With over two months before the first Utah Jazz game tips off, there are still a lot of questions and anticipation surrounding the upcoming season. Will the Jazz trade Donovan Mitchell? Will they be any good without Rudy Gobert? How will they address the roster holes? Will rookie Walker Kessler be any good? Will the Jazz even try to win games?
Utah Jazz: How many games will the team win in 2022-23?
Las Vegas has the over/under on Utah’s season at 32.5 wins. That would be their worst season in ten years, and it begs the question: is Rudy Gobert really worth ten wins? According to Basketball-Reference, he was fourth in the league with 11.7 win shares.
Bleacher Report is a little less optimistic, predicting Utah will go 29-53, which would give them the sixth-worst record in the league and a 9% chance at the first overall draft pick in a loaded class. Not a bad place to be.
I looked at every game the Jazz will play and factored in the strength of the opponent, if the game is a road or home game, and if the game is played on limited rest. The end result?
The Utah Jazz will go 41-41, perfectly mediocre.
Last year, a 41-41 record would have put the Jazz in the play-in game as the eighth seed, playing the Clippers and then the Pelicans. They probably would have still made the playoffs. Of course, this is all contingent on the Jazz not losing or gaining any players before the season starts, so if they trade Donovan Mitchell I will need to redo this whole thing.
After the NBA released the 2022-23 schedules, @JonahKubicek devised our first look at a prediction for every game#TakeNote pic.twitter.com/FEMvolmW5o
— The J-Notes (@TheJNotes) August 18, 2022
It is my belief that the Jazz will finish at .500, 25-16 at home, 16-25 on the road, and go 4-9 on the second half of back-to-back games, of which they lead the league.
The biggest rough stretch will be the end of January, but the Jazz will stay near .500 all season. After several years of playoff basketball, struggling to remain in the middle will be a bit of a blow to Jazz fans, but it’s the price the franchise paid when they traded the best defensive player in the league.