The Utah Jazz are 1-11. The season is nearing its one-month mark, and well, it's hard to see how things could have started any worse for them. Losing so many games in a row is actually something Utah is very familiar with because of what's happened over the last few years, but at least then, it was by design.
Believe it or not, though, it's actually worse than the fans think. It's not just how many games they have lost or how ridiculous their injury luck has been. The Western Conference has always been a bloodbath, and this season is no different.
Lakers Nation's Trevor Lane brought up that despite how many teams in the conference have been as good as they are, there actually isn't that much separation between the No. 1 seed, the 11-2 Los Angeles Lakers, and the No. 10 seed, the 6-4 Denver Nuggets.
In all fairness, in the early season, it's not that surprising when there isn't much separation between teams this early, but it sadly reflects poorly on the Jazz that while the other West teams are holding the fort down, they have been on a much different trajectory in the worst way.
Making up a 1-11 start was going to be hard enough on its own, but doing it in this Western Conference with how well their competition has performed will make that task extremely difficult.
Making the play-in might be the Jazz's best bet
Utah will be healthy around Christmas time, which means the season will still have about two third left give or take. If the plan is to turn their season around, they have to play excellent basketball just to have a shot at the playoffs.
That's not necessarily out of the question, as we've only gotten a glimpse of what this Jazz team looked like with the talent on the roster. There's still time for them to figure this out, but sadly, the bad start and the remaining games they will have when they hopefully get everyone back amplifies the pressure to figure it out quickly.
Even though there were hopes that maybe Utah would be better than everyone thought this season, simply being in the thick of the playoff race would have been a satisfactory outcome. That's not out of the question, though it is not looking great.
Utah has been bad, but to some degree, they are where they are due to a cruest twist of fate. When the bad times are finally done and away with, we'll get to see who they really are in a conference that does not forgive bad starts, let alone horrific ones.
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