NBA Season Preview 2019-20: The 5 biggest questions for the Utah Jazz

The Utah Jazz had a sneaky good offseason and look like legitimate title contenders. Here are their five biggest questions for the 2019-20 NBA season.

1. Are you buying or selling Donovan Mitchell’s idea of playing defense like Marcus Smart?

Selling. Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic take pressure off Donovan Mitchell to carry an inordinate load on the offensive end, so he should have more energy and focus saved up for the defensive end.

With that being said, the Utah Jazz have always had the type of defenders capable of overshadowing Mitchell’s shortcomings and alleviating the pressure for him to be a great defender. This helps him conserve his efforts for carrying Utah’s offense. Conley’s arrival removes the impetus for that to change, since he’s an even better defender than Ricky Rubio was.

Marcus Smart is an elite, hounding, multi-positional defender, and getting to that level takes years of diligent work, not just one summer playing with the guy on Team USA’s most disappointing squad in decades. The Jazz will be perfectly fine with Mitchell being an average NBA defender again in 2019-20, so it’d be fairly stunning if this became a thing.

2. Counting on Jeff Green in big moments is going to totally ________.

Look a lot like this GIF on repeat:

(In all seriousness, even though Jeff Green is currently starting alongside Bogdanovic with Joe Ingles coming off the bench, there’s no question Ingles should be on the floor in crunch-time. Green’s positional versatility and ability to play the 4 helps with the wear and tear of the regular season, but Quin Snyder will play his best players when important games get tight. So hopefully the correct answer to our prompt will be “not matter for this team.”)

3. How many Jazz players make the Western Conference All-Star team?

One, and it’s probably not the name you’d expect.

All the momentum and buzz is hovering around Donovan Mitchell right now. He just finished up his summer as the young leader of Team USA, he’ll most likely lead the Jazz in scoring this year, and Utah’s ascent up the Western Conference ladder will undoubtedly draw him some All-Star chatter. If he stays close to the 23.8 points, 4.2 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game he averaged last year — especially if he’s a touch more efficient — he’ll be in the conversation.

It’s a definite possibility that scenario unfolds with Conley around to facilitate and Bogdanovic there to spread the floor, but isn’t it also possible that adding two more scorers diminishes his stat line a bit, which would be a killer in a Western Conference loaded with star guards? And shouldn’t we mention how his “coming-out party” with Team USA was on a team that finished seventh in the FIBA World Cup? Unless his numbers take another jump as the Jazz become legitimate contenders, the credit for their rise might be split between him, Conley and Rudy Gobert.

It’d take a top-one or two record in the West to warrant two All-Stars, and the Jazz have started their last two seasons pretty slowly. If that’s the case, it feels like it’d be time for Gobert’s day in the sun. It’s pretty ridiculous the Stifle Tower is a two-time All-NBA selection and two-time Defensive Player of the Year but still doesn’t have an All-Star appearance to his name.

He’s been the most impactful two-way player on the Jazz for a few years now, and he remains — literally and figuratively — at the center of it all. Coming off a season in which he averaged a career-high 15.9 points, 12.9 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game, if he can keep his production relatively level on a superior team, last year’s tears may turn to vindication.

4. Among the other Western Conference contenders, who is the worst matchup for the Jazz?

Probably still the Houston Rockets.

Adding a defensive stalwart like Conley helps, as does a versatile big who can switch to different positions in small-ball lineups like Ed Davis, but James Harden has rendered Utah’s elite defense helpless in the last two postseasons. The Rockets are 8-2 against the Jazz in that stretch, and in both postseason matchups, the reigning DPOY was completely taken out of it.

Unless Mitchell actually does start playing defense like Marcus Smart, Conley’s not going to be able to limit Harden enough for Utah to figure this puzzling team out. Even if a 32-year-old Conley reverts back to some of the best defense of his career, that’ll still leave Mitchell, Ingles, Royce O’Neale, Emmanuel Mudiay or a perpetually injured Dante Exum trying to cover one of Russell Westbrook and James Harden.

Their biggest hope is they don’t meet Houston in the postseason, or that the Harden-Russ backcourt implodes thanks to a lack of spacing if they do.

5. What has to happen this season for the Jazz to actually be a contender?

They’re already contenders. The problem is, so are the Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers, Denver Nuggets, Golden State Warriors and Portland Trail Blazers — and that’s just in the West, without including the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers in the East.

For every single one of these teams, their title hopes in 2020 could very well hinge on simple injury luck and favorable playoff matchups in what’s likely to be an absolute gauntlet out West. Avoiding the Rockets, Lakers and Clippers until the last possible moment would be a big help for Utah.

Strictly speaking from a basketball perspective, an aging Mike Conley needs to stay healthy and play revitalized basketball as he joins a contender. Bogdanovic’s shooting has to keep opponents honest and open up driving lanes. Jeff Green can’t disappear in playoff games, even when Snyder goes with Ingles in late-game lineups. Mitchell has to lead by more than just volume shooting. Gobert can’t be wiped off the board by Harden, or any small-ball lineups for that matter.

Avoiding another slow start will be vital for playoff positioning. Squeezing points out of the bench, especially with Ingles running the show, will be extremely important. Outside of him, Davis and O’Neale, the bench looks fairly thin, so Exum and Mudiay have to prove they can contribute on a winning team.

The NBA’s championship window is wide open for the first time in half a decade. The problem is, only one team can squeeze its way through that window, and 10 teams are all trying to cram themselves through it at the same time. To be the last one standing, Utah will have to stay healthy and tackle one opponent at a time.