Utah Jazz: 3 superstars the team would love to acquire someday

Utah Jazz complete league’s best backcourt

OK, so maybe we lied a little in the opening slide. Damian Lillard’s rumored potential availability may have swayed us towards including him in this list. Having said that, the Utah Jazz would love to acquire the superstar guard under any circumstances.

Admittedly, Lillard and Mitchell don’t make for a defensively imposing backcourt. At 6’2 and 6’1 respectively, teams rostering bigger guards will have a disadvantage to exploit against these fictional Jazzmen.

Here’s the rub: current Utah Jazz point guard Mike Conley stands a mere 6’1 himself. The Jazz seemed to make do with their diminutive backcourt last season, posting a 107.5 Defensive Rating that ranked third in the National Basketball Association.

That points to the inherent advantage in rostering Rudy Gobert. The best rim protection in the NBA has a way of covering up deficiencies in a team’s perimeter defense. Granted, Conley is a more fundamentally solid defender than Lillard, and his 0.9 Defensive Box Plus/Minus (DBPM) compared to Dame’s -1.6 DBPM from the 2020-21 season reflects that.

The Utah Jazz would still take that defensive drop-off to gain the offensive boost Lillard would provide. The bucket-generating potential of this backcourt duo would be absolutely limitless. Any time a backcourt features two players who demand a double team, it puts opposing defenses in a difficult situation.

Donovan Mitchell, with his 26.4 points per game over the 2020-21 season, is rapidly becoming one of those players. Damian Lillard has long been one. Arguably, their skill sets are not perfectly complementary, but they aren’t oppositional either. In the modern NBA, championships are frequently won by teams with at least two elite scorers. It isn’t hard to envision Dame and Spida combining for 58 or so points per contest, and letting the rest of the Jazzmen split the remaining 55-60 points per contest between them.

It’s a pipe dream. If the Trail Blazers are forced to move on from their beloved franchise face, there are several times in a position to offer better rebuilding packages than the Utah Jazz.

Since this is an entire article about pipedreams, we encourage you to envision a world where the Utah Jazz roster one of the most talented backcourts in NBA history.