The Utah Jazz had their hearts broken over the summer with the departure of NBA All-Star forward Gordon Hayward to the Boston Celtics. Prior to his exit, Hayward helped turn the Jazz into a formidable playoff team.
However, with him now gone, Utah has seemingly floundered back to the bottom of the Western Conference. Although a downtick in production was to be expected, head coach Quin Snyder admittedly told Chris Mannix of Yahoo Sports that the Jazz may have lowered expectations for the 2017-18 NBA season.
“There is always an optimism at the beginning of the season,” Snyder told Yahoo Sports. “And I’m not saying there isn’t that now, but it’s tempered a little bit with the personnel changes.”
That said, Snyder added that this team is not ready to throw in the towel just yet.
There isn’t a silver bullet,” Snyder said. “What there is, though, is a challenge. That’s something you can really embrace and enjoy.”
Aside from the departure of Hayward, the Jazz have been ravaged by injuries in their 6-8 start this year. Their key members such as guard Dante Exum, forward Joe Johnson, and big man Rudy Gobert are all expected to miss some time.
Although Utah has managed to keep up their strong performance on the defensive end, the injury to Gobert deals a huge blow moving forward. Teams have already started to take advantage by putting up 100-plus points over the last two games in his absence.
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