Last year, the Utah Jazz were basically two different teams: the Pre-Enes Kanter Trade Jazz and the Post-Enes Kanter Trade Jazz. Before Utah shipped off Kanter to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Jazz were a young but promising team that was failing to live up to expectations, posting a 19-34 record and getting outscored by 2.4 points on a nightly basis.

After the Enes Kanter trade, however, the Jazz became the stingiest defense in the league by a margin wider than three Mark Eatons, boasting a 19-10 record and outscoring opponents by an average of 5.0 points per game. It was an overnight turnaround that has a lot of people buying into this team’s playoff potential in 2015-16.

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Dante Exum‘s devastating ACL tear — a non-contact injury — will prevent Utah from realizing its full potential next season, but the Jazz will still be in the mix for a playoff spot in the loaded Western Conference. Even with Exum out, fans should feel confident that the development of such a young, moldable team is in head coach Quin Snyder’s capable hands.

With a young core featuring Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors, destroyer-of-all-things-at-the-rim Rudy Gobert and Rodney Hood, not to mention the return of Alec Burks, the Jazz have a promising season ahead of them and an even brighter long-term future.

2014-15 Vitals

38-44, 3rd in Northwest Division, 10th in Western Conference

95.1 PPG (26th)/94.9 OPPG (1st)

105.1 Offensive Rating (17th)/104.9 Defensive Rating (14th)

Team Leaders

Scoring: Gordon Hayward, 19.3 PPG

Rebounding: Rudy Gobert, 9.5 RPG

Assists: Trey Burke, 4.3 APG

Steals: Gordon Hayward, 1.4 SPG

Blocks: Rudy Gobert, 2.3 BPG

Honors

N/A