I’ve got an efficacious feeling about the Utah Jazz and maybe you have it, too.
No.
That’s the wrong adjective, considering this feeling — unless you believe in the psychic transmission of powerful positivity — has no actual effect as to whether a lofty result actually comes to pass. Wasn’t there a popular book that asserted a belief in that kind of transmission, positive or negative, a few years ago? I read once that 77 percent of people surveyed believe their mere presence in the stands at a live sporting event affects the outcome of a game.
Favorable might be a better word. A favorable feeling. Or … unsullied. An unsullied feeling.
I don’t really know why I have this feeling. I just do. Maybe it’s a premonition. Maybe it’s gullibility. Maybe it’s bad lasagne I ate last night. There is no persuasive evidence to back it up.
It was Tom Hanks who said, “Believing is seeing and seeing is believing.”
This feeling lands somewhere in the middle of that mix.
Perhaps it’s on account of the sign hanging over Ted Lasso’s door.
Sure, it runs counter to just about everything we’ve seen in the recent past regarding the Jazz, even with the improvement witnessed last season when they earned the best record in the NBA, but then …
Yeah, you saw the spiraling nosedive in the playoffs.
It was a postseason later, but it was the same face-plant that happened against Denver in the bubble — namely, three straight defeats suffered to get ousted, and a declaration afterward that lessons had been learned and it wouldn’t happen again — happening all over again against the Clippers.
It. Happened. Again.
This time it came in the second round, but it was even worse — four straight losses and … Audi Five-Thou.
If that won’t sully a feeling, not sure what would.
But there’s something in the air, something in the basketball cosmos about this new iteration of the Jazz that seems fresh, that could be difference-making.
Again, there is no proof for the feeling. It’s not because I want the Jazz to be better. It doesn’t matter to me. But it matters to them and likely to most of you. Just imagine what a championship parade down State Street would be like, after all these years, Salt Lake as Title Town.
Bonkers is the crude description that comes to mind.
A lot has already been written about the moves the team made to become more versatile, and the lack thereof was a major problem when it mattered most, the ability to … whatever you want to call it, play small ball, adapt to changing circumstances. Most of that shortcoming happened at the defensive end, where the Jazz individually could not guard their man.
Ask Quin Snyder about that. It’s a whole different feeling than the one we’re talking about now. It’s a desperate, hopeless, ugly feeling.
But what the Jazz are stirring at present is a pot full of hope.
There are three reasons for that.
The first is the aforementioned offseason moves the team made, which will better position the Jazz for limiting open perimeter shots. None of the Jazz acquisitions are absolute stoppers up top, not Rudy Gay, not Eric Paschall, not Hassan Whiteside, not Jared Butler. But all of them give Snyder something that was in short supply last time around — options.
The second is the anticipated improved play of the Jazz’s two biggest stars and you know who they are.
Donovan Mitchell has gotten better every season, and he’ll be better in 2021-22. He’s about as smart an NBA player as there is, and driven, too. He’s examined what he needs to do to become what he aspires to be — a real star. Not just an All-Star, but one of the league’s elite players. For that to happen, he needs to see the floor better, shoot off the bounce better, sense what his team needs in the exact moment it needs it and provide that, and D up better. He’s capable of doing all four.
Rudy Gobert is a little more confined in this regard, since he’s older and he’s already taken Gobert-like strides to be where and what he is — the best defender on God’s green earth. But he can be an even more effective defender if he reads what’s happening on the court, slides a little quicker, and, at the other end, becomes just a tad bit more reliable around the rim. That’s funny to say about a man who makes 70 percent of his shots. But he can be just a notch more forceful, punishing smaller opponents when they’re defending him.
The other thing about those two is they must match the greatness of great players on opposing teams, whoever they are, whether it’s LeBron and his Lakers, the Freak and his Bucks, Chris Paul and his Suns, Paul George and his Clips, Steph and his Warriors, or Kevin Durant and his Nets. It’s not a matter of playing hero-ball or ego-ball, of matching those guys basket for basket. It’s a matter of giving their team whatever is required to win, in the regular season and in the playoffs.
The favorable, unsullied feeling, the bad pasta, shouts that they can do that.
The last of the three things is about as unpredictable as it gets.
Health.
Although they have more alternatives this season in case of injury, it’s obvious they must hold the good fortune of keeping the core as free from tears and dings and fractures to the ankles, knees, shoulders, wrists and hamstrings as that fortune will allow.
As much as folks squawked about the Jazz’s lack of flexibility in the playoffs, it was the poor timing of injuries to Mike Conley and Mitchell that did them in. Conley wasn’t Conley, Mitchell’s game went horizontal instead of vertical, which was still stellar, but not stellar enough. It is true that the Clippers had their share of bad luck in this regard with Kawhi Leonard getting hurt, and other teams, like the Lakers, had their issues, as well. But that’s their concern.
So, for what it’s worth — and it might not be worth much — the feeling is that the Jazz will be better this season, better than last. And they don’t have to be that much better to realize their long-talked-about aim of winning a championship.
Will it happen?
Beats me. You can throw every ingredient into the air, examining and re-examining every one of them, you can pontificate and sound as smart as you want, and, in the end, you and me and a thousand know-it-alls, we’re all just guessing.
Psychic transmission or no, the favorable feeling is there. It’s over here, anyway.
Unsullied now, even after so many piles of sully in the past.
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