Utah Jazz owner Gail Miller has the unequivocal belief that the franchise is bound for an NBA championship. The organization reloaded this summer by trading for star point guard Mike Conley, giving young Donovan Mitchell the helping hand he'd been awaiting during his first two seasons in the league.
“With 30 teams in the NBA, there can only be one championship, but I think every 30 years, you ought to have one. It’s our turn,” said Miller, according to Gordon Monson of The Salt Lake Tribune. “I think we’ve built up to it, we understand what it takes, we’ve put everything in place for it, we’ve given them all the tools they need, brought in the players who I think can do it. There’s no reason why we can’t have that expectation. I don’t know that it will come this year, but I do believe we’ll get there.”
The Millers have owned the Jazz since 1986, when they finalized the purchase of the organization and gained complete control of it after becoming part-owners just a year before.
The Jazz are among five teams to have reached the NBA Finals (1997, 1998) and fall short of winning the title, painfully losing to the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls in back-to-back years over a six-game series, respectively. A total of 11 active teams in the league remain banner-less, making this a tall task in any way it's viewed.
The probabilities are slim, but one could argue Utah has its best roster since the Deron Williams-Carlos Boozer days, or even the John Stockton-Karl Malone glory days. The Jazz have made key additions that could propel them among the top four in the West, not only trading for Conley, but adding Bojan Bogdanovic, Emmanuel Mudiay, Ed Davis, and veteran Jeff Green — components that could give them a chance for some long-eluded gold hardware.
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