I agree with Cy on this one. If we are healthy we are good. We are a playoff team. We are consistently good. When we are unhealthy we are inconsistent (although still surprisingly mostly good) which makes sense.
Also i think most fans pull their hair out about this. Even great teams lose to bad teams and get blown out sometimes. Its an 82 game season in a make or miss nba. Its gonna happen and happen somewhat frequently.
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I think the sample size is still a bit small to say this definitively. We have had about 2/3 our season so far healthy and about 1/3 with significant injuries. So for about 20 games we were doing well, 13-7 I think, and for the other 10 or so we did poorly, 3-7. But no one would make full judgements on a season on a 16 game sample, and the difference between healthy and not healthy is striking, enough to show that our vaunted depth isn't really as deep as we think, which is telling for the success of a team on the full season. I think until we get past the all-star break and put some streaks together, good or bad, we are still a bit of a crap shoot as to which way we will go in any given game. In the 3 games since Conley has been back we are 1-2. The one game with pretty much everyone healthy, last night, we won solidly. However, just as you said about every team in an 82-game season, how much was us being a truly solid team built for success and how much was us having a good defensive night and the Pels just being off in their shooting, you know, because that happens in an 82-game season. Plus they were missing a key cog, which would have given us real matchup problems. So that all has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Also for a lot of our losing in the last 9 games we had literally everyone except Conley. If a player like Conley is seriously the sole difference between contender and bottom-feeder then we are even more inconsistent than we thought. He is undoubtedly important to our success, but he is no Kawhi or LBJ or Steph, for him to have that big an impact on the team's success. Just speaks more to the inconsistency of this team so far this season, and the real issues we have with depth. And even the 5 games before Conley went out we went 2-3, with 3 consecutive losses, to Wash, Philly and NY, 2 of which we really should have won at least.
However it is true that our biggest strength as a team is we have no quit. We have not been blown out, and in fact have not really been in serious danger of being blown out yet. The worst loss we have had so far was a 16 point loss to the Nuggets in game 6. That is a good sign, we just don't give up.
But it is nearly impossible to say what kind of team we are right now based on the haphazard play so far this season. We will definitely learn more as the season progresses, meanwhile we will find out on an nightly basis which Jazz team is playing that night, and enjoy the ride as it happens.
