SALT LAKE CITY — It’s up for debate how accurate it is, but for a long, long time, many Utah Jazz fans have felt as though the team doesn’t get much respect from national media due to it being in a small market.
That has started to change in recent years as the Jazz have improved under head coach Quin Snyder, and during the first few days of July, many national media were singing Utah’s praises after it traded for Mike Conley in June and had a strong free-agency period, headlined by a four-year, $73 million deal for Bojan Bogdanovic.
“With (Mike) Conley and (Bojan) Bogdanovic aboard, Utah should not fall victim to the Twilight Zone shooting slumps that torpedoed them in recent playoff defeats. Bump up their shooting, and the Jazz could sniff the top five in points per possession. That two-way balance nudges them a hair above Houston and Denver.” — ESPN’s Zach Lowe
After ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski broke the news on June 30 that the Jazz had agreed to the deal with Bogdanovic, the floodgates opened with national experts speaking very highly of the new-look team. Utah was, at the very least, being hailed as contender to win the Western Conference, with some people saying the Jazz gave themselves a shot to win the NBA championship in what became a wide-open arms race with the decline of the Golden State Warriors.
A good deal of the hype surrounding Utah was tamped down on the night of July 5 when news broke that the L.A. Clippers had both agreed to acquire Paul George from the Oklahoma City Thunder via trade and sign free agent Kawhi Leonard. Suddenly, the Clippers moved to the top of the Western Conference hierarchy in many minds.
Since then, much of the talk has remained about the Jazz being a potential contender, but at this point most consider them to have an outside shot of winning the title rather than a legitimate one like many thought before L.A. made its moves.
The headline of an Aug. 5 piece by FiveThirtyEight NBA reporter Chris Herring, for example, reads, “The Jazz got a much-needed overhaul. But will it be enough?” and in the piece, Herring explores the potential tradeoff Utah was making by improving its offense while likely making its uniquely good defense worse (something that was borne out during the preseason).
“Some might feel that they’re robbing Peter to pay Paul with these moves,” Herring wrote.
As the season has gotten closer, many people have written forecasts with optimistic but measured thoughts about the Jazz. In an Oct. 4 piece, ESPN’s Zach Lowe listed Utah as one of his six “top title contenders,” although he wrote in part, “When healthy, the Clippers probably have the most complete postseason-ready roster.”
Of the Jazz, Lowe wrote in part, “With Conley and Bogdanovic aboard, Utah should not fall victim to the Twilight Zone shooting slumps that torpedoed them in recent playoff defeats. Bump up their shooting, and the Jazz could sniff the top five in points per possession. That two-way balance nudges them a hair above Houston and Denver.”
On the flip side, The Athletic’s John Hollinger, who recently returned to his writing career after seven years in the Memphis Grizzlies’ front office (he wrote for ESPN before that), is rather skeptical of Utah. In a piece previewing the Northwest Division, he wrote that the Jazz may have focused too much on fit over talent with their offseason moves, and he noted that there’s little in the way of NBA experience at the end of the bench.
He picked Utah to finish sixth in the West.
“Overall, the shaky depth likely suppresses Utah’s regular-season win total enough to deny it postseason home-court advantage,” Hollinger wrote. “But come playoff time, with the top seven players getting all the run, this team could be much more potent. At the very least, it won’t go down in a hailstorm of bricks like it did last year.”
Perhaps the most measured take came from NBA.com’s Shaun Powell, who concluded in a team preview of the Jazz, “If anything, Conley and Bogdanovic could be the missing pieces this team needs to travel a playoff round or two further next spring.”