You have read previews from ESPN, CBSSports, SBNation, Basketball Insiders, Fansided, etc. Well they have nothing on this preview. We are going to give you an in depth look at aspects of the Utah Jazz that most aren’t looking at or refuse to look at. We’re not the lame-stream media. We’re the SLCDunk-stream media. Let’s get started.

Strengths

The Ability To Play 5 Players At The Same Time

Little known fact about Utah is their ability to have 5 players on the court at the same time. Most previews ignore this fact and go straight to how they play together. But let’s just take in the fact that Utah can put five NBA basketball players on the court at the same time per NBA rules.

Each team shall consist of five players. No team may be reduced to less than five players. - NBA Rulebook

This is absolutely huge. The disadvantages to having 4 players on the court is huge as evidenced by this bar graph:

As you can see if the Utah Jazz fell below the 5 player threshold the opposing team would have an extreme advantage. Who cares how good Golden State is? If the Utah Jazz didn’t start 5 guys at the beginning of the game they wouldn’t stand a chance. Unless it was against the Philadelphia 76ers who for the past 4 years have tried to start 0 NBA players a game to tank.

Timeouts

Have you ever tried to play basketball nonstop without taking a break? You get so tired. The fatigue of your body starts to overwhelm you and you begin to make mistakes. Luckily, for Utah, they have the ability to take timeouts. What’s a timeout you say? Well, remember when you were a kid and you would get in trouble and your mom would be like, “HEY STOP POISONING THE DOG. YOU’RE IN TIMEOUT.” Then you’d go to the corner and not be able to play for like 15 minutes? Well, imagine that, but good. You get to take a breather.

The Utah Jazz have six timeouts they can use in a game and two 20 second timeouts they can use, but unfortunately they haven’t mastered how to use two 20 second timeouts in a half. That’s 8 times they can take a break, get some Gatorade or water, talk to each other about what happened on “The Bachelor, then get back out there on the court and have a good time. After all, it’s for the love of the game that they play.

Sometimes the game gets really intense and the players don’t feel like saying anything. That’s where a good coach comes in. Quin Snyder is very respectful of that and has even just called timeout just so they could sit in silence and find their happy place. What a good guy.

Quin Snyder said, and the players confirmed, that for one full timeout, Quin just said nothing and stared at the players. It worked. — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) December 31, 2014

Weaknesses

Only Able to Use One Basketball

The Utah Jazz are still only able to use one basketball while playing with 5 players on the court. What good are timeouts and 5 players if you can only use one basketball? What are the other 4 players supposed to be doing while only one player dribbles the ball? THEY’RE STUCK WAITING FOR HIM TO PASS IT, THAT’S WHAT.

The Utah Jazz spent all off-season trying to master this fundamental, but screwed up big time in the execution. Evidently when you tell someone you need an extra ball on the court, they take it absolutely literal and put an extra ball on the court.

YOU HAD ONE JOB, SKYLER. ONE JOB.

So now the Utah Jazz are doomed to have to share one ball again and we saw how their offense struggled with only one ball. They were predictable. Every team knew whoever had the ball was going to score. Any team can gameplan against that. Do the Utah Jazz have LeBron? No? Then they need to be able to play with more than one basketball. That’s a weakness.

Not LeBron

No one on the Utah Jazz is LeBron James which is a shame. We got goaded into this rebuild thinking we’d get a superstar. Unfortunately, the more time that passes after they’re drafted the more we realize that they’re not going to be LeBron.

They go far into the negative so much so that they don’t have anything that resembles LeBron. Take Gordon Hayward for instance. He played the same position as LeBron but over time he started to become more like Captain America than he did LeBron. He got the haircut like Captain America, the muscles. But where was the Nike contract? LeBron got a Nike contract while Gordon Hayward got a professional gaming contract. That’s negative LeBron if I’ve ever seen it.

Key To The Season

Improve the ability to win when outscored

The Utah Jazz struggled to get wins when they were outscored. They did not win one game when they were outscored. It did not matter whether they were outscored by one point or multiple points they couldn’t get the job done when they were outscored.

What’s good is the Utah Jazz were not alone in not winning a single game they were outscored in. The entire league lost every game they were outscored in. But look at all those losses. The Utah Jazz lost 42 games last season, if they could have figured out a way just to win a couple of those games they were outscored in, they’re in the playoffs. Huge difference. If that happens we’re not having this discussion.

Prediction

My prediction is that the Utah Jazz will play in all of their 82 games this season. If they can play in all 82 of their games with 5 players on the court using timeouts, I think there’s a good chance they make the playoffs even if they can’t figure out how to use more than one basketball in a game and can’t figure out how to win even though they’re outscored.