After starting last season 19-34, the Utah Jazz became one of the better teams in the NBA after the All-Star break, ratcheting up their defense and finishing the year 19-10. Things started clicking for the Jazz almost immediately after they traded away Enes Kanter, which gave Rudy Gobert plenty of room to stretch out his long arms and emerge as one of the best young defenders in the NBA. Now with Gobert, Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors, the Jazz are one of the more intriguing young teams in NBA. Will the Jazz be able to build on their momentum from last season and challenge for the eighth seed in the West?
Key Additions
Trey Lyles (Drafted, No. 12 overall), Raul Neto (Rookie), Tibor Pleiss (Rookie)
Key Losses
No one!
Is Utah's point guard of the future currently on its roster?
Yes, but unfortunately he likely won’t even play this season.
Dante Exum tore his ACL while playing for the Australian National Team over the summer and will likely miss the majority of the season, if there’s even a reason to bring him back at all.. Exum had a lackluster rookie year averaging 4.8 points, 2.4 assists and 1.6 rebounds in 22.2 minutes per game but he showed flashes of his potential, especially on the defensive end of the floor. The Jazz have high hopes for Exum, especially since he is only 20 years old and last season was his first time truly playing at professional level. Now the Jazz will have to adjust their plans of building continuity with their starting unit and turn to either Trey Burke, Brazilian rookie Raul Neto or Bryce Cotton to be their lead point guard this year.
Since being drafted in the lottery by the Jazz in 2013, Burke has had difficulty transitioning his National Player of the Year play from Michigan to the NBA. Burke is not that great of a shooter (he is a career 37 percent shooter from the field), a mediocre defender and a subpar passer. However with Exum being injured, Burke, still just 22 years old, has an opportunity to really develop, while from an organizational standpoint, if Burke falters, the Jazz have a potential stud in Neto to back him up or take over in the starting unit.
Still, Exum is the future point guard for the Jazz. Or so they’re hoping.
Can the defense repeat its success from last year?
Utah ended last season as one of the best defensive teams in the league, giving up 94.8 points per 100 possessions over the last 29 games. This may not be duplicated exactly but with strong defenders like Derrick Favors, Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert, the Jazz should still be a stellar defensive team this season.
Gobert is a complete monster on the defensive end, if you haven’t noticed. He averaged 2.6 blocks while playing 34 minutes over the final 29 games of the season. At 7-foot-1 with a ridiculous 7-foot-9 wingspan, Gobert is quite an intimidating figure for opposing players and now that he’s entrenched as the team’s starting center, the 23-year-old center should only be able to build on his play from last season. With more minutes and another year of playing in head coach Quin Snyder’s system, Gobert could be in the running for the Defensive Player of the Year award.
Is a team this young ready to challenge for the playoffs in the mighty West?
When you look at the playoff picture in the West, it is basically guaranteed that the Warriors, Rockets, Thunder, Spurs, Clippers and Grizzlies will make it to the postseason. The Pelicans should be in the playoffs which means one spot, more than likely the 8 seed, is realistically up for grabs. The Jazz are in the mix, but they’ll have to ward off teams like the Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, Sacramento Kings and maybe the Denver Nuggets.
To secure the 8th seed, the Jazz will have to essentially pick up where they left off last season right away. They can’t be digging out of a big hole. The loss of Exum will be damaging and Utah’s youth could work against them as the only veterans on the team, Joe Inglis and Trevor Booker, are both 27 years old and only one of them has ever been to the playoffs.
But when you survey the rest of the teams fighting for the 8 seed in the West, the Jazz have so many other factors going for them, like the continued development of their Big 3 of Hayward, Favors and Gobert, that could push them into the postseason for the first time since 2012.
