Utah Jazz Preseason Week One Outlook, Predictions

The Utah Jazz ought to get off to a fast start in their first week of the 2017-18 NBA Preseason where they’ll take on two international squads and the Phoenix Suns.

The 2017-18 Utah Jazz preseason tips off tonight as Utah will host the Sydney Kings out of Australia. Just as the Jazz will use this game as a primer to get ready for the real grind of the regular season, I figured it was about time I worked my way back into midseason form by re-initiating a weekly series I started last year giving a prognosis and prediction for each of Utah’s opponents during the week.

This first week of preseason play will be an interesting one as two of Utah’s three opponents are from outside of the NBA. On Monday they’ll host the aforementioned Sydney Kings, then they’ll go on to host Maccabi Haifa out of Israel on Wednesday. Although neither are NBA-caliber teams, they have enough legitimate talent that the Jazz will have to come into the games focused and prepared as both ought to provide a nice early test for this new-look Utah squad.

Then on Friday, the Jazz will begin their preseason slate against NBA squads with a match-up against the Phoenix Suns in Salt Lake City. Although the Suns have plenty of young and intriguing talent, they don’t figure to be too much of a threat in the Western Conference. Therefore, even though it’s a preseason bout, hopefully the Jazz will clearly prove themselves as the superior squad of the two.

Although it’s just preseason and none of these opponents stands out as being an overly competitive foe, the fact of the matter is that these games signal that Jazz basketball is back! And given the number of new and exciting faces the team will be rolling out, the Utah faithful ought to be thrilled to see their squad back in action and each of the following three contests should be a lot of fun.