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SALT LAKE CITY — Coming off a second-round appearance in last season’s NBA playoffs, the expectations are high for the Utah Jazz as they enter a new season. But last year’s success has no bearing on an always competitive Western Conference, and the Jazz know they have to improve to take the next step as an organization.
With essentially the same roster from last season returning, the Jazz kicked off the 2018-19 season Monday with their annual media day session and subsequent training camp. The Jazz open up their training camp with 20 players on the roster — a number that will be trimmed down to the league-mandated 15 in the coming days.
But entering the season with familiar faces has given the Jazz some much-needed consistency and experience to an organization that is making waves in the West. Team general manager Dennis Lindsey said Monday that having consistency was one of the biggest factors in bringing nearly everyone back.
Some of the allure to re-signing essentially the same team, Lindsey added, was seeing what team they actually had. A late-season surge and playoff run came as an unexpected surprise, but Lindsey said he wants to see if the team can build off the chemistry and make a serious run in the West.
“Something that matters just as much, and if not more than experience, is continuity in keeping the team together,” Lindsey said.
At the end of the 2017-18 season, Lindsey said the team coupled the emotional side with a deep-dive analytical approach to determine that continuity was the way to go for the future.
“It came out to where relatively quick out of the season we were convinced that our first attempt — unless something came to us unexpectedly, personnel wise, talent wise — that our first attempt was going to err on continuity,” he said.
For returning star guard Donovan Mitchell, having that consistency entering the season makes it easier for the team to jump into training camp and not worry about teammates trying to pick up the offensive and defense plays. The team can jump in and pick up where they left off last season.
“Now we don’t have that period where we’re trying to figure each other out,” Mitchell said. “From the beginning, we’ll know what to expect from each other. And if we come out the way we ended last year, then we’ll be in good shape.”
Center Rudy Gobert said the consistency and team camaraderie has been a big positive because he doesn’t have to fake optimism during the season. He said having teammates he loves makes it simply easier to play the game.
“I think it’s everything,” he said. “You tend to forget that it’s a team sport. Even if you fake it, it’s never the same as if you really want to see your teammates succeed. Whenever you pass, whenever you set a screen, whenever you’d got your teammate’s back, when it’s real, it’s always going to show on the court and it’s going to impact the team in a positive way.”
Although team continuity will aide the Jazz the season, coach Quin Snyder said there is no value to reflect upon the successes of last season as if they’re going to propel Utah to instant success this season.
“This is a new journey,” he said. “We can take with us the experience, we can take with us the chemistry, the things that we’ve learned, but this is a new team. You can’t take February with us, you can’t take the playoffs with us. It’s a new year. And the sooner that realization occurs on a very fundamental level, the better the opportunity to improve.”
To be a team that can compete with the likes of Golden State and Houston, two teams that are seemingly benchmarks in the West in terms of success, Snyder said his team can’t get caught up focusing on the comparison game. He wants the focus early on what Utah can control and not how they matchup with other teams.
Snyder said there aren’t wholesale changes that need to be made to his team to help them compete at a higher level this season. He said the changes are more “incremental” and little areas where the team can be “more impactful than others” like offensive rebounding, finishing better and turning the ball over less.
“We have a pretty balanced group and I think we have to continue to get better on all levels,” Snyder said. “Individually, we’ve got to have guys that have to continue to develop throughout the season.”
Most importantly, though, Snyder believes Utah can raise its status in the defensive game.
“I think more than anything, I think it’s being better at something we’re already pretty good at in defense,” he said. “We can be elite defensively; not just good, not just great, but elite. There’s a difference there and if we can do that, I think we’re going to have a chance to win some games.”
Prior to the media day session, the Jazz announced that point guard Raul Neto had suffered a right hamstring injury and will be re-evaluated in two weeks. Neto said he injured his hamstring in a pick-up basketball game last week, but was unsure whether he’d be ready by the season opener as the injury could hold him out four-six weeks.
Neto is expected to miss most of the preseason, but he could be ready for when Utah kicks off the regular season on the road against the Sacramento Kings on Oct. 17 at 8 p.m.
