The Utah Jazz won 50 games, notched the fifth seed in the Western Conference and then got hammered by the Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs this past season.
It further proved that while the Jazz were good, they were far from good enough to truly contend and needed to put quite a bit more talent around Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert if they wanted to make serious noise in the West going forward.
Well, this summer, they did just that.
The Jazz struck gold during the offseason, trading for Mike Conley and signing Bojan Bogdanovic in free agency.
As a result, Utah is considered by many to be a legitimate contender out West, and rightfully so.
Here are three reasons to be excited about the Jazz heading into the 2019-20 campaign:
3. They have More Shooting
The Jazz ranked 18th in three-point percentage this past season, and while that's not terrible, it isn't good enough.
Utah took major steps in improving its perimeter shooting this summer with the additions of Conley and Bogdanovic, who are major upgrades over Ricky Rubio and Jae Crowder, neither of which were exactly knockdown three-point shooters.
Now, defenses can no longer simply collapse on Mitchell and force him to pass out of drives in the playoffs, as the Jazz finally have a few guys who can regularly drain triples.
This should do wonders for Utah's offense and make Mitchell and Co. much more difficult to defend, particularly in the fourth quarter.
2. They Now have Three Go-to Scorers
Let's face it: Mitchell has been the Jazz's only real go-to guy over the last couple of years. Gobert is not much of an offensive threat, and Joe Ingles is more of a spot-up shooter and facilitator than a scorer.
But by bringing in Conley and Bogdanovic, Utah now has three guys who can create their own shot whenever they want, and you can bet that Quin Snyder will have all three of Conley, Bogdanovic and Mitchell on the floor together late in fourth quarters.
Going back to what I said in the last point, this is going to make it very difficult to defend the Jazz, as those three players can kind of play “my turn, your turn” to keep defenses off-balance.
This will open up Utah's entire offense and will also make guys like Gobert and Royce O'Neale bigger threats, because now, defenses have to worry about several scorers rather than just the one in Mitchell.
1. They have Experience
Even though the Jazz have been eliminated from the playoffs in the second and first round, respectively, in Mitchell's first two seasons in the league, don't think for a second that those two postseason trips won't serve as valuable experience moving forward.
Not only that, but Conley and Bogdanovic have a heck of a lot of experience in their own right, and even Jeff Green has played in a couple of NBA Finals.
Experience cannot be understated in the playoffs, and Utah has gone from a young, upcoming team to a squad that genuinely can say it has championship aspirations heading into this season.
The Jazz have taken some lumps, and now, it's time for them to hand out some lumps of their own.
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