HOW FAR CAN THEY GO?

The Utah Jazz has been one of the most consistent teams of these last few years. With multiple postseason appearances, they’re always a dangerous team to matchup when you meet them in the playoffs, and will keep being for the time given. But is that enough for the franchise and Jazz fans in general? The NBA is a tough league, where 90% of the teams stay irrelevant for a quite large amount of time, however, the team from Salt Lake City has remained competitive since their glory days with Karl Malone and John Stockton, be it with the Deron Williams/Carlos Boozer combo or currently with Donovan Mitchell/Rudy Gobert. Credit to the Utah Jazz scouting department for being able to spot some gems on late draft positions, as Rudy Gobert, one of the best centers in the league was selected with the 27th pick, and Mitchell, a potential franchise player, with the 13th. With this being said, how can the Jazz elevate themselves to championship calibre?



OFFSEASON ACQUISTIONS AND THEIR CURRENT STATE

Quin Snyder’s team was very active during the best offseason of all time. Multiple star players changed teams, be it from free agency or via trade. It really was a crazy 3-month span. Even though they didn’t acquire one of those referred stars, the moves they made were perfect to build an even more complete squad than they had. Ricky Rubio is a very good player, but his experiment in Utah seemed to have come to a conclusion. He went on to sign with the Phoenix Suns, while the Jazz traded Jae Crowder, Kyle Korver, Grayson Allen and two draft picks for a proven quality point guard in Mike Conley. The income of Conley would free Donovan Mitchell to more off-ball duties, freeing him of the burden to carry Utah’s offense every single night. The spacing they had was another problem they faced every single night, especially on the postseason, where teams carefully plan the games. So what did Utah’s front office did? They signed Bojan Bogdanovic, who had a terrific year in Indiana, to a 4-year $73 million deal, letting go of Derrick Favors, who made his way to the New Orleans Pelicans.



The additions of Conley and Bogdanovic were supposed to fix some major flaws the team was presenting the previous year, but as it looks like for now, it didn’t elevate their level to championship contender. Yes, I know it’s still early in the season, and the Jazz are improving as time goes by, but even though the playoffs are a different beast than the regular season, the Mike Conley experience has gone south as well so far, while Bogdanovic is thriving in his new role with the team. If Conley could somehow get back to his old level and blend right in as Bogdanovic, all Western Conference teams wouldn’t want any business with the Jazz by April. But do they wait for the former Grizzlies guard to regain his confidence and get back in form or do they test the market with the player? His contract is one of the biggest in the league, so a trade that benefits Utah should be hard to find. Unlike the Rockets, where you know what you’re going to get every single postseason, the potential this Jazz team has is tremendous. Donovan Mitchell is still growing, even if he’s undoubtedly an All-Star player already. The same could be said about Gobert. Quin Snyder is an underrated coach, with a very good system surrounding the team. Can they compete with the top teams in the league? Of course they do. Do they have what it takes yet to go all the way? Probably not. Even so, it will be interesting to see what Utah can do until the trade deadline and if they indeed stick with the same roster, how veteran players like Conley will respond when the playoffs arrive.