Not All That Jazz

A history of disappointment and hope

Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m an obsessive Utah Jazz fan.

Growing up, while others were worshiping God and Jesus in my home state of Utah, I put all my irrational faith into Salt Lake City’s other dynamic duo: John Stockton and Karl Malone. Hell, I loved all the players. Mike Brown, Mark Eaton, Blue Edwards, Bobby Hansen, Thurl “Big T” Bailey, Delaney Rudd. I could name them all and knew a creepy amount of information about them, from where they went to college to what shoe size they wore.

I started going to games at the Salt Palace with my dad back in the late 1980s, then to the Delta Center in the 90s, rubbing a lucky Jazz-themed rabbit’s foot my mom had given me for my birthday one year. Family folklore goes that my dad wanted season tickets, and my mom said okay, but that he had to take the most hyper, worst behaved kid with him.

Enter me, the hand-biting spaz with more energy than I knew what to do with.

Well, I soon found something to filter all that extra energy into: the Jazz. I instantly fell in love, becoming their biggest fan, their number one cheerleader. It was how friends and family knew me: “Danny, the Utah Jazz Fan.” I’d be the first thing anyone would ask me about: “How are the Jazz doing this year?” A look of amazement then boredom would wash over their faces as I went on for thirty minutes about the nuances of their season and roster construction like I was an autistic weatherman asked about cold fronts.

The games became that special bonding time between my dad and , helping to not only build a solid father/son relationship, but also a friendship. Our Delta Center seats were in section 21, Portal Y, Row 16, Seats 9 and 10. He’d get a beer and I’d get a Sprite. We’d share popcorn. I’d always sit to his left because I was clutching my rabbit’s foot with my right hand, so logistically it was easier to high-five with my left hand, which we did after every single made basket.

Though I quickly turned into a full-on fanatic, my dad started to get as into it as I did. I mean, he probably didn’t care as much as me. He certainly wouldn’t let a loss affect his mood for the next couple of days like I did. And he didn’t openly loath all opposing players (Fuck you Hakeem Olajuwon!). He was too nice of a guy to hate anyone or anything. But he loved it because I loved it. Even when we weren’t at the games, we’d talk endlessly about the Jazz, what they needed to do to improve so they had a shot of winning a Championship. I’d go on and on and on, and he’d mainly nod and listen.

“You’re right, DJ. The Jazz do need more bench scoring,” he’d say, using his nickname for me, short for Danny Joseph.

Though I’d spend most of the time at the games focused on Stockton’s assist total, or how a win would affect the Jazz’s position in the standings, we’d manage to sneak in some real conversations now and then about school, about life, about girls. Hell, I think we had our first sex talk right there in the Delta Center while I chomped on popcorn and sucked down a Sprite, our convo occasionally interrupted by a high-five or roar from the crowd.

As I got older and older, instead of outgrowing the Jazz like most of my friends, I seemed to become even more obsessive.  My room started to look like that of a serial killer that specialized in murdering Jazz players. I had paraphilia, pennants, and Jazz-themed keepsakes littered everywhere. Hell, I slept below a poster of Karl Malone dressed as a mailman stuffing a basketball into a mailbox labeled “The Boston’s.” I would save the Sports section of the Salt Lake Tribune after a win, and keep every single ticket stub in my junk drawer.

The timing of me becoming a Jazz fan coincided perfectly with their rise to prominence in the 90s. They were always one of the top teams in the Western Conference, always in the playoffs, always winning a series or two.

But they ultimately kept coming up short of reaching the Finals or winning a Championship, no matter how hard I rubbed my rabbit’s foot. Every season would end the same way: with a Jazz loss and my kind-hearted dad looking over at me and saying, “Well, there’s always next year, DJ.”

But it was clear they were a piece or two away from competing for a Championship.

Enter Jeff Hornacek.

They traded for the preacher boy-looking sharp-shooter toward the end of the ’94 season. Over the next couple of years, he proved to be that missing ingredient. And the best part was that his nickname was “Horny”. Watching a bunch of rabid Jazz fans talk about how they were “Horny fans” always brought a smile to my face.

I loved Horny, and not just because of his nickname. He also went to our church: St. Vincent de Paul. Now, I don’t believe in God and am not religious at all, but Horny got me to Church for a couple of Christmas masses. I’d strategically position myself behind him and his family so I could shake his hand during the “Peace be with yous,” and hopefully transfer some of the good luck from my rabbit’s foot into his shooting hand.  

In 1997, it finally happened. My diligent “Peace be with yous” worked. John Stockton hit a game-winning buzzer-beater over Charles Barkley’s outstretched arms to send Hornacek and the rest of the Utah Jazz to their first Finals appearance in the franchise’s 23-year history.  

It was an away game in Houston. I had become too much of a nervous wreck to watch playoffs games with anyone, even my dad. So I was watching the game upstairs alone with the volume off because I was certain that the national broadcasters were anti-Jazz. When Stockton hit the shot, I ran downstairs and hugged my dad, who was watching with the volume on in our living room. We embraced like it was us who had reached the NBA Finals, because it felt like we had. All those years of diligent high-fiving and popcorn eating had finally paid off.  

Jazz had reached the Promised Land. Fuck yeah!

The only problem was that a little-known player named Michael Jordan was waiting for them in the Finals. Jordan had already won four titles and was the defending champ. The Bulls entered the series as heavy favorites. They had the best player to ever play the game, and also had home-court advantage. It was a real David vs. Goliath situation.

The Jazz fought hard, taking the series to six games. But ultimately couldn’t get it done.

It was a disappointment, but honestly, I was happy they even made the Finals. The Bulls were at their peak, unbeatable. So my expectations were reasonable. After the Game 6 loss, my dad looked at me and ended the season like he had so many others: “Well, there’s always next year, DJ.”

The next year started to feel like it was actually the Jazz’s year. They were mostly bringing back the same team and now had some Finals experience. They cruised through the season with the best record in the NBA, and dominated the Rockets, Spurs, and Lakers on their way to the Finals.

On the other side of the bracket, Jordan’s Bulls squeaked by the Indiana Pacers in seven games. They looked tired, hurt, vulnerable for the first time.

So unlike the previous year, I felt like the Jazz had a shot. They were an amazingly precise team that seemed to have all the pieces. And now they had home-court advantage. Playing at altitude in front of 19,911 screaming, sugar-fueled fans had brought them to a 36-5 record during the regular season.

But the Bulls still had Michael Jordan, and he hated the Jazz.

Jazz won Game 1 at home. Game 2 was on the same night as my Junior High School graduation. I was the class’s mayor (not to brag) and was supposed to give a little speech. But I of course picked the Jazz game over some dumb graduation ceremony. I pawned the speech off on someone else, grabbed my rabbit’s foot, and headed to the Delta Center with my dad to scream in support of my beloved Jazz.

Jazz lost 93-88, relinquishing home-court advantage in the process. Maybe I should’ve gone to my fucking graduation.  

They got their asses handed to them in Game 3 in Chicago, 96-54, just an insane point total for an NBA game, and the most lopsided loss in Finals history. They lost Game 4 in Chicago 86-82, going down 3-1.

It wasn’t looking good for the Jazz. Jordan was on his way toward winning his sixth NBA championship, going 6-0 in Finals series and cementing his legacy as the greatest to ever play the game.

But then a miracle happened. Karl Malone put together one of his greatest playoff games ever, scoring 39 points and leading the Jazz to a Game 5 road victory, 83-81.

The series was headed back to Salt Lake City for Games 6 and Game 7* (*if necessary).

Hope was restored. The Jazz still had a chance. They just had to beat the Bull twice on their home court and we’d be Champions.

We all know what happened though. We’ve all watched The Last Dance documentary on Netflix. The Jazz led for most of the game, looking like they were going to force a Game 7. They were up 86-83 with 41.9 seconds to go. But then Jordan took over. He quickly scored a layup. 86-85. He then stripped the ball from Malone, came down the court, and hit the championship-winner over Bryon Russell, arguably the most famous shot in NBA history.

The Jazz lost. It was over. They were done. My dad and I had to stand there while Dennis Rodman and Scottie Pippen jumped around our home court celebrating.

All those years of rubbing that rabbit’s foot, of wondering if this was our year, had all culminated in having my heart ripped out by Michael Jordan. I always joke that Michael Jordan ruined what was otherwise a perfect, almost idyllic childhood. Occasionally, the game pops onto NBA TV and I’m still convinced the Jazz will win.

“Well, there’s always next year, DJ,” my dad said as we left the Delta Center that night, trying to inject some of his patented optimism into this bleak as fuck situation.

“Shut the fuck up motherfucker,” I said back to him, something I still feel bad about to this day. My dad was too good of a man, too gentle of a soul, to call a motherfucker. But I was sick of being told that there was always next year. This was our year. I just wanted one championship. That’s it. Was that too much to ask for?

The next year proved to not be great for the Jazz. Even with Jordan retired and the Bulls team ripped apart, they couldn’t put together a magical run, losing to the Portland Trailblazers in the second round.

The Jazz weren’t very good for the next several years. That championship window rarely opens, and when it does, it doesn’t stay open for long. It had officially closed for the Jazz. Stockton retired. Malone chased a championship on the Lakers. Hornacek became a coach for the Suns.

The Jazz team that I had hung all my hopes and dreams on were finished.

I went off to college at Berkeley, got my real life going. But I remained a die-hard Jazz fan. People always slam Utah because they think it’s a boring, silly state full of Mormons. So when I went away for college in California, I became a defender of the state, sick of all the dumb jokes that I myself used to make, the, “How many wives do you have?” or “Can you even drink there?” or “What do you even do in such a lame state?” I got a lot of shit from the Lakers, Kings, and Warriors fans in California, but I always stuck up for the Jazz, always defended them, continued believing that one day they’d prove everyone wrong and win a championship for me and my dad.

The Jazz was the definition of mediocre over the next decade or so. They’d still mostly make the playoffs, and eventually constructed a solid team around Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer, Andrei Kirilenko, and Mehmet Okur. But they never really had much of a realistic shot at a championship. The closest they got was in 2007 when they went to the Western Conference Finals before being smacked around by, Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs, the eventual Champions.

In 2008, they returned the same solid team that had made the run to the Western Conference Finals. There was some hope they could make a run at a Championship.

But then my family received some terrible news. My beloved dad and Jazz pal had been diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The disease hit him harder than any of us expected, placing him on a respirator and in a hospital bed within a year of diagnosis. I moved back home from California to help look after him and spend some time with him while I could.

He had slowly lost interest in the Jazz after I left for college. He had found other hobbies, like marathon running. But the year I moved home, he and I began watching every game together again. We no longer had season tickets, and my dad couldn’t really leave the house, so we settled for watching the games on the TV in his home hospital room. I sat in a chair next to his bed. He couldn’t move his arms, so we couldn’t do our patented high-fives, so instead, we settled for foot high-fives after each made basket.

I was thinking how awesome it would be for the Jazz to put together some sort of miracle run to the Finals before my dad died. But instead, the Jazz lost in the second round to Kobe Bryant’s Lakers.

After, my dad looked at me, and, despite being on a breathing machine and barely able to speak, he managed to say, “Well, there’s always next year, DJ.”

But unfortunately for him, there wasn’t a next year. He died a few months after the Jazz playoffs. We had tried everything we could think of to slow down his disease, but nothing worked. My pal and favorite Jazz buddy was gone.

In the next couple of years, Jazz star Deron Williams and Coach Sloan got into some pissing match, so Sloan retired. They traded Williams to the Nets. And the Jazz officially started another rebuild.

They mostly sucked ass for the next six or seven years or so. But I remained a die-hard fan. With my dad no longer around to listen to me vent endlessly about the Jazz, I started to rely on my pals to talk Jazz with me. But no one seemed to care as much as I did. Jazz fans, in general, started to feel constantly let down by the team, knowing that their seasons would almost always end in disappointment. So it was hard to find others who hadn’t lost faith, who hadn’t given up on the team, who still had hope.  

I turned to Twitter for a bit, following other Jazz fans who were as obsessed as I was. But it wasn’t the same as having my dad around. And Twitter is an intimidating and hostile place. You have to be insane to spend much time there.  

But I remained a massive fan. The NBA came out with something called “NBA League Pass”, which allowed me to watch all the Jazz games even though I had returned to living in California after my dad passed. Unfortunately, their team was shitty. Now built around Gordon Hayward, there was zero chance they were going to the NBA Finals. Hell, they couldn’t even make the playoffs.

I spent a lot of my free time thinking about what free agent moves they could make, or what players they could luck into in the draft to start putting together a great team. ESPN invented a device called the “Trade Machine”, where you can construct fake trades. So I’d fiddle around with that, trying to come up with the most realistic player swaps that could actually make the Jazz better and get them back to where they were during my childhood.  

Then in 2017, it finally happened. They had actually made the playoffs the season before and even upset the Clippers in the first round before having their asses blown out by the eventual champion, Warriors. But in the draft, they traded up and landed Donovan Mitchell.

Now not only is Donovan Mitchell a hell of a player, but he’s also really cool—a likable, friendly, well-spoken kid with a Magic Johnson-like smile and personality to match. He was the exact offensive superstar they had been searching for since Karl Malone left for the Lakers, and he had a built-in passion to improve and compete. Most importantly, he seemed to actually like Utah and was comfortable being the face of the franchise.

With the unlikely emergence of defensive specialist Rudy Gobert, the Jazz started to look like they had the foundation of a potential Championship team. They weren’t quite ready to be called contenders yet though. They made the playoffs in 2018 and 2019, but lost to the Rockets both times.

In the 2019 offseason, their front office started to get more serious about trying to win now. They added Croatian sharp-shooter Bojan Bogdanović, put a massive trade package together to land veteran point guard Mike Conley from the Grizzles, and traded for flamethrower Jordan Clarkson mid-season.

It was starting to feel like they could at least compete for a Championship if all the pieces fit together just right.

But the 2020 season was a strange one. Mike Conley’s fit was a little clunky. Then Rudy Gobert was the first NBA player to test positive for Covid-19, which was the first domino to fall in postponing the season and shutting down the sports world.

The NBA eventually managed to put together a bubble and finish off the season, but Bogdanović elected to have surgery on his wrist, so they didn’t field their complete team. Championship chances were virtually zero. They still managed to take a 3-1 lead against the Nuggets in the first round.

But, like so many Jazz teams had done before, they choked away their lead, letting the Nuggets come back from 3-1 to win the series, something that, at the time, only 11 other teams had done in the history of the sport.

It was okay though. 2020 wasn’t going to be their year. 2021 was.

They added former Jazzman, Derrick Favors, as a backup center, and Mike Conley started to gel with the team. Bogdanović was back healthy, and Donovan and Rudy looked like they were entering their primes.

Around the same time as the start of the 2020-21 season, my wife became pregnant with our first. A boy. Once news broke, friends and family started sending Jazz gear for our baby. My sister sent a mini Stockton jersey. My mom sent onesies covered in Jazz logos and a bib that read, “Little Jazz Fan”. Friends joked that I should name him “Donovan” or “Rudy” after our two best players.

As the season progressed, the Jazz looked great. Everything seemed to click perfectly. They blew teams out, put together multiple 10-game plus winning streaks, and hit more three-pointers than any team in NBA history. Gobert, Mitchell, and Conley all made the All-Star team—the first time the Jazz had three since 1989 when Malone, Stockton, and Mark Eaton all made it.

The Jazz ended the season with the best record in the NBA, and with it came the number 1 seed in the Western Conference and home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. Rudy Gobert won his third Defensive Player of the Year Award, and Jordan Clarkson was awarded the Sixth Man of the Year Award, which is given to the best bench player in the league.

With all of these achievements came something else, something that I hadn’t felt since 1998: hope that they could win a Championship.

And the timing felt serendipitous. A Jazz Championship would be the perfect ending to the last chapter of my life as I started this new one. I was about to become a dad, hopefully as good as mine was. Going forward, I wouldn’t be able to blow countless hours watching Jazz games, listening to podcasts, running fake trades in the Trade Machine, or reading articles about them. I’d have to focus more of my free time on my family, my life, my son. One friend jokingly called it, “[My] last playoffs”.

Donovan Mitchell had sprained his ankle a month before the end of the regular season, but he was gearing up for a return for the playoffs. He missed the first game in the first round against the upstart Grizzlies, much to his disliking. But returned for Game 2 and started to dominate. The Jazz cruised, winning the series in five games. However, in Game 5, Mike Conley tweaked his hamstring, throwing his availability for the next round into question.

Even without Conley, the Jazz took a 2-0 lead against the Clippers—a franchise that has an even deeper history of disappointing their fans. It was looking pretty good. So good, in fact, that friends started asking if I would fly back to Utah to go to the Finals if the Jazz made it. Now the Finals were to end on July 22. Our boy’s due date is July 21. The timing would be insanely close.

“Man, you’re going to be faced with a real Sophie’s Choice there,” joked my brother.

“I know,” I said. “But let’s see if they get through the Clippers first. They’re no joke.”

The rest of the playoffs looked like they were breaking the Jazz way as well. The LeBron-led Lakers lost in the first round to the Suns. The Nuggets, who had beaten them last year, were without their superstar guard, Jamal Murray. On the other side of the bracket, the top teams, the 76ers and Nets, had suffered major injuries to their star players.

Everything was wide open, there for the taking for the Jazz.

But the Clippers looked much better in Games 3 and 4, blowing the Jazz out and just dominating. However, after Game 4, the Jazz seemingly caught yet another massive break. Kawhi Leonard—the Clippers best players and one of the best players in the entire NBA—hurt his knee and was going to be out indefinitely. I hate injuries. They suck ass. But they happen every year. Part of winning a Championship involves getting a little lucky, catching a break here or there and taking advantage of it.

It seemed like the Jazz were being served up yet another perfect break.

In addition, Chris Paul, the superstar point guard for the Phoenix Suns, who had beaten the Nuggets to advance to the Western Conference Finals and were awaiting the Jazz/Clippers winner, had tested positive for Covid, and would miss at least the first two games of the series, providing the Jazz with yet another amazing break.

“Holy shit. They might actually do this,” I told my wife.

“Just don’t have a heart attack during a game. I need you to be a dad soon,” said Meredith.

Game 5 was at home at the Vivant Arena (formerly the Delta Center). Fans were amped up, looking to blow off some steam after this terrible pandemic and also after 23 years of not having much hope of reaching the Finals. The Jazz looked to be in control of the game, even built a ten-point lead. But a shaky third quarter doomed them. The Clippers came back and beat them 119-111.

At the time, it felt like the most disappointing Jazz loss in recent memory. But not all hope was lost. They could still win Game 6 and Game 7 and advance to the next round against the Suns.

The Jazz came out firing in Game 6. They played amazingly in the first half. Mitchell and Clarkson were on fire. Clarkson had 21 points in the second quarter alone. The Jazz built a seemingly insurmountable 25-point lead early in the third quarter. All seemed good.

And then they forgot how to play basketball. The next 18 minutes of game-play were torturous for any Jazz fan, like a waking version of Hell. The Clippers started picking apart the Jazz defense. They nailed corner three after corner three. The mostly unknown second-year guard, Terance Mann, lit them up for 39 points. That’s right, 39 fucking points. I watched in absolute horror as the Jazz squandered their 25-point lead, a meltdown of epic proportions.

The Clippers won by 12 points, a 37-point second-half swing. An unreal, almost historic meltdown. Pathetic. Disastrous. Whatever other adjective you want to use to describe how shitty a performance it was. I had thought Game 5 was the most disappointing Jazz loss in 23 years until Game 6 happened.  

Conley had returned but looked injured still, and Donovan Mitchell’s ankle clearly wasn’t 100 percent, or even 60. But that was no excuse. After all, the Clippers were missing their best player and down 25 points. They should’ve at least won Game 6 and sent the series back to Utah for Game 7.

I hadn’t felt heartbreak like that since Jordan had ruined my childhood.

I’m someone who loves a good story. Fuck, it’s what I do for a living. I try my best to write interesting and engaging screenplays full of heart and fart jokes. The Jazz finally winning a championship right around the arrival of my first-born son felt like a good story.

But oh well. Shit happens. And it always happens to the Jazz.  

I moped around for the rest of the weekend, shaking my head and cursing the Jazz’s name. “25 fucking points. How did that happen?” I mumbled to myself. I avoided ESPN, NBA podcasts, and Twitter for a few days, letting myself have a good, old-fashioned wallow. Friends sent wellness check-in texts. I wrote an overly dramatic Facebook and Twitter post about how I didn’t know if I could be a Jazz fan ever again, how I felt like I was in an abusive relationship with them.  

The whole thing left me feeling stupid for attaching so much of my happiness to something so trivial, something so out of my control—hanging my hopes on a bunch of athletic millionaires playing a sport that was invented to pass time and entertain.

But then I started to realize that it was good to care about things, to have stuff that you actually want to see happen. This desire for things to go a certain way is where dreams are born, and it’s okay to hope that your dreams come true. Without this hope, what else is there? You need hope. Hope that your life will be meaningful. Hope that your career will leave you fulfilled. Hope that your family will be healthy and happy. And yes, hope that your favorite team will one day stop disappointing you and actually win a fucking Championship, even if it takes another 23 years for them to have as good of a chance.

All that matters in life are the things that make us care, make us feel something. I care about the Jazz. So what if they matter to me? And sure, I felt unlucky that they didn’t win this year, that they continued their long tradition of disappointing me. But I’m ultimately incredibly lucky in other areas. I have a great life, an amazing wife, my dream career, and soon I’ll have a son who I can watch Jazz games with, who I can slip popcorn to and exchange high-fives.

So after my weekend of mourning and questioning if I ever wanted to be a Jazz fan ever again, I ultimately sat down at my computer and fired up ESPN’s Trade Machine, started fantasizing about ways the Jazz could maybe get better so they could finally push themselves over the top and win a Championship.

After all, it’s like my dad always said: there’s always next year.