If the Jazz are better than expected it's because...

[Handlogten's Heros]

Outsider Theory:

The Jazz brought in a scrub big man rim protector who at one point masqueraded as a 3pt shooter to teach Kessler that wanting to shoot 3's is bad for career if you suck at them.

But he doesn't suck at them. He sucks at trying hard. His reaction time also really slow. The sixers guys on Rights to Ricky Sanchez used to joke that he took forever to raise his arms so he should just play with his arms up all the time lol.

I think its to get attendance up with the stars lol.

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

I think Bamba is mostly a practice player so the Jazz can workout against real size and give Nurkic time off. If the Jazz trade Nurk at the deadline, then they have a backup to finish out their 19-win season.

 

[Step-Back Lauri]

It needs noticeable jump in development from several of the rookie deal guys. But, if Keynote explodes and teams have to treat him like the 1st option. You all know what it means for the production of Lauri, he's much better as 2nd option, like he was a huge proportion of his All star season.. He can't be doubled down as much and then you have these two guys in Key and Lauri together putting on a heater like JC and Lauri did few seasons ago. Defense of course will be a problem so you might look at feasible 24-58 record at this point with plenty of 2nd half meltdowns when opponents gets more serious to destroy Jazz defense.

 

[jazznik]

Of course the answer would be Ace and WCJ. We al know other players well enough to be rightfully skeptical about the chances of their sudden blossoming. But Ace and WCJ are blank canvasses , and it is so easy and tempting to project our fervent hopes on them.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

I would put the most likely/most impactful options in this order:

- Keyonte having a 3rd year jump and making our guard rotation much improved
- 48 minutes of NBA level center rotation could have a huge impact on our defense.
- Lauri having an all star year and just having the type of gravity that makes everyone better for 70+ games. We strategically lost a lot of games against tanking teams last year by sitting Lauri. If he is playing against all of our tanking competition we could have more wins.
- I don't think it's extremely likely, but if Ace has the type of on/off impact he did at Rutgers, we could be much better than expected.
- Other - we get lucky/unlucky with playing opposing teams on off nights/with injuries. Last year we lost a crazy amount of games at home, and maybe we get our home court advantage back.

As others have stated, we would need a combination of a lot of things to win too many games. It will be very interesting if we get to March and we are at risk of losing our pick.