What will it take for the Jazz to get to the postseason? 4 things to watch

The prognosticators haven’t been kind to the Utah Jazz during the preseason.

Most expect the Jazz to finish below the playoff and postseason Mendoza Line as they have mostly been picked to finish 11th or worse in the Western Conference. A few have picked the Jazz to finish in the Play-In, which would give them a shot at earning their way into a postseason series. Almost nobody has picked the Jazz to finish in the sixth spot or higher, which means an automatic playoff berth.

There is good reason for this. The Jazz are perceived to be in the opening stages of a rebuild. They don’t really have a point guard, and they have a young team at the core dripping with inexperience.

If people look a little closer at the roster, they will see there is reason for optimism. The roster’s collective length and athleticism, particularly in the frontcourt, is outstanding. And the Jazz want to make the postseason. What would allow them to make a run at the playoffs? Let’s take a look.

Western Conference parity

Had the Jazz chosen to do so last season, they could have been playoff viable until the end of the season, and likely could have at least made the Play-In, which would have given them a shot at making the postseason. The Western Conference had a ton of good teams in the middle, but it was like a conference cannibalizing itself. Everyone beat up everyone else.

The prognostication for the Western Conference is much the same for this upcoming season: a bunch of good teams that will cannibalize themselves in the middle. If that holds, there shouldn’t be much separation between the middle and the bottom of the conference, even if there is some eventual separation at the top. This should aid the Jazz in their quest to make the postseason.

They will need to weather the storm of a difficult early schedule that features the Kings, the Clippers, the Suns, the Nuggets and the Grizzlies in their first five games. What probably won’t happen is the 10-3 start of last season. The Jazz don’t have Mike Conley’s stability to help run the offense.

Head coach Will Hardy knows this. He also knows new pieces such as John Collins will need to be integrated. But, with conference parity, the Jazz may also never truly be out of the playoff hunt, as long as they treat the schedule like the 82-game marathon it is.

Regular-season legs

Regardless of the schedule or the conference around them, the Jazz are the definition of a regular-season roster. If they get into a playoff series against almost anyone, they would probably be an underdog in that series. They don’t have a playoff closer on the roster. Lauri Markkanen has established himself as a regular-season star. But he’s never been to the postseason outside of a Play-In, much less proven himself in a playoff setting.

That said, the roster’s strengths could be enough to keep them in the postseason hunt. The Jazz are athletic. They are big up front with lots of length and versatility. They are deep with rotation-level players. They are young and bouncy on both ends of the floor. Most importantly, their dominant trait from last season was that they played hard from night to night because the locker room brought into Hardy’s philosophy. A lot of this can be attributed to the internal competition of a deep roster.

It remains to be seen if this season’s roster does the same for Hardy in terms of buy in. But the internal competition is certainly there, as well as the motivation of a number of players on the roster and in the rotation on short term contracts. It adds up to a team that will be athletic, play hard and be a pain in the neck for a lot of teams on many nights. In an 82-game season, that could well add up to a playoff run. But when it comes to the playoffs, the Jazz aren’t quite there yet.

Lauri’s leap

If you ask Markkanen where he can make his biggest jump this season, he’s almost certainly going to speak on making the postseason. Simply put, he’s itching to get there. He’s had the one experience with the Play-In with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2021-22. But he hasn’t been to the playoffs, and that’s eating at him. At 26 years old, he’s still young but rounding into the prime of his career. We all know that the prime of a career is a four-to-five year window.

Markkanen wants to start experiencing winning. On this team, some of that is tied to him becoming an even better player than he was last season, and he was a monster last season. The next step is for him to become a closer for this team, one who the Jazz can go to for offense in tough spots in the waning minutes of games. The second obvious progression for Markkanen is to improve as a passer and a playmaker for others.

He’ll have plenty of opportunity for that, because the rest of the league knows Markkanen exists now. He’s going to see a bunch of different looks nightly. He’s going to see significant defensive attention every night. He will need to figure out a way to make teams pay, and doing so as a playmaker is something that could be required of him.

Someone … anyone …

Talen Horton-Tucker is likely to get the first crack at the Jazz starting point guard job this season. But It doesn’t really matter who, at this point. If the Jazz are going to make the playoffs, someone must emerge and stabilize the position. As reported over the weekend by The Athletic, the Jazz are guaranteeing point guard Kris Dunn’s contract for the season, giving the roster a real veteran at the spot. There’s also the people who have been talked about plenty such as Keyonte George, Collin Sexton.

If the Jazz are to make the postseason, it’s going to be in large part because they found someone to take control at the point. That means limiting the amount of turnovers. That means walking the balance between looking for individual offense and running the team. That means playing dynamic individual basketball when warranted. The Jazz aren’t going to get Mike Conley-level point guard play.

But, this season’s key concern is whether they can get point guard play good enough to elevate the remainder of the roster.

(Photo of John Collins and Lauri Markkanen; Melissa Majchrzak / NBAE via Getty Images)