Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Austin Ainge will be in the lead decision maker with the Jazz.
- Ainge emphasizes consistent good decisions in team building, similar to Boston's approach.
- Ainge will lead Jazz's rebuild, with decisions on draft picks and veteran trades looming.
SALT LAKE CITY — For most of his 20-plus minute introductory presser, Austin Ainge, the Utah Jazz's new president of basketball operations, didn't shy away from details.
He spoke at length about how the NBA's new collective bargaining agreement has changed the dynamics of team building.
He recounted how a text from Jazz owner Ryan Smith ultimately pulled him away from Boston.
He went over his theory that constructing a competitive team is simply "making a lot of good decisions over and over and over."
But his most pointed comment came in just six words.
Ainge was asked about his philosophy on tanking and manipulating lineups to obtain better lottery odds (something Jazz fans have grown accustomed to over the last three seasons).
His response? "You won't see that this year."
Oh?
What that means — whether it's trading veterans and letting the team struggle, or accelerating the rebuild — remains to be seen. But on Monday, one thing became clear: change has arrived in Utah.
Austin Ainge — and not his father, Danny — will be the one calling the shots for Utah moving forward.
Yes, the senior Ainge and Justin Zanik will still be in the front office, but Austin Ainge will have the final say on personnel issues — or at least the final recommendation.
"Austin will be running the program," team owner Ryan Smith said. "He's got final recommendation to myself on any decisions that need to be made."
And those decisions are coming fast.
The Jazz hold the No. 5 and No. 21 picks in this year's draft. They also have several veteran players on the roster, including Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson, and John Collins (assuming he picks up his player option).
Walker Kessler is eligible for an extension, and there's, once again, the looming question of whether to trade Lauri Markkanen.
They are, in short, decisions that could shape the future of the team, and that's exactly why Austin Ainge wanted to come on board now.
Earlier this spring, while in a meeting with the new Celtics ownership, Ainge received a text from Smith: "I got a question, can you call me?"
After he had finished planning out the offseason with the Boston owners, he called up Smith. He suddenly had an offer to plan Utah's offseason, too (along with everything else).
It was an offer that Smith had been mulling over for some time. Smith has long wanted to transition Danny Ainge into a role where he could ultimately pick his spots (ultimately, the role Ainge had agreed to when he joined the organization in 2021).
"Justin and Danny have operated probably about as lean as any team in the organization and in the NBA, just with their roles and how they did it. So it's been something that had been on my mind," Smith said.
And he thought he knew the person who should lead the basketball operations.
"Really it came to a conversation with me and Ashley and some of the folks in our group — who would you go get? What would you do? And I kept coming back to Austin. The challenge was, I had no clue how Austin felt."
In Boston, Ainge had built a strong reputation as an integral part of one of the NBA's best front offices. Would he really walk away from that for an uncertain challenge in Utah?
Turns out, the timing was right.
"I kind of said, if we're gonna do this now is (the time)," Ainge said. "I want to be part of these big decisions coming up … now feels like the right time."
Austin Ainge will have the chance to quickly make his mark on an organization that's in the middle of a long rebuild. His father tore things down; now, he'll be entrusted to build it back up.
"There are a lot of ways you can execute it," he said of the rebuild, "but mostly it's just making a lot of good decisions over and over and over. Two-way (contracts), second-round picks, first-round picks, trades, free agency. It's just making good decisions, stacking up good players, so you have more to work with."
He said it's a simple, even boring answer — but it's also the truth. A few good decisions can alter a franchise's trajectory, just as a few missteps can derail it. That's why he doesn't think that building a contender in Utah is not all that different than building one in Boston.
"Players want hope. They want to win. They want great culture. They want great coaching. They want great teammates, so that's what we have to give them," Austin Ainge said.
And while a No. 1 pick would obviously help with that, he knows that's not the only path.
"If you look at the playoffs and look at all the best players in the NBA, and how many of them went No. 1, it's better to have No. 1, but there's a lot of other stars that came from all over the draft … it's not the only way to do it," he said.
