2016 Fantasy Basketball Draft Prep: Utah Jazz Team Outlook
Just some words of wisdom: If you’re looking for an under-the-radar team whose bandwagon you want to jump on before it gets too crowded, you already missed your chance with this Jazz team.
A 40-win team last season, the Jazz are pretty much everyone’s favorite pick of a Western Conference lottery team to make the leap to the playoffs, so you certainly won’t stand out calling for even 50 wins from them.
And it’s not difficult to see why everyone is so optimistic about this team. They added George Hill and Boris Diaw to the roster, with Trey Burk serving as the only loss among rotation players. Oh, and they get former No. 5 overall pick Dante Exum back from knee surgery. And Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert are likely to be healthier than last year. And … Well, you get the point — there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about this team.
Especially because so much of the rotation is so young. As good as so many of the key players already are, there is still room to grow for guys like Favors, Gobert, Rodney Hood or even Gordon Hayward.
They played at one of the slowest paces in the league last season, but Quin Snyder might be willing to get them out running more often with an upgrade at point guard, which only makes them even more attractive.
You won’t be alone in loving the Jazz this season, and for good reason.
The Unknown
Talk to Jazz fans and people who cover the team, and there is a lot of optimism surrounding Exum. Even coming off a lost season following a torn ACL last summer, expectations remain high for the former No. 5 pick. He still has the impressive tool set that made him so sought after coming into the draft, and he looked poised to take a step forward last season prior to his injury. Of course, there was nowhere for Exum to go but up after a historically ineffective rookie season. Exum played in all 82 games and even started 41 of them, but was largely anonymous on the offensive end, averaging 4.8 points and 2.4 assists per game. As a 19-year-old, he shot just 34.9 percent from the field and 31.4 percent on 3-pointers, despite rarely playing with the ball in his hands. The combination of impressive skill set and lack of anything resembling a track record entering year three would already make Exum one of the biggest question marks in the league even if he wasn’t coming off a major injury.
Breakout
The second player the Jazz selected in that 2014 draft is already established as the team’s best player from that class, and there is plenty of reason to think he has even more room to grow. The soon-to-be 24-year-old nearly doubled his scoring average from his rookie season, putting up 14.5 points per game last season, while nailing 161 3-pointers and adding 2.7 assists per game. Those last two numbers are where Hood has the most room to grow, as he has already showed an ability to be a creative secondary playmaker, and with the Jazz employing three players who share the ball-handling load, there is more room here than on many teams for a wing to create. The addition of George Hill should open the offense up more as well, giving Hood more room to shoot 3-pointers, so don’t be surprised if he takes a step forward as a shooter, inching closer to 200 3-pointers and a 40 percent success rate.
Sleeper
With Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert locked in as one of the top young frontcourts in the league moving forward, Lyles is going to have to fight for every available minute, which could make it hard for him to make an impact this season. However, he showed some really interesting skills as a rookie, shooting 38.3 percent on 3-pointers, with some ability to make plays off the dribble against opposing big men. As long as Favors and Gobert are healthy, Lyles will have trouble finding much more than about 18 minutes per game this season. However, coming off a season in which they combined to miss 41 games, Lyles should definitely be on your radar.
