SALT LAKE CITY — The Jazz held shootaround ahead of Monday night's game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Naturally, the big theme of the practice was how the Jazz will replace Rudy Gobert's talents.

As was announced Sunday, Rudy Gobert will miss four to six weeks due to a right tibia contusion, that occurred on this play:

NOOOOOOOOO!!!! Rudy Gobert taken off the court as Dion Waiters runs into Rudy Gobert's knee. pic.twitter.com/kxFRyQkxmj — Dave Noriega (@davenoriega) November 11, 2017

Obviously, for the Jazz to lose their best player for a month of the season is really, really damaging to their playoff hopes. But how will the Jazz cope? Let's break it down.

Life without Rudy on offense

Last season, Gobert made his name on the defensive end of the floor but became probably the second-best (after DeAndre Jordan) roll threat in the league on the offensive end. He also was second in the league (after Marcin Gortat) in "screen assists," plays that end in a basket directly because of a Gobert screen.

But there is an upside: moving Derrick Favors to the center spot will unlock his natural abilities as a roll man. Favors isn't quite as good as Gobert at Gobert's core skills. He's not quite as good of a screener, not quite as good at finishing above the rim, and he's not as good of an offensive rebounder. Those will all be big losses for the Jazz.

But Favors has the ability to hit a jumper from mid-range and can even hit a 3-point shot. He's become quite proficient at the short roll, catching the ball on the move, recognizing he's being prevented from scoring and finding the open 3-point shooter in the corner.

Other players will have to take big roles. Joe Johnson's return date (and his ability to make shots) looms large. The team said his wrist would be evaluated in two weeks 13 days ago, so what the Jazz doctors find Tuesday will be critical. Thabo Sefolosha will probably go from 21 minutes per game to 33 or so. But while Sefolosha starts, they'll need more time from Jonas Jerebko or even Royce O'Neale. Ekpe Udoh will be the main backup center, but a very unready Tony Bradley will have to play some minutes if either Favors or Udoh finds himself in foul trouble.

Replacing the Stifle Tower

But the biggest impact to the Jazz is probably on the defensive end, where they could turn from one of the league's best units to highly average.

Gobert's length saves the Jazz in so many ways. This season, the Jazz's perimeter defenders haven't done a great job at staying in front of their men on the perimeter, and it's only been Gobert's length that has occasionally stopped teams from a consistent parade of layups at the basket. Without Gobert, the Jazz's perimeter defenders need to do a much better job at staying in front of their man.

Favors will help. He's pretty adept at sliding alongside small guards as they go around screens and stopping them from getting in the paint until their original defender recovers. Some guards are good at forcing those situations into straight switches, but Favors isn't a nightmare when he is switched on a guard. It's bad enough that the Jazz don't want to switch every screen, but it's not a catastrophe if possessions end up that way.

I asked Favors to compare his defensive abilities with Gobert's. "Rudy's great at the rim, inside the paint. He can block a lot of shots," he said. "With me, I can do that, not to his level, but I can also contest a lot of shots in the paint, I can guard out on the perimeter, I can switch one through five, I can guard the post."

Johnson's ability to credibly defend upon his return is going to be big. There was some concern that he'd lost a further step defensively this year, one that might make it difficult to start him. Sefolosha is obviously a much better defender, but can't carry the same load on offense.

The Jazz also won't be able to gamble as much without Gobert behind them, so expect a big decrease in the number of turnovers the Jazz force on defense.

"Everyone knows that Rudy is a high, high-level player," Snyder said. "He anchors our defense in many ways. So our margin for error gets a little bit slimmer."

How much does this hurt the Jazz?

Let's look at it from a wins perspective. Last season, Gobert was worth 14.3 wins more than a replacement level player according to Win Shares and 15.5 wins more according to Real Plus-Minus. Let's split the difference and say Gobert is worth about 15 wins, over the course of a full, healthy season.

Four to six weeks is between 15 and 23 of the Jazz's next games, or between 18 and 28 percent of the Jazz's schedule. Multiplying it out, Gobert's value over that period of time is worth between 2.7 wins and 4.2 wins over a replacement level player.

The good news: the player taking Gobert's role, for the most part, Favors, is better than replacement level. (Of course, if you were doing this analysis seriously, you'd have to take into account who was taking Favors' old minutes, and so on, but let's keep it somewhat simple.) The two stats above had Favors as worth about 3-4 wins when he was injured last season and about 6-8 wins when he was healthy two seasons ago. My personal opinion is that Favors is about as talented as he was two seasons ago, maybe slightly less mobile, though, so let's say he'd be worth 5-7 wins over a full season. So that means Favors' value over the course of the 15-23 game stretch is worth about one to two wins on aggregate.

So in this highly imperfect calculation, we're looking at somewhere between a one and three win-loss during this stretch because of Gobert's injury.

That's a big deal. Take a look at FiveThirtyEight's NBA predictions, that right now have the Jazz as finishing with a 40-42 record and a 44 percent chance of making the playoffs. But they didn't know that Gobert would be out for the next month or so.

And the Jazz are competing with the Clippers (also projected to have a 40-42 record), the Grizzlies (42-40), the Trail Blazers (42-40) and the Pelicans (43-40). One to three wins could define the playoff race from six-10.

Now, it's early yet, and we could see the Jazz find a new groove using the spacing of the new lineup. But Gobert's injury could be a season-defining moment.

Let's look even bigger picture

Regardless of whether or not they make the playoffs, though, the Jazz aren't championship contenders this season. That's not a surprise to anyone. Instead, they're in asset acquisition and information gathering mode, trying to figure out what the next contending Jazz team will look like.

Early evidence suggests that the Jazz have two building blocks: Gobert and rookie Donovan Mitchell. Everyone else is either a role player or hasn't shown the ability to be counted on consistently as a piece of the future.

That's why you might see a deal trading those current role-player pieces for future assets. Given that Favors is unlikely to re-sign with the Jazz this summer, maybe this is the stint he needs to show his value in the trade market. Likewise, Johnson scoring in a bigger role could prove his value to a contending team who needs another veteran wing piece.

So while Gobert's injury hurts the Jazz in a big way in the short term, you can make a case that it's an opportunity for the Jazz to improve in the long haul.

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