pick, Taylor Hendricks, who was a good upside pick, but he was no Wembanyama.

So, without a franchise cornerstone, the Jazz had to face the implications of the first-rounder sent to OKC. If they wanted to keep their first-round pick, they would need to do some serious tanking from 2024 to 2026, which is where we are now. The Jazz are still looking over their shoulder and paying the price for having signed Favors, despite drafting Azubuike.

What if the Jazz had not flubbed the 2020 offseason decisions? What if they had drafted Bane and used the mid-level exception on a player with a few more years ahead of them?

At best Bane and a different player might have propelled the Jazz to more than a second-round playoff appearance. At worst, Bane would have been more valuable as an asset than Favors and Azubuike combined.

Favors is retired. Azubuike quickly fell out of the league and is playing in Montenegro. The Jazz are still tanking to avoid losing their first-round pick. And on Tuesday night the Jazz got to watch as Bane led the Grizzlies (who were shorthanded playing without Morant and a number of other players) to a 140-103 win at the Delta Center.