The Jazz Can’t Afford to Overlook Denver

The Jazz have plenty of battles to come with the young Nuggets. (Bart Young via nba.com/nuggets)

The excitement level surrounding the Utah Jazz has reached levels perhaps unknown to a certain generation of Jazz fans. That generation very much includes me, who just turned 27. That means I was just 5 years old when John Stockton hit that fateful shot to send Utah to its first NBA Finals back in 1997. I imagine the frenzy of interest around the team reached its all-time apex at that point, but I was too little then to remember it now.

So let’s say that for many Jazz fans, the expectations for this upcoming season may be the highest ever. It’s warranted. The organization’s chief decision makers, Justin Zanik and Dennis Lindsey, did a terrific job of upgrading what was already a playoff-caliber roster into a squad that many feel could contend for a conference championship. It’s going to be a ton of fun to watch it come together if things go as planned.

However, the Jazz aren’t the only Western Conference team to improve this summer. Both L.A. teams are loaded with premier talent as the Lakers added Anthony Davis to pair with LeBron James while the Clippers enlisted a couple of first-team All-NBAers in Paul George and Kawhi Leonard.

While it seems like the majority of the Western Conference hubbub rightly has been about the Jazz, Lakers and Clippers, there’s one team that may be getting overlooked: the Denver Nuggets.

Jazz fans love poking fun at the Nuggets for essentially gift-wrapping Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell to Utah in a pair of draft-day trades that put the Jazz cornerstones in Salt Lake City and sent the likes of Erick Green and Trey Lyles to Denver. It’s easy and fun to mock the Nuggets for making those trades and Denver totally deserves it.

Despite those trade blunders by the Nuggets, Denver is no joke. It’s dangerous to forget about a team that finished second in the loaded West and is returning 12 of their 15 rostered players from that squad. Much like how the Utah Utes football team is favored to win the Pac-12 Conference after returning many key players from a second-place team, Denver should be considered the presumptive favorites to win the Western Conference and not the Lakers, Clippers or even the Jazz.

Denver didn’t stand pat in the summer swinging a deal with the Thunder for Jeremi Grant, a young, emerging talent who averaged 13.6 points per game with Oklahoma City last season.

Not to mention the Nuggets also have a darkhorse candidate for Rookie of the Year in Michael Porter Jr., who was drafted in 2018 but missed the entire season due to back injuries. He’s the biggest x-factor in the conference and was a sneaky good pickup at the 14th overall pick in ’18.

The Nuggets, who also have a pair of future All-Stars – not unlike Utah’s duo of Mitchell and Gobert – in Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic, have even more talent all throughout the roster heading into next season.

It’s not at all a stretch to expect the Nuggets to be the Jazz’s biggest obstacle in the Western Conference. The Nuggets have elements of last year’s Bucks, Sixers and oh yeah, the Nuggets, on their team for the 2019-20 season.

The above paragraphs are the realities of facing Denver next season, but here’s the good news: the Jazz had the Nuggets’ number almost all season last year.

After dropping a 103-88 loss on Nov. 3, the Jazz went on to win the other three matchups against the Nuggets in 2018-19 and did so in convincing fashion each time.

One of Utah’s best performances of last season came in the 81st game of the year when the Jazz defeated Denver 118-108 on the road on April 9.

In that game, Mitchell scored 46 points, which tied his career high, while shooting 53.8 percent from the field which included a 5-for-8 clip from beyond the arc. While Spida’s performance was the most attention grabbing, the real story of that game was Gobert’s dominance.

In a 20-point, 10-rebound outing by the Frenchman, Gobert absolutely owned his matchup, Jokic. The Joker became unplayable in the second half, finishing with just two points and five rebounds in 16 minutes of action. For a player who averaged 20 and 10 during the season, it was a miserable night for Jokic.

The Jazz have to close the book on last season, however, and prepare to play the Nuggets four times during the regular season and perhaps more in the playoffs, hopefully in a Rocky Mountain-themed edition of the Western Conference Finals.

Houston has arguably been the thorn in Utah’s side for the past couple of years, but expect that to change in 2019-20. The Nuggets are going to be quite good and may be the best team in the West next season.

Fortunately for Jazz fans, their team is up to the challenge.