Utah Jazz: Early season results showing importance of earning a top seed in the West

If the early 2019-20 NBA season has taught us anything, it’s that the Utah Jazz will be in a far more advantageous spot come playoff time if they can nab a top-three seed.

15 or so games into the NBA season is far too early to make definite assumptions. However, it’s certainly not too early to start noticing considerable trends and to begin to form educated projections about a team.

The Utah Jazz are a perfect example of this. Their 9-5 record isn’t awful by any means, but sixth in the West where they currently stand isn’t an accurate depiction of their talent and almost certainly isn’t where they’ll finish to close the year.

But in terms of noticing trends, it’s clear that if the Jazz can’t shore up their offense, fix their underwhelming bench or figure out what to do when Rudy Gobert isn’t in the game, they’re going to struggle to thrive as they were projected to. In other words, we know what they are, roughly what they can be and what they still have to work through.

The same can be said for several other NBA teams across the league. Many are nestled right in between their floor and ceiling right now, and it will likely take all 82 games of the season to finally determine what all of them truly are. Even so, thus far in the early-going of the season, I feel really comfortable making one unwavering statement: Earning a top-three seed in the West will be vital if the Utah Jazz hope to find postseason success.

Thus far, the top three spots are comprised, in order, by the Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets and Houston Rockets. Behind them the LA Clippers are in fourth and the Jazz and Dallas Mavericks are tied for fifth, though the Mavs sit in that spot currently due to tiebreakers.

The Mavs have been a pleasant surprise so far this year, with Luka Doncic playing at an unbelievable MVP-caliber level. As soon as the Golden State Warriors hit rock bottom, I went on record saying I believed the Mavs would be a playoff team this year. There’s a lot of season left, but so far my case is looking pretty solid.

Even so, as a young team facing a long season ahead, they’re bound to experience some ups and downs throughout the year. And even though they currently rank ahead of the Jazz, I would call it a long-shot to consider them in the top elite tier with the rest of the leading teams in the West.

With that being the case, it’s become quite evident that there is a clear highest tier in the Western Conference and it’s comprised of five teams – the Lakers, Nuggets, Rockets, Clippers and Jazz. If I had to put money on it (barring any unforeseen catastrophic injury), I’d bet on those five being the top five seeds come playoff time. The question, however, is what will the order of those five be.

The Rockets have largely had an easy schedule which has skewed their results a bit, and I’m still not entirely sold on the sustainability of the James Harden–Russell Westbrook tandem, though the team’s defense has looked considerably better of late, so there’s still a possibility of this thing working out.

Meanwhile, the Lakers have enjoyed a pretty light November, but things get tough in a hurry in December, which will put their top seed and league-leading record very much to the test. The Clippers have been in full load management mode with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George only just barely playing in their first game together. For that reason, their early record isn’t indicative of who they truly are by any means.

The Denver Nuggets have the second-best record in the West despite some early defensive hiccups (which are quickly correcting themselves) and a slow start from Nikola Jokic. That makes it scary to consider what they’ll be once they get fully up to speed.

Last of all is the Utah Jazz, who have come up big in monumental games but have also faltered in frustratingly disappointing fashion against lackluster teams like the Sacramento Kings and Memphis Grizzlies. Their offense is far from figuring things out, but once it does, this team has shown it could be a force come January or so.

Then in the tier below those teams, you have a mish-mash of other squads competing for spots six, seven and eight. As of right now, it would appear that Dallas, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Phoenix Suns are the frontrunners for those spots. But the Sacramento Kings have been hot of late and are just outside the top-eight, the New Orleans Pelicans are playing better as they get healthier, and there’s always the chance that the San Antonio Spurs and Portland Trail Blazers could turn things around in a hurry in a big, bad way.

Regardless of how it shakes out, though, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that no matter who finishes in sixth through eighth, they are going to be a much more favorable opponent than anyone in the top five. For that very reason, securing a top-three seed is immensely important.

Let’s say that the Jazz finish fourth, and that due to load management, the Clippers get out of the regular season with the mere fifth seed. A healthy Kawhi/PG duo is far from what you’d want to see in the first round.

Or perhaps the Jazz only get to fifth and a team like the Rockets slips into fourth. Yes, I think the Rockets are less daunting than they’ve been the past two years, but they’re still an awful matchup for Utah. Maybe this is the year the Jazz could get the better of James Harden, but wouldn’t you instead want to make another team have to deal with him in round one?

Instead, if Utah gets into a top-three spot, rather than face one of the other four elite teams in the first round – the Lakers, Clippers, Nuggets or Rockets – they’d instead be taking on the likes of the Mavs, Suns, Timberwolves, Kings, Pelicans, Blazers or Spurs. Pretty easy decision, right?

A top-three seed would not only guarantee Utah home court advantage for the first round of the playoffs (and perhaps the second depending how high they go and how the first round shakes out), it would also guarantee them a much more favorable matchup, elevating their odds of advancing, and increasing their chances of a shorter and less grueling series to start out, allowing them more time to prep for the second round.

Yes, every team is going to have its troubling matchups. Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis. Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins. Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum and perhaps even a returned Jusuf Nurkic. Devin Booker and, dare I say, Ricky Rubio. And so on and so forth.

But none of those names I mentioned should be scaring anyone as much as the likes of the matchups that will be presented by the daunting squads in the elite, top-five group.

We’re just 15 or so games into the regular season with plenty of time for the standings to be shaken up. But there’s already been a pretty clear distinction of the top teams in the West. And with that has come an overwhelmingly clear observation – a top-three seed will be absolutely critical, especially for a team with less star power than others like the Utah Jazz.