Despite Thursday’s win over the Los Angeles Lakers, the Utah Jazz and their fans are in the midst of one of the team’s most frustrating stretches in a long time as the 2022 playoffs approach, and emotions for many are running high.
To add to it, ESPN on Wednesday released the latest installment in an occasional series it calls NBA Future Power Rankings, and have the Jazz pegged at No. 13 out of 30 teams, which is as low as they’ve been since Quin Snyder took over as head coach in 2014.
Here’s how the rankings work: The question of how each team will fare over the next three seasons is asked, and then the 30 teams are ranked from top to bottom in five categories — players (the current players on the roster), management, money (their salary cap situation), market and draft (how much draft capital they have in the coming years).
The teams are then given a corresponding score for each category, and then an additional Future Power Rating of 0 to 100, based on how well we expect it to perform over the next three seasons.
The Jazz rank as follows:
- 11th in players
- 11th in management
- 27th in money
- Tied for 21st in market (with the New Orleans Pelicans)
- Tied for 25th in draft (with the Milwaukee Bucks)
- Future Power Rating of 55.3
Wrote ESPN’s Kevin Pelton: “With questions looming about the future of their Rudy Gobert-Donovan Mitchell-Quin Snyder core, the Jazz drop out of the top 10 for the first time since 2014.
“Utah still has a talented-enough roster to rank fourth in point differential, but changes could be in store if the Jazz fall flat in the playoffs. Utah has all but tapped out its financial and draft resources, making improvement difficult, and it’s unclear how power is distributed in an organization with numerous strong voices.”
In the last Future Power Rankings published in October of last year, the Jazz were No. 8, ranked fifth in players, 10th in management, 24th in money, tied for 22nd in market and 26th in draft with a Future Power Rating of 63.
The Memphis Grizzlies top the latest rankings.