https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27763420/nba-30-teams-rated-top-contenders-bottom-tier
He includes the Jazz in the 'Tier 1: Top title contenders' , along with the Rockets, Bucks, Sixers, Clippers, Lakers.
Jazz
• Small pet peeve: any assumption that time is propelling Donovan Mitchell on a path to soon becoming prime Dwyane Wade. Prime Dwyane Wade was a freaking monster. The collective memory of this is fading because Wade passed the baton early to LeBron and spent prior seasons toiling on mediocre teams-in-waiting for LeBron. Prime Wade had a claim to the "greatest active shooting guard" throne. He shot between 51% and 55% on 2s every season, dished six or seven dimes per game, lived at the line, and lurked as the greatest shot-blocking guard in history.
The gap between Mitchell and that player is enormous. Mitchell closed some of it with a post-All-Star surge before struggling from the field for the second straight postseason. Good news: The entire point of acquiring Mike Conley is that Mitchell has to close only a little more of the Wade gap for Utah to become a serious contender.
Mitchell has hit 40% of his career catch-and-shoot 3s. He should get more next to Conley. Quin Snyder will find new ways to get Mitchell the ball on the move. Mitchell should be able to reserve more energy for defense. If he fulfills his potential on that end, the Jazz are going to be nasty.
The other pole of the Mitchell discussion -- the one emanating from analytics-heavy places -- is that he just isn't very good. Don't buy that. He just turned 23. His efficiency hasn't matched his Q factor, but he can do special things and has a certain ineffable quality -- courage, guts, toughness -- you need to win at the highest level. Maybe he'll never be Prime Wade, or some analytics darling, but I'd bet on Mitchell improving in ways that matter.
With Conley and Bogdanovic aboard, Utah should not fall victim to the Twilight Zone shooting slumps that torpedoed them in recent playoff defeats. Bump up their shooting, and the Jazz could sniff the top five in points per possession. That two-way balance nudges them a hair above Houston and Denver.
The Jazz might face some size and rebounding issues splitting power forward minutes between Bogdanovic, O'Neale (don't be shocked if he starts) and Jeff Green. They can dangle Exum to trawl for an extra big man if need be.
It's kind of demonstrative of how the national media misunderstands the Jazz with the fact that Lowe wrote 6 paragraphs about the Jazz in that piece and didn't mention the best player on the team(Rudy) once.
