The Utah Jazz currently sit at 1-4, which is definitely not the start they would have had in mind with what they expected to accomplish coming into the season. Adding Darryn Peterson and incorporating Jaren Jackson Jr. was going to be a process, so there were bound to be bumps and bruises, but these weren't the bumps and bruises everyone thought were coming.
Of course, it's not all their fault. The injury bug showed itself before the season even started and it's only gotten worse. Plus, even with all their losses, it's hard to truly feel disouraged because Utah has gone down swinging every time they have lost outside of Opening Night.
Another reason not to be discouraged is that there have been successful Jazz teams that have been through similar growing pains. The one I'm specifically referring to is the first year of the Donovan Mitchell-Rudy Gobert era, the 2017-18 season.
That year also started kind of rough, with a lot of having to do with untimely injuries to their most important players, like Rudy Gobert. Gobert missed multiple stretches early on in the season, and it made the Jazz look like the team many thought they would be after losing Gordon Hayward.
Gobert finally got healthy in January 2018, where Utah stood at 17-27. When the Jazz finally got their full team back, they finished 48-34. Doing the math, they went 31-7 once they got a clean bill of health.
Through the first three months of that season, it looked semi-bleak, but once they got healthy, and Mitchell proved he was a building block, everything fit into place. We are still in October, so even if things continue to not go at the pace the Jazz would hope, an 82-game season takes a long time to finish.
It's why Utah's losses are quite encouraging
The Jazz have had a semi-tough schedule to start and perhaps even tougher than we all thought. As it turns out, Memphis may very well be better than we thought. Add in the Lakers and the Spurs, two teams that have two of the NBA's best players and intend to make the playoffs, and yeah, this season has started out with practically no freebies.
And the Jazz have consistently kept losing by mere inches. Yes, that gets annoying, but when knowing that they have been fighting with primarily their youth for the past few games, it's encouraging because it's a good sign that they are not afraid of the moment. Not to mention it preps them for when the team will start to depend on them.
With Jaren Jackson Jr. out for the next several weeks while Lauri Markkanen could return as soon as this weekend, there will be a few more tough losses ahead, but their predecessors from nine years ago know the feeling and that didn't stop them. It shouldn't stop this team either.
Add us as a preferred source on Google