Utah Jazz fined $500K, a tanking penalty for resting star players Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr.
The Jazz have benched Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. late in recent games.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith, left, and the team’s president of basketball operations, Austin Ainge, speak during a news conference.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver dropped a half-million-dollar fine on the Utah Jazz on Thursday, the strongest statement the league has taken against Utah’s alleged “tanking.”
The $500,000 fine, the NBA said in a news release, was due to “conduct detrimental to the league” in the course of Utah’s games against the Orlando Magic on Feb. 7 and Miami Heat on Feb. 9. In those games, the Jazz sat both of their former All-Stars, Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. in the fourth quarter, “even though these players were otherwise able to continue to play and the outcomes of the games were thereafter in doubt.”
The Jazz lost the game against the Magic 120-117, but ended up beating the Heat by a 115-111 score.
Silver gave a strongly worded statement in his decision to fine the Jazz and the Indiana Pacers, who received a $100,000 fine for sitting healthy players in the team’s Feb. 3 game against Utah.
“Overt behavior like this that prioritizes draft position over winning undermines the foundation of NBA competition and we will respond accordingly to any further actions that compromise the integrity of our games,” Silver said. “Additionally, we are working with our Competition Committee and Board of Governors to implement further measures to root out this type of conduct.”
Jazz owner Ryan Smith tweeted his response to the league’s fine.
“Agree to disagree,” Smith wrote. “Also, we won the game in Miami and got fined? That makes sense …”
Smith then went on to criticize ESPN commentator Bobby Marks, who earlier this week said the Jazz were “messing around with the integrity of the NBA.”
The league’s Player Participation Policy, enacted ahead of the 2023-24 season, gives the NBA leeway to “elect in its discretion to investigate and/or impose discipline in other circumstances involving star player (or other player) non-participation.” Markkanen and Jackson Jr., by making the league’s All-Star Game in one of three seasons before 2025-26, count as star players by the NBA’s policy definition.
Utah was fined $100,000 for sitting Markkanen in March 2025 — “as well as other recent games,” the NBA noted at the time. The policy indicates teams are fined $100,000 for their first tanking violation, and $250,000 for their second violation.
Jazz coach Will Hardy declined to comment on the fine after the team’s game on Thursday, but did answer a question about whether the league fining the Jazz would change the team’s substitution patterns in the future.
“I sat Lauri because he was on a minutes restriction,” Hardy said. “So if our medical team puts a minutes restriction on Lauri, I’ll try to keep Lauri healthy.”
