Utah Jazz On The Rise In 2016-17

The Utah Jazz were supposed to make the leap into the playoffs last season. Never happened. A year later, the Jazz are primed to rise towards the top of the Western Conference.

For years, the climb from being a lottery team in the Western Conference to a playoff team has been a long, arduous one.

That climb has been an impossible task without the addition of a superstar from within, just ask the Golden State Warriors.

Without adding a superstar, or even having an All-Star on the roster, the Utah Jazz are primed to make the jump … not just into the playoffs. Not just for an eighth seed, but for a top-four seed in the Western Conference.

The Jazz came this close to sneaking into the eighth seed last season, finishing one game behind the Houston Rockets, a seeding that was determined on the last night of the NBA’s regular season.

All of this despite having one of the worst point guard situations in the league, having two regular rotation players older than 25 and injury issues preventing them from ever clicking.

Before last season, Dante Exum, the fifth pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, tore his ACL and ended his second season before it started. Sixth man Alec Burks was limited to only 31 games due to fracturing his left fibula and undergoing surgery to repair that fibula.

Starters Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert appeared in 62 and 61 games, respectively.

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The injuries never allowed the team to gel, limiting their four-man unit of

Gordon Hayward

Rodney Hood

, Favors, and Gobert to

45 games together

In those games, the Jazz still only stumbled to a 23-22 record, per NBA.com/stats. This is due largely to the players outside of that foursome. Burks missed 51 games, crippling a bench unit that desperately needed his scoring (91.0 points per 100 possessions for Jazz bench last season).

Getting Burks and Exum back will undoubtedly help the Jazz’s depth, assuming that Burks is at full capacity and that Exum is a capable rotation player.

Perhaps even more importantly, the Jazz will have a real NBA starting point guard this season in George Hill.

In 2015-16, the Jazz point guards were so bad that Shelvin Mack, who couldn’t get on the floor for regular minutes for the Atlanta Hawks and was acquired for a future second-rounder, proved to be the savior and a massive upgrade over the combination of Raul Neto and since-departed Trey Burke.

This season, Mack likely enters the season for the Jazz as the third-string point guard behind George Hill and Exum.

Giving the four-man lineup of Hayward, Hood, Favors, and Gobert a legitimate starting point guard who can shoot three-pointers (40.8 percent last season) and defend.

The trade that netted Hill was a great one for the Jazz, who gave up the 12th overall pick in a three-team deal involving the Hawks and Pacers.

The Jazz had a glaring need at point guard and with the 12th overall pick and a free agency class that lacked clear-cut starting-caliber point guards, the Jazz landed their starter, who should fit perfectly with Utah’s existing core.

Hill isn’t the traditional ball-dominant point guard who brings the ball up, dominates the ball and creates for others. Hill played off-the-ball for much of his time with the Pacers, deferring to more ball-dominant players like Paul George, Lance Stephenson, and Monta Ellis.

This is a good fit because the Jazz have Hayward and Burks, two players who are at their best with the ball in their hands.

Hill’s shooting will be much-appreciated in Utah, who play a more traditional NBA lineup with bigs Favors and Gobert manning the paint.

The Jazz are reminiscent of the Indiana Pacers teams of the early 2010s that competed with LeBron James‘ Miami Heat teams for Eastern Conference supremacy. Gobert is the league’s elite rim protector like Roy Hibbert was for those Pacers.

Favors is in the David West role of traditional power forward who scores in and around the paint, Hayward is a two-way wing in the mold of a Paul George. Just as those Pacers made their mark by playing power basketball and playing defense first, so will this Jazz team.

Hill wasn’t the only solid addition to the Jazz this offseason.

The Jazz also added Joe Johnson in free agency and stole Boris Diaw from the Spurs in exchange for the rights to Olivier Hanlon, 2015 second-round draft pick.

The Spurs needed to dump Diaw’s contract in order to sign Pau Gasol and the Jazz seized the opportunity to pick up the uniquely versatile Diaw.

The depth issues are no longer an issue for the Jazz, with a Hill, Hood, Hayward, Favors and Gobert starting lineup with Burks, Johnson, Diaw, Trey Lyles, Joe Ingles and Mack on the bench.

With Hayward, Hood, Burks, and Johnson, the Jazz have four wings who are capable of starting for many teams, and all of them can create offense for themselves or for others.

The Jazz found their identity as a defensively-focused team in 2014-15 after trading Enes Kanter and replacing him with Gobert.

The change sparked a late season surge that showed Gobert’s potential, averaging 11.1 points, 13.4 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks per game as the team went 19-10 after the All-Star break.

Gobert didn’t grow much in his first full season as a starter last year, going for 9.1 points, 11 rebounds, and 2.2 blocks per game.

But Gobert brings elite rim protection, ranking second in the NBA in Defensive Box Plus/Minus last season according to Basketball-Reference.com and finishing seventh in the Defensive Player of the Year voting despite only playing 61 games.

As long as Gobert is on the court and protecting the rim with his massive seven-feet eight-and-a-half-inch reach, the Jazz will likely be one of the league’s best defensive teams.

Derrick Favors is one of the most underappreciated players in the league, averaging more than 16 points and eight rebounds while shooting no less than 51.5 percent in each of the last two seasons.

Favors has a solid post game and beats smaller defenders in the post, a necessity to neutralize teams who play small.

The 23-year old Hood took strides last year in a larger role, averaging 14.5 points in 79 starts. Hood fits the prototype of being a “3-and-D” wing player who can defend multiple positions while spacing the floor offensively.

Hayward is the closest thing that the Jazz have to a star player. You could make the argument that Hayward is a star, with numbers that compare only with household names and All-Stars.

Due to injuries, Hayward was forced to play a role larger than the Jazz probably would’ve liked, but he handled it as well as anyone could expect him to.

In a lesser role with a more talented supporting cast, expect Hayward to be more efficient in this upcoming season.

Now that Kevin Durant is with the Warriors, the Western Conference now appears to be a one-team conference, with a few other teams fighting for second.

The Thunder lost Durant and their current status is unknown. The Spurs lost much depth this offseason and are another year older. The Clippers failed to add any game-changing players. The Blazers overachieved last season and added only Evan Turner as an impact player.

The Mavericks seem primed for another near .500 season.

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Perhaps more than any of those teams, the Jazz are the best-equipped team to go against the Warriors. On paper, nobody stands a chance against the Warriors and I’m not at all saying that the Jazz are going to beat the Warriors or are better than the Warriors. That’s just insane.

However, if you were to make a blueprint to beat the Warriors, the Jazz have many of the pieces you’d want.

The Jazz have multiple wings who they can throw at the Warriors. Gobert led the league in field goal percentage allowed at the rim (41.0 percent per Nylon Calculus) last season.

Although the Warriors are famous for their ability to shoot from the outside, cutting off the lane and preventing cutters from easy baskets helps tremendously when slowing down the Warriors.

Favors can bully smaller defenders in the paint as a way to make up for his lack of wing athleticism. You could argue that Diaw was the prototype for Draymond Green‘s style of play as a shorter, wider, more versatile big man.

There is no five-man unit in the league that can match up with the Warriors on paper, but the Jazz possess roster versatility to combat the Warriors, or any other team, and play different styles.

The Jazz are in excellent position to make their leap into the conversation in the better half of the Western Conference playoff race.

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With a roster that’s filled with young players who have yet to hit their prime, the Jazz are set for long-term success that should begin sooner rather than later.

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Utah Jazz: A Team On The Rise

By Cameron Stewart | Jul 12, 2016

The Utah Jazz were supposed to make the leap into the playoffs last season. Never happened. A year later, the Jazz are primed to rise towards the top of the Western Conference.

More from Hoops Habit