How good are we if healthy?

Post #1 » by **babyjax13** » Mon Nov 9, 2026 2:54 am

Simple question. Right now we are down the following players:

- Lauri Markkanen
- Keyonte George
- Jaren Jackson Jr.
- Jusuf Nurkic

Other players missing time with injuries include:
- Mo Bamba
- Jaxson Hayes
- Kyle Filipowski

If we had everyone, what would our record after say ... 20 games ... look like?

My guess is we'd be at .500 or slightly over, say 11-9.

Klomp · Post #2 » by **Klomp** » Mon Nov 9, 2026 6:55 am

I know I'm not your target audience, but I never fully bought in to the Jazz collection of players. I thought the 8 or 9 seed entering the play-in was the group's absolute ceiling but the 10-12 range was most likely.

Post #3 » by **babyjax13** » Mon Nov 9, 2026 7:41 am

Klomp wrote:I know I'm not your target audience, but I never fully bought in to the Jazz collection of players. I thought the 8 or 9 seed entering the play-in was the group's absolute ceiling but the 10-12 range was most likely.

I think we generally felt like we were a play-in team, but probably one of the better ones. Losing Kessler made us re-assess, though.

Post #4 » by **Inigo Montoya** » Mon Nov 9, 2026 12:26 pm

I think the Jazz would be at around .500 at full strength, but on their way to figuring out how to play together. And then as the season progressed they'd be better and better and at some point break above .500. What sucks is that with all these injuries they can't learn how to play together so all those growing pains will still be there once everyone are healthy, so the injuries cost the Jazz not only losses by sidelining their best players, but also due to extending their learning curve.

Rauxcee · Post #5 » by **Rauxcee** » Mon Nov 9, 2026 2:21 pm

Before injury I thought they were a play in team- 8 or 9, maybe 7 if things went well with development and chemistry.

With all thw injuries and still needing to build chemistry, I still think they can be a play in seed at 10, but they are going to have to start getting healthy and winning some games sooner rather than later.

SkyHook · Post #6 » by **SkyHook** » Mon Nov 9, 2026 3:22 pm

Klomp wrote:I know I'm not your target audience, but I never fully bought in to the Jazz collection of players. I thought the 8 or 9 seed entering the play-in was the group's absolute ceiling but the 10-12 range was most likely.

Yep, this is right where I had them as well.

Hugi Mancura · Post #7 » by **Hugi Mancura** » Tue Nov 10, 2026 10:25 am

Expected them to be in play-in range before they traded Kessler. Then mine expectations went couple spots lower, so borderline play-in team.

But they have failed to be even that. I could say pretty much everyone have played under their expectations. I would say only backup bigs Hayes and Bamba have played on their normal level, meaning they are playing on backup level, but sadly they have to play starter role which ain't good.

Also wouldn't say coaching has succeeded either. Their tactic is all over the place. Most of the team have build a playing style at this point of the season, but it seems Utah is trying to find what they want to do. It is almost like they try to find what their young ball handlers (Peterson, Bailey and George) want to do and build around that. But it usually takes 2-3 years for young players to find their spot in NBA. It seems Utah wanted to speed this up, but world taught them a lesson that you can't speed up development. Who knows maybe in next game everything clicks and they start dominating NBA, but that's unlikely.

SkyHook · Post #8 » by **SkyHook** » Wed Nov 11, 2026 5:58 pm

From Tom Ziller's GMIB newsletter today...

Utah is not 1-10 bad. They aren't playoff good, but they have been snakebitten and maybe undergoing the most adjustment of any squad in the league (including Miami). It is hard to avoid wondering what a Peterson-Ace Bailey-Walker Kessler core would have looked like, though. Trading for Jaren Jackson Jr. midway through last season continues to look more and more strange every day.

Post #9 » by **Inigo Montoya** » Wed Nov 11, 2026 6:44 pm

The thing is that the Jazz didn't know they'd move up in the lottery. They could have been shafted once again and dropped significantly. They didn't know they could pick Peterson when they traded for JJJ mid-season.

SkyHook · Post #10 » by **SkyHook** » Wed Nov 11, 2026 11:18 pm

Inigo Montoya wrote:The thing is that the Jazz didn't know they'd move up in the lottery. They could have been shafted once again and dropped significantly. They didn't know they could pick Peterson when they traded for JJJ mid-season.

I don't see that he's saying that the JJJ trade and the drafting of Peterson are related. Moreso that the JJJ trade was ill advised — strange — on its own and made worse by the consequence of moving on from Kessler.

Catchall · Post #11 » by **Catchall** » Today 3:22 am

I thought the Jazz were a 45 - 47 win team. You need to understand how important Nurkic is to the Jazz's ball movement with his hand-offs, passing and pick-setting. He'd also lead the team in rebounds. At the same time, JJJ is the Jazz's best go-to player late in games.

The Jazz can actually get by without Lauri better than these other two.