A new era is beginning for the Jazz. So are new expectations

Four years ago, the Utah Jazz were rebuilding for tomorrow. Now tomorrow has arrived.

For multiple seasons, the Jazz could afford to look ahead. The team began a total roster overhaul in the summer of 2022 by trading franchise stars Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert to stack future draft assets. They doubled down on this rebuilding process at the 2023 trade deadline, trading away veteran guard Mike Conley to maximize their draft lottery odds.

In the aftermath, the team didn’t have enough established talent. They didn’t have a roster built to win immediately. And, perhaps most importantly, they didn’t have to know exactly what the final version of the team would be.

That has changed.

The Jazz entered media day Monday with a roster that looks considerably different from the teams that occupied the bottom of the Western Conference during the past few seasons.

Key player Lauri Markkanen remains. Blossoming star Keyonte George recently signed a five-year extension. Last season’s fifth overall pick Ace Bailey enters his second year in the NBA. Now recovered from the benign tumor in his left knee, Jaren Jackson Jr. is fully healthy and gearing up for his first full season with the Jazz. And Darryn Peterson, the No. 2 overall pick in June, gives the Jazz another highly touted young player to develop and hopefully become a star in the league.

Just in: Utah Jazz guard Keyonte George has agreed on a five-year, $157.5 million rookie-scale contract extension with the franchise, sources tell me and @BannedMacMahon. pic.twitter.com/cmS7utNPGH

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 18, 2026

After four seasons of rebuilding, the Jazz have reached the part where the questions become different.

It’s no longer simply about collecting talent for the future. It’s about figuring out how that talent fits together — and whether it can start winning now.

Rotation flexibility

Austin Ainge, president of basketball operations for the Jazz and its ultimate decision-maker, acknowledged Monday that the flexibility of options available to head coach Will Hardy will be both an opportunity and a challenge.

“It’s sometimes easier to just tell a coach, ‘Here’s your obvious four best players. Here’s your obvious next best four, and there’s your rotation,’” Ainge said. “He’s got a lot to do, but there’s no one I trust more to do that.”

That may be the defining task of this season.

The Jazz have spent the past several years developing young players and gathering the pieces they hope can eventually form a contender. Now they have to determine what happens when those pieces are put together.

Ainge noted the team knows it has to make significant progress.

“We obviously know we’ve got to get a lot better,” Ainge said. “We have to make huge strides, and we’re excited to try this year to take a big step forward.”

That step won’t necessarily happen immediately. Hardy emphasized that point Monday, repeatedly returning to one word when discussing the season ahead: time.

The Jazz have familiar faces, Hardy said, but they haven’t actually spent much time together as a team. Former Defensive Player of the Year Jackson has played only 42 minutes for the Jazz. The roster has undergone significant changes bringing in veteran pieces like Jusuf Nurkić, Jaxson Hayes, Josh Okogie, and Josh Green. And the coaching staff now has to determine how players with different skill sets can complement one another.

the vibesssss >>> pic.twitter.com/JKY1m4VkaN

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) September 28, 2026

The latter is something Jackson made note of on Monday.

“(Lauri is) so dynamic — the way he moves off the ball and his athleticism paired with his shooting is crazy. … I mean, he’s a 7-1 wing who can shoot, so I feel like he complements anybody,” said Jackson.

Learning process

That makes the early portion of the 2026 season less about immediately establishing a finished product and more about discovering what the product can become.

“The reality is this team has not had a lot of time together,” Hardy said. “We’re going to need some time to gel and form as a team. They need to learn each other, and we need to learn them and their strengths … as we continue to try to figure out how it works best.”

That is a different challenge from the one Hardy faced when hired in 2022 by Smith and new ownership.

There are still young players who need to develop. Peterson comes in as the No. 2 pick riding a lot of expectations and Bailey figures to be a key piece in the rotation. Second-year player Isaiah Collier and forward Kyle Filipowski will also hopefully take a step in their development.

Peterson on Monday acknowledged the physical jump to the NBA level while aiming to stay aggressive early on.

“The defenders are longer, stronger, faster now, so … I got to get high arc on these shots, so I got to be able to play through contact … trying not to take a back seat as a rookie, you know, trying to come in and do my thing,” Peterson said.

But now there are more legitimate options competing for minutes, and more established players whose presence changes that equation.

Ainge said that competition will make playing time harder to earn.

“It’s going to be a lot harder,” Ainge said. “We have a lot of guys that can play. … It’s going to be a competition.”

For Hardy, that competition is part of what makes this season intriguing.

He isn’t approaching the roster with the idea that there is one predetermined lineup. Instead, he wants to use training camp and the early portion of the season to experiment.

Taking it day-by-day

Hardy said he wants to avoid trying to accomplish too much too quickly.

“Coaches come in on this day, we’re super excited and we’re thinking about this all summer,” Hardy said during media day. “We have a long list of things that you would like to get through, but we haven’t prioritized those things.”

The immediate goal, he noted, is to establish a foundation. And that foundation will have to work on both ends of the court.

Offensively, Utah can throw a bunch of different looks at teams. Defensively, Hardy made it clear the Jazz need to step things up from last season’s bottom defensive ranking, starting with individual effort and building up to solid team defense.

Ainge specifically pointed to the possibilities of playing big, small, fast or slow. Hardy sees something similar.

“I think we have a group that has the ability to play a couple of different styles,” Hardy said. “We’re going to try to use the group we have to the best of our ability. Our job as coaches is to try to maximize our group, whatever that lineup is.”

He added, “If that means playing a few bigger guys next to each other … then we’ll do that.”

That could make the Markkanen-Jackson pairing one of the most important experiments of the season.

Ainge mentioned that he’s really curious to see how the two play together as the team’s top two guys.

“I think the Lauri-Jaren stuff, I’m maybe most curious about. I want to see how they play off each other.”

The answer could help determine what Utah’s identity looks like going forward. It could also help determine what the Jazz need next to start their championship window.

Not a finished product by any means, but …

Ainge made clear that the roster is not finished. The Jazz still has an open roster spot and will continue to examine possibilities internally, through free agency and through trades.

“We know we’re not a finished product as a team,” Ainge said. “Teams that win championships have to adjust constantly. So we’ll be looking for anything that you expect.”

That shows how the Jazz’s approach has shifted.

The front office is still eyeing the future, but they’re also focused on how the current roster can win right now. Meanwhile, Hardy has to balance both sides of that transition.

He has spent the past four seasons helping young players establish themselves in the NBA. His work so far has earned him a contract extension through 2031 as he looks to steady the ship with a more complete roster.

Really, Hardy has to create a team environment in which development and winning happen together. And that will require something beyond talent. It will require trust.

He mentioned that he’s expecting some adversity along the way — times when the Jazz get frustrated, disappointed or just aren’t playing up to their own standards. How well they handle those tough moments, he noted, comes down to the bond they’ve built with each other.

“There can be a lot of love in the locker room between the group, and still the ability to discuss honestly if we’re not meeting our standard in a certain area of the game,” Hardy said. “It’s not an indictment of anybody’s character.”

That idea of raising the floor has been a big part of how the Utah team builds its players for a while now. Now it hits a little differently.

The Jazz don’t just want their best games to get better — they want their off days to not hurt as much.

“That would be great if our best day was better,” Hardy said. “We want our worst day to keep getting better.”

That might be the most realistic way to sum up where the Jazz are at in this new era.

The team isn’t presenting itself as a finished product. Ainge isn’t claiming that every roster question has been answered. Hardy isn’t pretending the rotation is already set.

Instead, both men are entering the season with something they haven’t had in the same way during the rebuild: meaningful uncertainty about how good this group can become.

Starting five isn’t set

Ainge noted that many of the organization’s goals will remain process-based — maximizing the team’s talent, playing together and improving every day.

Hardy echoed those thoughts.

He isn’t worried about declaring an opening-night starting lineup as the permanent answer. He wants to see how the group functions over 48 minutes and how different combos perform during the game and season.

“I know that being named a starter is important to players, it’s important sometimes for (the) narrative,” Hardy said. “I obviously want the first five in half to six minutes to function at a high level, but also we have to start thinking about when the substitutions start happening, who’s in and who’s out, what group is now on the floor.

“And so I’m not really sure yet. I think that’s what training camp, and preseason, and the first part of the regular season are for. I don’t think that whoever starts opening night, that’s not a declaration to the world that this is our starting five for the foreseeable future.”

Each answer uncovers a new mystery

And that experimentation is part of what makes this season different.

For four years, the Jazz were largely trying to figure out what they had and what they needed. Now they have more answers. They also have more questions.

Can Markkanen and Jackson thrive together? How quickly can Peterson adjust to the NBA speed and physicality? Also, how will George fit into a deeper rotation? How much can Bailey contribute? Which lineups give Hardy the best chance to win? And, eventually, what does Ainge still need to add?

Year 10 😤 #TakeNote@utahjazzpic.twitter.com/MnZs5yCLhd

— Lauri Markkanen (@MarkkanenLauri) September 28, 2026

Those questions won’t be answered on the first day of training camp Tuesday. They may not be answered by the first month of the season. But for the first time in years, finding those answers is part of the point.

The rebuild has produced a roster with enough talent and versatility to make the next step possible. Now Ainge and Hardy have to figure out what that next step actually looks like.