For Will Hardy and the Utah Jazz, time tells three stories
Oct 1, 2026, 4:50 PM
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz are widely expected to make a big leap in the 2026-27 NBA season.
That feeling is mutual inside the organization, but that optimism is somewhat guarded. Head coach Will Hardy spoke about time at media day, and how it works for and against the team in three distinct ways.
When I was thinking about our team coming into today, the idea of time really struck me in three distinct ways. The first one is if we look back, there are a lot of familiar faces to all of us, but the reality is this team has not had a lot of time together. Especially when you look at some of the key elements, and I think a stat that sort of illustrates that is that Jaren (Jackson Jr.) has played 42 minutes of basketball with Lauri (Markkanen) and he’s played five minutes of basketball with Keyonte (George). The great part about that is I think that it just points that we have a new beginning ahead of us this year.
Last year, the JJJ trade signified a change of direction for the franchise. After four years of rebuilding, a competitive team was finally on the horizon.
But not just yet.
A lottery pick still hung in the balance. Jackson Jr. played just three games for the Jazz in February before undergoing season-ending surgery. Even that small taste was soured as George suffered an ankle injury in the second quarter of that first game.
Heading into the 2026-27 season, the Jazz face a new beginning, which comes with both hope and a lack of on-court chemistry between its best players.
Hardy continued his thoughts on time with how the group needs to build that chemistry, starting now.
The second element of time is in the present. This group this year is 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, and potential areas of need as we continue to try to figure out how this team best fits together on the floor.
The list of Jazz players that have played together for more than 82 games is pretty slim. There are just five players, and only two starters, with substantial overlap. Keyonte George, Lauri Markkanen, Kyle Filipowski, Isaiah Collier, and Brice Sensabaugh. And of that group, Markkanen is the only one who has played 200 total NBA games.
I wouldn’t say that Hardy’s comments on needing time are tempering expectations, but rather acknowledging that you can’t force chemistry.
He expanded on that with the third use of time.
The third element of time, and I think the most exciting for us internally and I hope for our fan base, is when we think about time for this group, and sort of where they are in their arc, both individually because of their ages and as a group, I think we have a really long pathway ahead for this team. That’s tremendously exciting for me.
Simply, Hardy went over the past, present, and future of this iteration of the Utah Jazz. What made it interesting is that he almost suggested that each had a positive and negative connotation, depending on how you looked at it.
Except for the future. The only word he used there was “exciting.”
