Utah Jazz basketball is underway and we now have a few weeks of information to process what is fact versus what is fiction early on in the season.
The Utah Jazz have made it through 10 games of the season with a .500 record, and in that time we have been able to gain some valuable insight on the team and franchise. There have been both highs and lows early on.
The season started off on a high note when they stormed back from a 15-point third quarter deficit to take a 16-point fourth quarter lead on their way to beat the Nuggets. They were also able to dominate an exciting Oklahoma City Thunder team and won an overtime thriller against Portland Trail Blazers.
We’ve also seen glimpses of the future through Donovan Mitchell, including an early Dunk of the Year Candidate.
If you're wondering what Donovan Mitchell's future looks like.. this happened in 90 seconds. And 1, Dunk of the Year, 3 pointer,draws charge pic.twitter.com/FbDQtVCOSX
— Dave Noriega (@davenoriega) October 29, 2017
So far, Rudy Gobert has continued to look like a Top 5 Center in the league, Joe Ingles is on pace to shoot 50 percent from three and Ekpe Udoh looks like a steal in free agency and could challenge Gobert as the shot block leader on this team.
They’ve had low points as well, as they lost in embarrassing fashion to the Los Angeles Clippers and the Phoenix Suns in back-to-back games. Most recently, they surrendered 137 points to the Houston Rockets, and allowed James Harden to score a career high 56 points on only 25 shots.
On the flip side, Rodney Hood is apparently made out of glass and has struggled with consistency as the lead man, the doubts about our offense coming into the season may be true and Ricky Rubio is struggling to find his place in Quin Snyder’s offense.
It’s hard to determine what is real versus what is just an early season slump. So, I went through all the numbers and looked for outliers. Areas where they are either ranked in the top 5 or the bottom 5 in the league. We’re going to take a deeper look to try to sort the fact from the fiction for this Utah Jazz team.