Eric Walden: Acquainted faces returning prompts query — are the Jazz on a greater path now?

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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz’s weekend of nostalgia was stuffed with glowing platitudes, tribute movies, and nice reminiscences.

Concurrent with all the nice and cozy fuzzies, although, got here some troubling indicators and some nagging questions.

Specifically: Are the Jazz on a greater path now than they have been? And did they perhaps blow issues up too early?

Such are the ideas that pop into your head as former level guard Mike Conley is drilling one 3-pointer after one other to propel the Minnesota Timberwolves to a 119-100 victory and thus maintain them inside vary of the Western Convention’s No. 1 seed within the playoffs.

And in addition when head coach Will Hardy angrily berates his staff’s effort postgame with a rant insinuating that a few of his gamers care extra about stat accumulation than profitable.

Yeah, that’ll immediate you to revisit the earlier iteration of the membership and surprise if issues have been actually that unhealthy.

Every of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert and Bojan Bogdanovic acquired to face the Jazz and make their respective returns to the Delta Middle at numerous factors in the course of the previous season. However neither ex-coach Quin Snyder nor Conley joined their new groups till February 2023, that means Jazz followers did not get to see them once more till Utah’s back-to-back video games this Friday and Saturday.

Given the pure tendency on such events to mirror upon their time in Utah, it’s equally pure to check what’s with what was, to say nothing of what might need been.

Gobert did not play Saturday on account of a short-term damage, however he is on the identical Wolves roster that sat comfortably atop the West standing for many of this season earlier than All-Star ahead Karl-Anthony Cities’ damage. In the meantime, Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers are in third place within the East, whereas Bogdanovic and his new staff, the Knicks, are fourth there.

Whereas none of them are maybe favored to win a championship this season, that they’re all profitable to the diploma that they’re is, if nothing else, firewall towards accusations of being extra pushed by placing spotlight clips on Instagram than ticks within the win column.

That is a reasonably inflammatory condemnation of this present roster.

To be honest, there have been by no means excessive expectations internally of what this Jazz staff may do that season. They acquired off to an anticipated mediocre begin, and the minute they seemed to be gaining some traction of their uphill climb towards competence, the entrance workplace responded with a number of precision excisions on the commerce deadline that despatched the staff tumbling down the desk once more.

The 2023-24 Jazz are proper now a staff that will probably be judged by what it may possibly do sooner or later.

Is there motive for optimism?

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Every of the staff’s trio of rookies — Taylor Hendricks, Keyonte George and Brice Sensabaugh — has proven moments of promise and potential. In addition they have nights like Saturday, the place they shot a mixed 14-of-40 (35%) total and 3-of-19 (15.8%) from deep, and posted 5 assists towards eight turnovers.

Sure, this staff was lacking the likes of Lauri Markkanen, John Collins, and Jordan Clarkson. But it surely’s not as if Utah was piling up the victories even with them within the rotation. And their presence was unlikely to forestall Hardy’s frustration-bubbling-over outburst concerning the roster’s basic disinterest in passing and enjoying protection on the ranges he expects.

Is the core of this roster or its cap house this summer season or its haul of future draft picks — or some mixture of the three — sufficient to persuade you the staff is on a extra viable street to championship competition than it was?

Or does it have you ever placing on some rose-colored glasses and questioning if Danny Ainge and Justin Zanik pulled the plug too quickly on the staff’s prior incarnation?

Lest we permit sentiment to obfuscate information, that model of the Jazz had particular drawback areas and prompted real issues about its future viability.

Sure, at its peak, it was a staff that posted the most effective document within the league one season, however was that peak additionally its ceiling?

The dissatisfaction with the current path shouldn’t create a hazy glow that softens the sides of the actual deficiencies that existed. This was a staff, in any case, that was deconstructed within the aftermath of a listless first-round loss to the Mavericks, that had some unhealthy mojo permeating its core, and, frankly, appeared to have run its course.

Was complete annihilation of the roster the correct name, although? Or was this, maybe, a staff that may have been salvaged and resurrected with some swapping out of elements and a brand new voice main the way in which?

Snyder did infamously notice in his resignation assertion that he was stepping apart as a result of, “I strongly really feel they want a brand new voice to proceed to evolve.”

Might Hardy — or another person — have gotten extra out of a core that includes an elite scorer, a generational defender, a heady flooring basic, and a premier sharpshooter?

Did they should break up the entire band, to the purpose that solely Clarkson because the flamboyant and charismatic lead guitarist stays? Or may they’ve returned to chart-topping standing by additionally retaining the lead singer and bassist, however perhaps swapping out the drummer, keyboardist, and supervisor?

It is an intriguing hypothetical, and, sadly, one unattainable to reply except somebody out there’s keen to share the key recipe for manipulating the space-time continuum.

However till the Jazz persistently present some kind that does not elicit four-letter phrases from their coach postgame, such questions can not help however be requested by a fan base that solely has modest latest glories to cling to.

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