Even Erik Spoelstra recognizes insanity of Utah Jazz schedule thus far

Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra offered some wise words about how difficult the Utah Jazz schedule has been thus far and how good they can still be.

The start of the 2018-19 season hasn’t gone nearly as swimmingly as Utah Jazz fans had hoped it would coming into the year. 29 games in, the Utah Jazz still find themselves below .500 at a mark of 14-15. Worse still than the record has been the fashion in which the Jazz have lost some of their games. A few have been major blowouts and Utah has largely struggled at home (just 5-6 on the year) where they’ve typically thrived.

Such results have led to some fans growing frustrated and highly concerned about their Jazz team. In some ways, they’re absolutely justified to do so. I won’t even try to argue the fact that Utah has looked downright awful in a number of contests.

However, in many other ways, the 14-15 mark isn’t nearly as bad as it may appear and actually isn’t all that far from reasonable expectations for the team. The reason I say so has entirely to do with how incredibly difficult the Utah Jazz schedule has been up to this point. Between constant travel, an endless string of daunting foes, disjointed scheduling of home games and the most road games of any team in the league up to this point, the start of the ’18-19 season has been a gauntlet.

I covered my thoughts on such in detail for your reading pleasure in the link in the tweet below, but believe me when I tell you that the discrepancy between Utah’s schedule and that of the rest of the NBA has been insane.

And it’s not just Utah homers or in-depth analytics that feel that way. Classifying the Jazz schedule as ridiculously hard is nothing but fact, after all. But in case you were looking for perhaps a potentially less biased opinion on Utah’s start, look no further than the comments from Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra.

With his squad in town on Wednesday to take on the Jazz, Spoelstra had the following to say about Utah’s 2018-19 season thus far–

"“With Utah, I just think everybody’s overlooking something that nobody wants to hear about: Their schedule has been outrageous. They’ve basically lived in a hotel for the first six weeks of the season. Come talk to me in two months and we’ll see what their record is. I think they’ll be climbing up that Western Conference pretty quickly.”"

That’s some awesome praise from a guy who’s acclaimed as one of the wisest and most experienced coaching minds in the game. There’s really two big things that stand out to me there.

First, his describing of the schedule as “outrageous”. There’s really no other way to put it. And while setting up an 82-game schedule for 30 teams is an unenviable task, you almost have to wonder what the schedulers were thinking. I know that life isn’t fair, but this early stretch feels about as unjust as could be for any team.

Secondly, I love how he stated that he believes the Jazz will be climbing up the Western Conference standings quickly. In other words, he knows what we should already know (even if recent play has made it easy to forget), that the Utah Jazz are a formidable squad that shouldn’t be trifled with. They shot up the standings in the latter part of last year, and once this ‘outrageous’ schedule eases up, it’s very much reasonable to believe that they’ll do so again.

A 14-15 mark and 12th in the West isn’t where anyone hoped the Jazz would be at this point. But all things considered, it’s not a bad spot at all. As Spoelstra so succinctly pointed out, the Jazz are a much better team than their record shows, but their full capability has been clouded by an overwhelmingly ridiculous schedule that has had them on the road and basically living out of various hotels.

That’s not a fun situation for anybody, even incredible NBA athletes. The Jazz aren’t crying ‘woe is me’ or making excuses, but the fact of the matter is that their early struggles can definitely be attributed to the rough schedule.

I hope that Erik Spoelstra’s words will serve as yet another wake-up call to Jazz fans that all is far from lost and that this team is in a better spot than they appear. If an opposing head coach still feels the Jazz are a top squad that will soon climb the standings, that should instill confidence in their fanbase as well.

I agree with his analysis one hundred percent. The start of the season has been challenging, but the rest of the league better watch out. It won’t be long before the Utah Jazz start to really take the league by storm and prove just what a formidable squad they are.