Utah Jazz: What is a realistic win total?
Through all the ups and downs of the Utah Jazz season, lots of the major questions have already been answered. However, perhaps the most important of the bunch still remains – how many games can the Jazz win and what playoff seed can they clinch?
Heading into the Utah Jazz’s first season without their All-Star Gordon Hayward, the team faced a plethora of unknowns. One of the key questions was whether or not Derrick Favors and Alec Burks could return to their old selves.
The answer on that one was a resounding yes.
Another question: is Donovan Mitchell really as good as advertised? No. He’s a lot better.
Finally, can the Jazz’s offense survive without their leading scorer and primary option? As evidenced by Utah’s recent six-game win streak, that one is also a yes.
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Those three positives have been huge components to the overall works of building a really solid 2017-18 campaign. Sadly, there were two more unknowns that haven’t gone the way of the Jazz so far, and it’s starting to look like they never will; can Ricky Rubio fit in Quin Snyder’s system? And can the Jazz finally stay healthy?
The answer to both questions is a resounding no. But despite Rubio’s horrible inefficiency and injuries to Dante Exum, Rodney Hood, Rudy Gobert, Joe Johnson and Raul Neto, the Jazz have got themselves to an impressive 13-12 record heading into a murderous stretch.
The major story in the Western Conference playoff race hasn’t been about the Jazz. Instead, the talk is about the Denver Nuggets struggling after losing Paul Millsap for the foreseeable future, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s big three failing to get on the same page, the bottom falling out on the LA Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies and the lack of connectivity in Minnesota.
After all, the ‘stacked’ Western Conference has not lived up to the hype, and the Jazz are looking to take full advantage. At the start of the season, it looked as though 44 wins were necessary if you hoped to scrape into the postseason as the eighth seed. Now, however, 44 wins may be good enough for the sixth seed.
Looking at the Western Conference standings right now, I feel comfortable in saying that there are six teams that have no hope of making the playoffs; the Dallas Mavericks, Sacramento Kings, Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies.
So the Jazz are one of nine teams vying for eight playoff spots. The Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs also look firmly locked in as the top three.
In the middle tier, we have the Minnesota Timberwolves, Portland Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, our Utah Jazz, the New Orleans Pelicans and Oklahoma City Thunder. These six teams are all facing a similar amount of adversity in very different ways, and when all is said and done, a few games could be all that separates the bunch. So it’s going to be very closely contested the entire way.
Utah Jazz
FiveThirtyEight takes a series of variables into account in determining the chance of teams to win individual games and predict their overall records. They have the Utah Jazz finishing the season with 45 wins and the sixth seed in the West. This is a very nice place to be indeed.
They also have the eighth-seeded New Orleans Pelicans winning 43 games and the fourth-seeded Timberwolves winning 48 games. So there isn’t much breathing room if the Jazz are to encounter more unexpected challenges as dropping just two more games could see them fall from the playoff picture entirely. But they also aren’t too far away from gaining home court advantage in their first-round matchup.
At the beginning of the year, I picked the Jazz as winners of 46 games, and after the injury bug has once again chewed through Utah’s locker room, I have the Jazz winning 44 games this season, which I believe is good enough for the seventh seed and a trip to Houston in the first round.
The sixth seed this season could be also be quite valuable if the Spurs can’t get healthy by the season’s end.
Next: Utah Jazz: Let’s just say it, it’s time for Ricky Rubio to hit the bench
So, with George Hill and Gordon Hayward leaving in free agency, another outbreak of injuries and the odds seemingly stacked against them once again, the Jazz are in a great position not only to make the playoffs, but to have a chance at winning a series as the sixth seed (by FiveThirtyEight).