Above all, this Jazz team is FUN

Collin Sexton’s Jazz are, above all, fun. (Leah Hogstein, The Salt Lake Tribune)

Last season’s Utah Jazz certainly provided some good moments, but those memories are difficult to dredge up given all the drama and turnover that has happened since. As with a shroud covering a fresh corpse, it’s best not to peek, but simply bury the body. The Rudy Gobert-Donovan Mitchell-Quin Snyder era of Jazz basketball was talent-loaded and precise, but the formula grew stale and the joy slowly faded away.

Especially in contrast to last season, this iteration of the Jazz — 5-2 entering Monday’s action — is fun. And a different kind of fun: one full of frenetic energy and youthful effort that is hard to remember after the disappointing way recent seasons played out. It may be the difference in styles. The newest version of the Jazz is defined by a bounce and exuberance fans have missed. While they appeared to be engineered for draft position optimization, watching them is like enjoying a team full of 21-year-old Mitchells all over again.

To be fair, the old Jazz had a lot going for it. It was fun to have the top seed and top offense. It was fun to reach the playoffs year after year. It was fun to see the accolades pile up. But with the success came pressure, which grew heavier each season. In contrast, the lightness this new Jazz plays with is palpable. As a fan, it’s refreshing to watch a game and be content with a win or a loss. Expectations tend to manipulate enjoyment of a thing, and most Jazz fans had their winning expectations set low. So the clearance with which this Jazz team is jumping over their hurdles is big factor in enjoyment. There’s nothing as reliably fun in sports as seeing an underdog win.

The winning may not last, and most of us have already mentally prepared ourselves for this scenario. But more than the unexpected wins, this Jazz team is fun to watch because they play with passion and joy. And we can appreciate their spirited effort, comforted by the fact that any loss just increases the odds of the Victor Wembanyama dream becoming a reality. (And I know as well as anyone how meagre a percentage 14% is, but I’ll cling to it nonetheless.)

Let’s look a few specific factors that have led to this year’s Jazz being, above all, fun.

The ball-sharing

Head coach Will Hardy has stressed that this team needs to share the ball. That’s all well and good, but the truth is that no guards on the roster are natural passers aside from Mike Conley:

And yet we’ve seen this team excel at sharing the ball. They are fifth in the league in assists per game at 28.6. This is even more impressive when you look at how many of the players were known to have score-first mentalities. This is embodied in Jordan Clarkson — the definition of a score-first gunner — who has nearly doubled his career assist per game average of 2.6 to 5.0.

This team has many young players with reason to showcase their scoring prowess, and many veterans who may feel entitled to the opportunity to shoot more. And yet an unselfishness has coalesced instead, and it’s been a joy to watch. And it’s not just the fans that having fun:

Michael Porter Jr said him and Jarred Vanderbilt hung out yesterday and Vanderbilt had a lot of good things to say about Utah and how fun it is with the Jazz right now pic.twitter.com/f98cqPgwir

— Katy Winge (@katywinge) October 28, 2022

Success in the clutch

Last season’s Jazz team really struggled in fourth quarters. No lead felt safe because we saw the team wilt under pressure, game-after-game. Whether it was yips or lack of focus or exhaustion, we don’t know, but it was frustrating to watch. We knew the team should be better, but the collapses piled on.

This team has already played in five close games, including two overtimes. We’ve seen late-game heroics from the cadre of veterans, including Kelly Olynyk, Lauri Markkanen, Jordan Clarkson, Mike Conley, and Malik Beasley.

It feels like we already have more fun clutch moments than all of last season.

Fellow jazz fans who suffered in the 4th quarter collapses last year – soak this all in! pic.twitter.com/TMh8W76LBX

— Adam (@prodigyJF) October 30, 2022

Flexibility

While the old Jazz team was undoubtedly effective, it was rigid in several ways. The team was crafted and optimized around Gobert and Mitchell. Both had limitations, but their strengths were so positive it was worth the effort to build around them. But come playoff time, their weaknesses were targeted by more flexible teams. Eventually the book was out on how to exploit the Jazz.

The team attempted to rebalance the roster in the offseason, but a lack of assets made that difficult. They were stuck on their path, even though that path had led to so much success.

While this roster resembles a rebuilding team much more than a contending one, it certainly feels more flexible. We’ve seen Coach Hardy close with a different lineup nearly every game. Positions feel more fluid, and lacking clear superstar talent forces them into a fluid and egalitarian playstyle. It may not result in as many wins by the time the season is over, but the flexibility of play is interesting to watch. We’ll see how Justin Zanik and Danny Ainge in collaboration with Hardy choose to mold this team moving forward.

The team-building flexibility is even more of note. The team is armed with 15 first-round draft picks, which they can use in a patient rebuild or to turbo-charge a team that may appear ready to return to contention sooner than expected. As our Dan Clayton outlined, we can watch how this team progresses, looking to see how long the rebuild will last, and which current players will be a part of next contending team. Whether that contention comes sooner or later, the team now has the asset flexibility to optimize multiple scenarios.

Whatever the future holds, I’m enjoying and appreciating the “Team 49” identity so far, which already has shades of the 2003-04 roster that finished 42–40. That team barely missed the playoffs and didn’t net a high draft pick like the front office was expecting. And yet, it’s remembered as one of the most beloved Jazz teams due to its effort and bucking of expectations. Whether this Jazz ends up with similar results or finishes with a better draft position, they seem to be in a good place.