With a revamped roster and internal improvement, the Utah Jazz have a lot to prove this year. Here’s a look at the best and worst case scenario for each player currently on the roster heading into 2016-17.
The Utah Jazz had themselves a surprisingly good offseason; so much so that the national media has taken notice. A recent CBS Sports article even ranked the Jazz as having the fifth-best starting lineup in the league.
While this may seem unrealistically high for a team that failed to qualify for the playoffs last season and really only added one new starter in George Hill, there’s still no doubting that the Jazz have a lot of potential this year to become something great.
Utah’s new additions, Joe Johnson, Boris Diaw and the aforementioned George Hill should all provide a major boost in the team’s depth and performance.
However, the main deciding factor in just how high the Jazz can climb in the standings this year will likely be the level of individual improvement we see from each of Utah’s young core, i.e. Dante Exum, Rodney Hood, Alec Burks, Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert.
Of course, health will play a large role in each player reaching their ceiling. In many ways, 2015-16 was a disappointment for Favors, Gobert and Burks (and of course Exum, who missed the entire season) but each of them has shown what they are capable of when healthy and logging significant minutes.
Nevertheless, it will no longer be good enough for these players to perform at the same level they have over the past couple years. If the Jazz truly hope to make a splash this year, there will have to be significant improvement and advancement from each of them as they grow closer to becoming the complete players that we’ve only seen flashes of at this point.
While healthy returns and individual improvement will be huge contributing factors to the Jazz’s success, the newcomers’ ability to adapt and jive on a new roster will be critical as well.
With all of that being said, let’s take a look at the best and worst-case scenarios for each Jazz player on the roster entering the 2016-17 season and how their success/disappointment will effect the team.
One disclaimer: Although I do believe the Jazz have a handful of players with All-Star potential, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m saying that they will produce multiple All-Stars this season or that all the best-case scenarios could play out on one team.
It would be ideal for each player to reach their ultimate best case scenario and turn the Jazz into a superpower, but it’s more likely that only a select few will do so. The others will realistically finish somewhere between their worst and best case scenarios.
Now that that’s out of the way, here we go!
Next: Gordon Hayward