Prediction: Utah Jazz will be in eighth spot in West by Saturday night

It won’t be easy, but the Utah Jazz have an excellent chance to find themselves in eighth place in the West by the conclusion of this upcoming week.

It’s been a roller coaster year for the Utah Jazz so far. They’ve had both some incredibly impressive performances as well as some complete duds that has made their 20-20 record as confusing at it has been disappointing.

For the longest time, the Jazz simply couldn’t find a way to get back to .500 until they finally did so with an impressive road win in Detroit on Saturday night. Donovan Mitchell had one of his best performances of the season after a terribly slow start, and in all, the team looked passionate and connected.

And personally, I think that’s a sign of good things to come. In fact, I’m feeling so good about the Jazz after last week’s pair of victories, that I’m ready to go out and make a bold declaration – the Utah Jazz will be in eighth place in the West by this upcoming Saturday night.

Currently, Utah is just a mere game behind the Los Angeles Lakers, who have begun to plummet down the standings due to injury to LeBron James. Since their Christmas Day victory over the Golden State Warriors in which James got hurt, the Lakers are just 1-5, and are fresh off an embarrassing 22-point defeat to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday.

And not only do the Jazz have a great chance to leapfrog them considering that the two teams will play one another on Friday, but one look at the two teams’ schedules is enough to feel pretty confident that Utah will surpass them.

The Jazz begin this upcoming week in Milwaukee, which will be a challenge that I actually have going down as a loss. But from there, Utah faces Orlando, Los Angeles most likely without the injured LeBron, then the Chicago Bulls all at home. Meanwhile, the Lakers visit the Dallas Mavericks and host the Detroit Pistons before visiting the Jazz on Friday.

Neither the Mavs nor the Pistons are the most formidable of foes, but considering how poorly the Lakers have played without James, I’m feeling quite confident that the Lakers will drop at least one of those games, if not both, as well as the contest in Salt Lake City. Therefore, while I have the Jazz going 3-1 in this upcoming week, I’d be shocked to see the Lakers do any better than 1-2.

If it does indeed play out that way, then on Saturday night following the conclusion of the Jazz-Bulls game, the Jazz will be at 23-21 whereas the Lakers will be at 22-21, putting Utah a half-game ahead for eighth place.

I suppose it should be noted that the Jazz will also need to out-perform the ninth place Sacramento Kings who trail them by only half a game, but even if Sacramento matches the record I’ve predicted for Utah by going 3-1, the Jazz will still have the edge. The Kings may very well do just that, as they face the Magic, Suns, Pistons and Hornets this week. But as up and down as the Kings have been, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did slightly worse.

Still, the Kings and Lakers will certainly be right there to challenge the Jazz for that eighth spot this week. Nevertheless, I’m still sticking with my prediction that the Jazz will move into eighth place this upcoming week. The question that will remain if such ends up being the case, though, is can they stay there? Or, better yet, can they continue to climb?

The Jazz will have to show a lot more consistency than they’ve displayed for much of the season, but there’s no questioning that their schedule is starting to lighten up whereas the Lakers are struggling and the Kings are coming back to earth as losers of four straight games. With all that coming together, I love Utah’s odds moving forward.