2019-20 NBA Season Preview Series: Utah Jazz

Every summer there is a new team’s bandwagon that the internet hops on and declares they are ready to make that leap to become Finals contenders. It happened with the Bucks, the Sixers, the Celtics, and if you notice a trend it usually is some Eastern Conference team now that LeBron is gone. Well this season we’re starting to get this treatment with some Western Conference teams, and few teams are getting more hype entering next season than the Utah Jazz. We know about the Clippers and the Lakers and all that bullshit, but the Jazz have had themselves one hell of a summer and are positioning themselves as a team that could go from scrappy underdog tough playoff opponent, to a legit contender. There are a ton of reasons to be excited about the upcoming Jazz season, but first let’s relive what was their second 50 win season in the last three years.

2018-19 Season Highlights

It’s some shit luck that you can win 50 games in a season and still not even secure homecourt in a playoff series. That’s rough, but it’s also reality for the Jazz and something that probably won’t change this season given how stacked that conference is.  With every team around them doing everything possible to add as many weapons as possible, the Jazz, despite being a small market team, have drastically changed their roster from just a year ago. As of today, this is how things stand

Mike Conley, Bojan Bogdanovic, Ed Davis,  Jeff Green, and Emmanuel Mudiay are all new to the team and while they may not be these blue chip superstar players some other Western Conference team added, you bring them in as part of your Gobert/Mitchell/Igles foundation and you get an idea of why there’s hype around this team. Conley in my opinion is an upgrade over Ricky Rubio, Bogdanovic is a much better shooter/scorer than Jae Crowder, Ed Davis is a no drama big who will help address the rebounding that is lost with Derrick Favors departing, Jeff Green is a low risk wing who can give you a random night of an actually acceptable level of basketball, and Emmanuel Mudiay may have flamed out other places but is another low risk guy who is just 23 years old, who knows maybe a change of scenery will help him. Plus let’s not forget adding what hopefully is a healthy Dante Exum to the mix gives the Jazz a team that can certainly defend, but also may have bumped up their offense with quality offseason signings. Their total salary of $118,969,768 is good for 24th in the entire NBA, and this is a team that’s used to winning in the high 40s low 50s. That’s a great return on their investment and a huge part of that is hitting on guys they drafted like Gobert/Mitchell/Bradley/Ingles. Now if we want to be truthful, their depth and second unit are big question marks and their success will play a big part of how this team looks. Last season they were 15th in bench scoring and 2nd in bench FG% and as of now the Mudiay/Exum/O’Neale/Green/Davis group doesn’t exactly blow your dick off.

But make no mistake, their top end talent is no joke. Donovan Mitchell is entering that ever important Year 3 leap season, and he sure as shit backed up his strong rookie year with a sophomore campaign that watched him improve across the board. He’s a guy with true star potential who could very well make that leap into an All Star this season. With him the questions mostly surrounded his shot, but based on last year’s jump from 34 to 36% and then the flashes he showed this summer on Team USA, what may have been a negative sure looks like it’s becoming more and more of an asset.

Now of course, he’s not a perfect player. He definitely can fall victim to hero ball, especially in big moments, and while you love his willingness to take the last shot in a big shot, he’s also prone to force things which tends to not work out. I’d also like to see him get better in the paint (33% from 3-10ft) and in the fourth quarter where his offense tends to fall off (39% shooting). When you’re a guy like Mitchell who is going to have a usage rate in the 30s, you need to be efficient and effective in the most important parts of a game, which as of now he isn’t quite there yet. That’s his next level in my opinion. I think Jazz fans would also like to see him get to the line more, with just a 25% Free Throw Rate, if he can bump that up slightly given he’s already an 80% FT shooter, we could see a guy live in the 25-27 point per game range given how the Jazz use him.

Then you factor in Gobert, who might be the most terrifying defender in the entire league. For some reason he can make All NBA teams, win DPOY, and not be an All Star but anyone with a brain who watches this team play knows how good Gobert is.

You want to know why the Jazz had the 2nd best defense in the league last year, this guy is why. Not only is he going to protect the rim at an elite level, but the Jazz are beasts on the glass, leading the NBA in defensive rebounding percentage. Offensively, the P&R game between Mitchell and Gobert is so lethal it led the league in P&R roll man scoring, and now adding Mike Conley, a guy who ran a shit ton of P&R with Gasol in MEM, that’s probably going to be another area where we see Gobert feast this season. Especially if he continues to expand his range which is possible given his 34% from 10ft last season.

What the Jazz are not going to do even with this new look roster is change their formula and do something crazy like become an isolation heavy team. They ranked dead last in isolation frequency last year, Mike Conley is not an isolation player, and neither is Bogdanovic. Their formula is pretty simple, slow shit down and beat you in the halfcourt mainly through P&R. Where these new additions will only make this team more dangerous is addressing areas they kinda stunk in last year. For example off screen shooting. The Jazz ranked in the 10th percentile coming off screens, and someone like Bagdanovic ranked in the 77th percentile for the Pacers last year. They ran him off a shit ton of screens (21.8% frequency) and he shot 46.4% in those situations. Swap that with Jae Crowder (9.5th percentile) or Korver (37th percentile) and that’s a valuable upgrade anyway you slice it. If defenses now have to worry about Bogdanovic as a legit offensive weapon coming off screens, that’s going to open everything up for Mitchell/Conley/Ingles. The Jazz were already a top 10 team in terms of 3PM, and they went out and upgraded their shooting with proven guys. They now have three dudes they can use as primary ball handlers/creators with Mitchell/Conley/Ingles and it’s that versatility that could very well see them crack the top 10 in offense.

If there’s one thing that would maybe make me nervous as a Jazz fan though, it’s that everyone loves them. They now have real expectations and can no longer play the “we get no respect” card. As we’ve seen in recent seasons, these new-ish teams that suddenly have NBA Finals expectations and hype don’t always live up to it. The good news is the backbone of their success is rock solid. There’s no gimmick when it comes to defense and P&R success. Also you throw in the fact that they are bringing back the purple mountain throwbacks and the Jazz could very well break through and actually make it past the second round, something they haven’t done since 2006.

Official Greenie Prediction: 52 wins