When our readers voted on teams’ win totals for the 2022/23 season in September, the Jazz were given an over/under of 25.5 wins and voters overwhelmingly took the “under” on that number. After trading away Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Royce O’Neale in the offseason, Utah was considered one of the frontrunners in the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes, with a good chance to be a bottom-five team in the NBA.
Instead, three weeks into the regular season, the Jazz hold the top spot in the Western Conference, with their 9-3 record putting them a full game ahead of Phoenix, Denver, and Portland, all of whom are 7-3.
And it’s not as if Utah has been beating up on fellow lottery-bound teams. The Jazz have road wins in Minnesota, New Orleans, and Los Angeles (over both the Lakers and Clippers). They’ve beaten Memphis twice and Denver once, and they’re undefeated (5-0) at home.
As Ryan McDonald of The Deseret News notes, the Jazz’s offense has been one of the NBA’s best, ranking third in the league in points per 100 possessions. And that offensive production is coming from newcomers and incumbents alike.
Lauri Markkanen and Collin Sexton, acquired in the Mitchell blockbuster, are two of the team’s top three scorers, with Markkanen (21.9 PPG) leading the way. Jordan Clarkson (18.3 PPG on .444/.421/.731 shooting) and Mike Conley (12.5 PPG, 7.5 APG, .426 3PT%) have also been important contributors, with Kelly Olynyk, Malik Beasley, and Jarred Vanderbilt playing key roles too.
According to Tony Jones of The Athletic, the fact that the Jazz are having some success instead of bottoming out in the early part of the season hasn’t come as a surprise to Utah players, who believed there was still plenty of talent on the revamped roster.
“We just kind of looked around (in training camp) and said we’re not anything what they say we are,” Conley said. “We have too many good players to tank. We knew from day one. This wasn’t a rebuild. We told ourselves that we aren’t that bad, and the guys locked in on that. We had a collective belief system and we knew we had a chance to have a good start.”
“Mike was preaching that to us,” Sexton told Jones. “It gave us a lot of confidence. Plus, there were so many people writing us off that we wanted to come out and play with a chip on our shoulders.”
Conley, who describes the Jazz as “gritty and mean and carefree at the same time,” joked to Tim MacMahon of ESPN that if the front office wants to lose, “They’ve got to get rid of me too.” While the veteran guard made the statement in jest, it raises an interesting question: What’s next for the NBA’s most surprising team?
If CEO Danny Ainge, general manager Justin Zanik, and Jazz management are committed to securing a top pick in the 2023 draft, perhaps more moves could be coming — Clarkson and Conley are the returning veterans who are the most obvious trade candidates, and it’s possible the team could flip some of the newly added pieces, such as Olynyk and Beasley.
But continuing the roster teardown would risk upsetting the positive culture and chemistry that new head coach Will Hardy and the new Jazzmen are building in Utah. Perhaps the front office will look at the roster, recognize there’s still not enough talent there to make the Jazz a legitimate contender this season, and count on the team coming down to earth on its own after a hot start.
Remaining in the play-in mix for the rest of the season could create some positive vibes heading into 2023/24 while still putting the team in position to land a pick in the top half of what should be a deep 2023 draft.
We want to know what you think. How real is this 9-3 start in Utah? Can the Jazz be a playoff team this season? Should they stick to their offseason plan and keep selling, or is standing pat (or even exploring buying) the right call at this point?
Head to the comment section below to weigh in with your thoughts!
I mean it’s awkward that they’re doing well – it was all but explicit that tanking was the name of the game. Despite receiving Sexton and Markkanen in the trade it was assumed they’d be nothing more than ineffective, volume scorers.
Are they good enough to build around? It seems so.
If you ask a GM if they’d take two lottery picks and a supporting cast of Beasley, Clarkson, Conley and Olynyk and end up with top seed in the West they’d all bite your hand off. It seems the league is always onto the ‘next big thing’.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m not surprised that they’ve been good. I’m surprised at /how/ good, at least a little, but I predicted that Markkanen, Vanderbilt, Sexton, and THT would be a decent young core. Having contributions from Conley, Clarkson, Beasley, and Olynyk are icing. But they have too many good shooters to be truly awful and Vanderbilt is already a very good defender who can anchor them. Are they a contender? Nah, probably not. But I do think they’re a roughly .500 team when the season ends even if they just hold this group together.
Utah should move off of some veterans.
I expect they can sell a trade of Conley + Clarkson + Bolmaro for Westbrook + 2 First-Rounders (or 1 + cash?) to their fan-base.
Maybe even add Olynyk and Alexander-Walker for Nunn, Schroder, Bryant and Christie (with a third team in the mix?).
Utah gets two first rounders and a way to improve their tanking/Wembanyama chances, keeping their younger core intact. Afte a buy-out of Westbrook hopefully mentality stays ok.
Lakers would add some three point shooting, get a good traded player exception but would have more players under contract next year and lose those picks. But luckily they don’t want to sign Kyrie anymore next year or this one.
Oddly the same thing happened in Boston when they traded out their core. They picked up some guys (Thomas + crowder) and made it to the conference finals with a bunch of
Young guys. Danny seems to know what he’s doing and at this point in time unless they drop in the standings you can’t tank.
They’ll be 9-4 after tonight. I love watchin em but i def don’t see em being a top6 team in the West after 82gms. And winning a road play-in game seems unlikely too. I def think they should keep Conley. He’s perfect for this team on numerous levels. Clarkson could get em something at the deadline tho. Obv no need to make any moves until the deadline tho as the squad has gelled extremely well early. But teams like the Hawks are gonna destroy them in the paint. Expect a bunch of floaters & dunks tonight at the Farm
Clarkson to SAS for Josh Richardson & LAL’s 2024 2nd & SAS’s 2026 2nd would be perfect for both teams. Spurs get to throw some positivity into their currently dismal mix by picking up a local hero who can inject some scoring when they need it, esp in the 4th. They could give him a longterm deal this summer. Jazz get a couple of 2nds & they get Clarkson’s contract off next season
You must’ve meant to type They’ll be 10-3 after tonight.
You’ll have to pardon Sankara if he doesn’t respond immediately. He’s dining on a plate of crow.
It’s a very real start and it’s going to stay that way. Many teams in the west will struggle to win 50 games this year. It’s Dallas, Phoenix and…
Dump the veterans for whom? They tried their best coming into the season and got zilch. The scenarios that stopped any from happening didn’t change.
The Jazz are upside down with all those draft picks. They should get more??
Fair play to the Jazz. If they keep going the value of Vanderbilt, Lauri, THT & Sexton will be sky high. Move one or two later in the season along with the valuable vets in Clarkson, Conley & Olynk. Sit the other young talented guys that they keep, and may do a little too well post deadline and race to the bottom like OKC love to do and let the 0-20 end of year tank come.
I still see them being bottom 8 come season end. And they have the value in players to gain even more assets or even trade higher if they’re unlucky.
I think they are for real.
It’s unsustainable, Jazz are shooting out of their minds right now. Even Rudy Gay is looking like a 30m sharpshooter. If they’d made 5 less 3’s each game they’d be .500 at best. It’s classic overachieving post massive upending trades. And pride over being repeatedly labeled a ‘tanking’ team that’s bonding them. That said, there is a lot of good young talent and they are setting themselves up to be good for multiple seasons. But no they won’t be this hot anymore than the Warriors or Clippers will be this cold ALL season. They shouldn’t alter their long term plan.
Umm, “sharpshooter” Rudy Gay is shooting .240 from deep this season.
The team as a whole is 37.2% from deep which places them at 11th in the the league. While they’re hitting 3s at a good rate 37.2 isn’t exactly lights out and should be sustainable.
Clarkson and Olynyk are the positive outliers at .421 and .588 respectively while Markkanen at .297 is well below his career average of .362. As those players regress to the means they will probably come close to evening each other out.
As far as tanking at this point the Jazz should just see where they’re at around 40 games in then decide whether to tank or push. A .14 shot at Wemby isn’t worth tanking when you have enough picks and assets to make the team better and add pieces for a run if needed.
The 14% chance at a top pick is not desirable.
Anyone who thinks that is the path to success had no team or history to point to.
Losing to get a high draft pick is a losing strategy that has not created wins, does not create championships, and will not create a winner.
Kudos to the Jazz for playing hard.
They are getting a ton of assists, more than this team saw in the last decade.
Team play is fun to watch.
I knew they were going to be good this whole time. When the Jazz gave up basically their entire team which basically beat the grizzlies 5 out of the 6 games they played in the playoffs for Gobert I thought it was a trade rape. It really showed how badly Minnesota wanted to make a move and how damaging it can be for a franchise to blow a playoff series.
For Gobert, they got Malik Beasley who averages 20, Jared Vanderbilt who I love defensively, Patrick Beverley who they flipped for THT and Stanley Johnson and a ton of picks. Not to mention Mitchell, who gave them Markkanen, who was the 7th pick and an absolute monster in college. People thought that this was the season he was supposed to be having in Chicago. All in all, they have immense talent, and it’s really good to see Clarkson finally getting the starting role he has deserved for years.