Utah Jazz: Assessing an unraveled team’s odds for postseason success

The Utah Jazz find themselves in a serious low point. What are the odds, according to the history books, that they turn it around and make a big postseason run?

I thought for sure the Utah Jazz had hit rock bottom back in December. They got kicked around like trash on their longest road trip of the season, but things were bound to get better and stay better with time.

When they went on an exciting 19-2 run, I was cautious and temperate in my optimism, and hoping against hope that they weren’t peaking too early. Nowadays, they are playing with a level of disinterest and lackadaisical effort I never thought I’d see from a Snyder-coached team.

I personally haven’t hit the panic button yet, but I’m awfully close. This team doesn’t look like they will make it out of the first round of the playoffs, much less beyond that like the front office basically promised back in the summer.

There’s not much they can do to shake up the roster at this point. Mike Conley has a player option for 34.5 million dollars this summer, Royce O’Neale and Joe Ingles are extended for the next several years, and Donovan Mitchell is poised to be extended with a max contract through 2026.

Above all else, Rudy Gobert has every right to demand a super-max extension. He can really handicap the Jazz by saying “pay me the super-max or I’m gone in free agency”, and he would deserve every penny of that extension.

In other words, the Jazz may be forced to roll out a roster that may only make it as high as the second round of the playoffs in the next five-plus years. It’s now or never for the Jazz this season to prove they can advance in the playoffs before I lose faith in this team.

To help comfort my sorrows, I turned my eyes toward the history books of the NBA playoffs the past twenty years. I analyzed every team that made it to the Conference Finals and NBA Finals, specifically the lowest points of their seasons and how they were able to recover.