Zach Lowe of ESPN put the NBA teams into tiers before the start of the regular season, and the Utah Jazz landed with six teams in what he called, "the most interesting part of the league: The West, 5-11."
Looking at the Jazz, Lowe wrote, "Scoring will be a struggle, even with Quin Snyder designing the league's most intricate, drawn-out set pieces."
After talking about Utah's possible offensive failings, Lowe talked about some of the positives with the Jazz roster.
"But they can run out at least 11 legit rotation players," Lowe explained. "They have enough tweener forward types to pull (Derrick) Favors early, shift into small-ball mode, and reinsert him for (Rudy) Gobert as their backup center."
Then Lowe examined the what is sure to be the strength of the team, the defense.
"Utah should suffocate opponents with a top-five defense," wrote Lowe. "(Good luck generating a corner 3 against them.) Gobert barricades the rim with a sneering arrogance. He scares people. The Jazz are deep, and they play hard every night. Even vanilla teams can win a lot of regular-season games that way."
The other teams in the tier with the Jazz are the Los Angeles Clippers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Denver Nuggets, Memphis Grizzlies, Portland Trail Blazers and the New Orleans Pelicans.
Speaking of the Jazz, Ben Golliver of Sports Illustrated's The Crossover ranked the 30 NBA teams based on entertainment value and Utah came in at No. 18 on the list.
"The NBA’s least watchable good team," wrote Golliver of the Jazz. "Rudy Gobert captains a pulverizing defense, but Gordon Hayward’s defection means that an already clunky attack will regularly stall out."
Other links
- Jazz ranked one of the most underrated teams
- Alex Smith the frontrunner for NFL MVP
- Exum's Jazz career examined
And finally...The Chicago Bears pulled off one of the most creative two-point conversions you will ever see in their narrow loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night.
The play, that looked very similar to the three-man weave in basketball, tied the game at 17 in the fourth quarter.