The Utah Jazz are again in motion this week with the crew holding its annual media day on Monday and coaching camp starting on Tuesday.
Although we all know that the Jazz’s 2024-25 season will largely prioritize the event of the younger gamers on the roster and that the Jazz’s possibilities of accumulating sufficient victories to take part in an actual competitors are very slim, there’s nonetheless plenty of unknowns for Jazz. Jazz as we start the season.
So right this moment we will go over 5 questions for the Jazz, a few of which must be answered by the tip of the preseason and others which may take a bit of longer.
The place are the rookies and sophomores at with their video games?
In an effort to reply questions that can come up later, a baseline must be established for the younger gamers on this record.
The one exception right here is likely to be Keyonte George. He performed an enormous position final season and the pattern dimension is sufficient to perceive his start line forward of the 2024-25 NBA season. However the identical cannot actually be mentioned for the remainder of the younger individuals.
Taylor Hendricks, Brice Sensabaugh, Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier and Kyle Filipowski (together with two-way gamers Jason Preston and Oscar Tshiebwe) will battle throughout coaching camp and the preseason. And, by way of their play in preseason in addition to early alternatives within the common season, we are going to know the place they’re of their improvement based mostly on efficiency and data gathered from the Jazz teaching employees and entrance workplace .
All of this data up entrance will assist decide the reply to this subsequent query.
Who will play?
On condition that the Jazz enterprise is completely devoted and targeted on participant improvement this season, there’ll doubtless be better alternatives within the common rotation for the seven gamers on the roster who’re underneath the age of 23. However who will begin? Who will come off the bench? Who will see their position elevated? Will any of the younger gamers spend time within the G League?
There will probably be a opening day rotation that will probably be largely influenced by coaching camp and preseason performances, however there will probably be loads of room for adjustment this season and I would not be in any respect stunned if We have been seeing some extra veteran gamers come off the bench with the intention to make room for extra significant minutes for youthful gamers.
That being mentioned, there’ll nonetheless be battles.
What’s going to success appear like?
Success will not be decided by the Jazz’s wins and losses this season. There will probably be instances when profitable decision-making or different profitable actions lead to victory, however wins and losses is not going to be the barometer of success.
As a substitute, as soon as a participant baseline and rotation has been established, there will probably be small areas to concentrate to that can assist gamers succeed. For instance, Hendricks’ success might be creating a flair for navigating screens. Success for Williams is likely to be discovering methods to say himself when he is on the court docket with Lauri Markkanen. Collier’s success might be his taking pictures effectivity reaching league averages.
I am not saying these would be the actual objectives, however these are the form of small successes that will probably be actually significant as we see these younger gamers (and in some instances, literal youngsters) begin to change into legit NBA gamers. .
However this season is not simply concerning the younger gamers on the Jazz roster.
What’s subsequent for Lauri Markkanen?
An All-Star, the league’s most improved participant, a really profitable new long-term extension. These are all issues Markkanen has already completed. Now we’ve got to search out out what’s subsequent for the budding star.
We all know he continued to work on his isolation recreation and being aggressive whereas making an attempt to play extra of a management position. Is that this nonetheless what Markkanen is engaged on? Or is there extra to anticipate from his recreation?
Markkanen goes to be instrumental within the improvement of the Jazz’s younger gamers and he himself continues to be fairly younger, however he additionally wants to search out methods to proceed to develop whereas being in an ecosystem that can prioritize improvement.
Will the followers stay loyal to the crew?
To this point, I’ve no motive to imagine that Jazz followers are going to be hesitant in relation to supporting their crew. However we’re previous the times when the Jazz have been even making an attempt to fake they have been going to make the playoffs. They know they’ve a younger crew and that there’s an extremely gifted 2025 draft class that can entice many groups to play for a greater draft place.
Creating younger gamers just isn’t all the time fulfilling and is commonly arduous and irritating. For some individuals, it is an thrilling a part of the rebuild, however for different followers, they is likely to be turned off by a season by which wins actually do not matter.
