For the past two years, the Utah Jazz have been somewhat competitive during the first portion of the season until deciding to trade away essential veteran players at the trade deadline. But even in their best stretches, the Jazz were never viewed as true contenders. This offseason, Danny Ainge has been up from about wanting the team to head in a different direction going into the 2024-2025 season. He said the Jazz were ready to go “big game hunting” and upgrade the roster in a big way. Ainge needs to be careful, however, so as not to go all in on a player who doesn’t meaningfully move the needle, causing the Jazz to still be a losing team, but with far fewer assets to use moving forward. So, the question needs to be asked, where can the Jazz make meaningful strides, and will those strides make the Jazz a winning basketball team?
I will be leaning on the model outlined here for this analysis. Essentially the model measures the association between winning games and the statistics shown in table 1. For example, the model shows that teams that have a 1% higher field goal percentage win an average of 4.4 more games per season. Table 1 shows the difference between the Utah Jazz’s team stats for the 2023-2024 season and the league averages, along with the effect on win total that difference in stats is associated with.
The team with the league average stats would be expected to win about 32 games in the 2024-2025 season, so if the Jazz want to be true contenders, they will need to win about 20 more games than the league average team. Any expensive move that results in fewer than 20 additional expected wins should be viewed with extreme caution, as it would have the potential to put the Jazz in a precarious position, being in the middle of the pack and having spent a significant portion of their assets.
If the Utah Jazz’s stats were to stay the same as they were in the 2023-2024 season, they would be expected to win 2.42 less games than the average team for a total of about 30 wins. If big opportunities to improve the team don’t come, running it back with the same group might be the best course of action because it would give the team a chance at being near the top of the 2025 draft. But if they are serious about making big changes this offseason, the Utah Jazz have a lot they need to improve.
Where the Utah Jazz Need to Improve
The biggest deficiencies the Jazz have are turnovers, steals, and field goal attempts.
The Jazz had the most turnovers of any team in the league for the 2023-2024 season. If the Jazz were able to get their number of turnovers to league average, they would be expected to win approximately 6.89 more wins in the 2024-2025 season. The turnover problem should be partially resolved by the younger players on the team maturing. That being said, it is yet to be seen if Keyonte George can become a reliable point guard in the NBA, and the Utah Jazz could really use a stable presence at the one. Someone with experience, who can be a leader on the floor, and set up his teammates without turning the ball over.
An even bigger problem for the Jazz was that they had the leagues worst defense for the 2023-2024 season. Getting less steals, less defensive rebounds, and more field goal attempts (due to the inability to slow the other team down) are all associated with lower defensive rating. The Jazz were below average in each of these categories. The effect of the difference from league average in steals and field goal attempts alone account for about 12 of the expected losses for the Jazz next season. In this area, like with the turnovers, the problem should get a little better as the younger players on the team mature because rookies are rarely good at defense. But the team needs to be proactive about improving on the defensive end. If the Jazz are able to move on from John Collins, and move Walker Kessler back into the starting lineup, that should help. That would be a start. Overall, look for the Jazz to prioritize players who are proven defenders to add to their roster next year.
What the Utah Jazz are Good at
The Jazz averaged 1.93 more offensive rebounds per game and shot 4.83 more threes per game than the league average. Their free throw percentage was also 5.93% higher than league average. Those numbers are associated with 5.24, 4.54, and 2.55 more wins respectively, for a total of 16.23 more wins than the league average team. They also have a slightly higher than average field goal percentage, leading to an estimated 2.37 additional wins over the league average team. In total, if the Jazz were able to keep those positives and just get their other stats up to league average, they would be expected to win about 49 games in the coming season, 17 more than they won this year.
Conclusion
49 wins would likely earn the Utah Jazz the 5th or 6th seed in the 2024-2025 season. They likely wouldn’t be among the best teams in the league, but if they were able to make those improvements and retain some of the stockpile of assets they have accumulated, they would only be a few small tweaks away from being true playoff contenders.
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