The largest caveat of all – health
Along with the concern about Mike Conley’s hefty contract, the other one that exists relates to his injury-riddled past. Conley was amazingly healthy in 2018-19. But in the year prior, he appeared in just 12 games. Imagine paying $30 million for that. Yikes.
The couple years prior, Conley also missed 13 and 26 games, respectively. All told, though, he’s had three seasons where he’s appeared in 80 or more games and an additional three where he’s appeared in 70 or more, which isn’t too bad.
You could argue that as long as he’s good for the playoffs, he can have some regular season leeway. But the Jazz can’t afford for Conley to go down with any sort of lingering or long-term injury for the 2019-20 season. Doing so could absolutely uproot any chances the Jazz thought they had at an extremely small championship window.
The Golden State Warriors just felt the full malice of what injury woes can do to a team, and that will likely continue into next year while Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant recover from their serious injuries. While Toronto deserves full credit for what they were able to do in winning this year’s championship, there’s no questioning that it would have been a much different series if Golden State was at 100 percent.
So the same applies for the Jazz this upcoming year. They may hit the jackpot in the remainder of free agency with the little money they can spend. Maybe they’ll see significant internal improvement. Perhaps the chemistry with Conley will be out of this world.
But if when push comes to shove they can’t stay healthy, then they’ll simply be forced to watch their title hopes disappear out the window.
The Utah Jazz have gone out on a ledge and put themselves in a great position to contend for an NBA Championship. Mike Conley’s addition most certainly has given them the potential to compete with the best of the best.
But if you thought they were in for a cake walk the rest of the way, you were far from correct. Between now and the start of the 2019-20 regular season and postseason, the Utah Jazz still have a lot of work to do to capitalize on Conley’s addition.