Jazz pick up preseason win in Portland, but was future of team playing in Las Vegas?

SALT LAKE CITY — Will Hardy is on the board.

The rookie head coach collected his first win as head coach of the Utah Jazz on Tuesday as the Jazz rolled to a 118-101 preseason victory over the Portland Trail Blazers at Moda Center.

Jordan Clarkson had 19 points on 5-of-8 shooting, Mike Conley added 16 points and two assists, and Collin Sexton finished with 13 points and three rebounds. The trio combined to go 8-for-13 from 3-point range.

And with that the Jazz may have found a formula to win some games this season: Let the veterans run the show offensively, and then play an extremely aggressive defense to try and jump passing lanes and create havoc. Having guys like Jarred Vanderbilt and Stanley Johnson help with the latter.

That formula worked on Tuesday, at least, but due to a game that was going on at the same time in Las Vegas, the Jazz might not want it to work often.

That's where Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson, the projected No. 1 and No. 2 picks in the 2023 NBA draft, were going head-to-head in the first of two matchups this week. And if that contest is any indication of future NBA success, well, the Jazz might just want to sit Clarkson, Conley, Sexton and everyone else.

Wembanyama, the 7-foot-3 French phenom that has got NBA executives drooling, finished with 37 points on 7-for-11 shooting from 3-point range and five blocks. Yep, he had five blocks and seven 3s; that's something that's only happened once in NBA history, according to draft expert Jonathan Wasserman.

The ceiling of Wembanyama's game is Rudy Gobert with an overall offensive game; or in other terms, a slightly better version of Giannis Antetokounmpo. There's a reason he's considered by some to be the best prospect since LeBron James.

As for Henderson, whose G League Ignite team got the 122-115 win over Wembanyama and the Metropolitans 92, he scored 28 points, nine assists and two steals in the highlight-reel affair.

The 6-foot-2 dynamite guard showed no fear going at Wembanyama in the paint, and set up one-on-one battles between the two prospects. Sometimes Henderson won, using his speed to get the ball around the long reach of Wembanyama; other times went to Wembanyama, like a high-flying collision in the fourth quarter when the French star blocked Henderson at the rim.

It was great entertainment, and it provided hope for many teams looking to the future — teams like the Utah Jazz.

So expect an 82-game losing streak this year from Utah, right? Not exactly.

First off, lottery odds have changed since the last time the Jazz missed the playoff. The teams with the three worst regular-season records each have a 14% chance of winning the lottery, and the odds steadily drop from there.

And secondly, based on how Hardy has organized his rotation in the two first preseason games, he doesn't seem to favor losing games for the sake of development.

Utah has one rookie lottery pick on its roster in Ochai Agbaji. In the first two preseason games, he has yet to play outside of late fourth quarter garbage time; that's not a sign that Hardy is looking to do anything but try to win games.

The Jazz started Conley, Clarkson, Olynyk, Lauri Markkanen and Vanderbilt on Tuesday night. At least three of those players don't appear to have long-term futures with the franchise; the same goes for Gay, who played heavy minutes on Sunday.

Are the early minutes a bit of value restoration for Conley, Gay and Clarkson, or do the Jazz want to see if they can indeed be competitive? The minutes to the veterans will be worth monitoring as the preseason and season go on.

Conley, Clarkson, Sexton, Markkanen and even Malik Beasley, who exited Tuesday's game with a left ankle sprain, are all able to shoot a team to victories on random nights. And those veteran-heavy teams do give the Jazz their best chance to win games.

But after watching what Wembanyama and Henderson did in Las Vegas on Tuesday, those wins could end up being costly.

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