Utah Jazz: Despite small-market status, the Jazz have gained league respect

While the Utah Jazz are typically an unrecognized team, this summer has proven that even small-market teams can gain national recognition.

The Utah Jazz have always been a team that is overlooked. Even during the dominant John Stockton and Karl Malone years. Obviously, they were a fantastic team who routinely competed with the best in the West, but many people thought they were kind of boring. They played hard-nosed defense, and they pick-and-rolled you to death. Nothing too sexy, but it got the job done.

The national media has typically not paid much attention to the Jazz unless they absolutely have to. Utah could dominate the Golden State Warriors in a regular season game (which actually happened multiple times last season), but the highlights on ESPN would still show more plays for the Warriors than the Jazz.

With that being the case, even the best Jazz players have typically been underrated across the league.

Heading into this upcoming season though, it seems like the Jazz are beginning to get the respect they deserve.

After a dominant second half last season and a trip to the second round of the playoffs, the Jazz have routinely been recognized and widely talked about this offseason. The chatter has been overwhelmingly positive as well.

Let’s start from the beginning shall we?

First the award recognition. While I think Rudy Gobert got snubbed from at least one of the All-NBA teams, I can understand that missing 26 games during the season likely knocked him out of the running. That said, he was still able to win Defensive Player of the Year. The was the first major end-of-season award that a Jazz player has won since Karl Malone was the MVP in 1999.

Donovan Mitchell and Quin Snyder were close behind him. Both finished second in their respective categories, and there’s a strong argument that both should have won. Jazz fans may be disappointed with the outcome, but not many teams had as much recognition at the league awards ceremony as the Jazz.

On top of that, Mitchell won the Breakthrough Athlete award at the ESPYs, and was voted as the Rookie of the Year by his peers.

As the summer has continued on, the recognition has continued for the Jazz and expectations have grown. The NBA released the schedule for this next season, and announced that the Jazz will not only have an increased number of nationally televised games (up from five to 11), but they will represent the entire NBA in Mexico City, and will be one of the few teams to play on Christmas Day.

Both of those games should be viewed as a huge honor. Only four teams in the entire NBA will be playing in Mexico City, which means the Jazz will be representing the entire NBA.

Like Thanksgiving for the NFL, Christmas has become the premier holiday for the NBA. The Jazz have not played on Christmas in 20 years, and they will be a part of one of the five games that day. It will also be played in Salt Lake, which is an added bonus for Jazz fans (I know what I want for Christmas this year).

After the schedule release came the predictions from some of the major publications and experts across the league. While the Vegas oddsmakers are predicting a similar finish to last season, 48.5 wins, many experts expect the Jazz to win 50-plus games.

Kevin Pelton, ESPN’s analytic guru, projected the Jazz to finish as the number two seed in the West. Those projections were developed using real plus/minus and his own minutes estimates. Shortly after his projections release, The Ringer ran an article pegging the Jazz as the second best team in the west as well.

Most recently, Sports Illustrated and the Crossover released their annual ranking of the top 100 players in the league. The Jazz were well represented on that list, with five players appearing in the top 60: Ricky Rubio (57), Joe Ingles (56), Derrick Favors (51), Mitchell (34) and Gobert (14).

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• 3 Utah Jazz players who have the most to gain or lose this season
• Former Utah Jazz forward Rudy Gay is a free agent still and it shouldn’t surprise anyone

Only five teams in the entire NBA had five players in the top 70. They were Golden State, Boston, Philadelphia, Denver and Utah. Only two teams had five players on the top 60: The Boston Celtics and the Utah Jazz.

With the season just around the corner, it’s hard not to be excited as a Jazz fan. This very well may be the most talented Jazz team since the Stockton-to-Malone era. They’re finally getting the national recognition that they deserve, and one can only hope that they can live up to the hype.

We are exactly one month away from the start of the season. In the words of Craig Bolerjack, “Buckle up!”