You got me. I guess I could say middle of the pack playoff team and that'd fit better. I was thinking playoffs, typed conference ... but that really hammers my point: the Jazz has not been a true Western threat since the pinnacle of the Stockton & Malone era. The Jazz last made the WCF in 2007 - over ten years ago. Here's a list of franchises who've made it more recently:
Golden State
Houston
Oklahoma City
San Antonio
Memphis
Phoenix
Los Angeles Lakers
San Antonio
Denver
That's nine teams out of 15 who've made the Conference Finals more recently than the Jazz. That's 60% of the conference - which puts the Jazz at the bottom 40% with the likes of the Clippers, Kings, Blazers, T-Wolves and Dallas. Utah is also abysmally bad in the second round over that same stretch. In fact, they're god-awful. I wouldn't be surprised if the Jazz has the worst overall second-round record since their last trip to the WCF of any team who's made it to the second round more than once. 3-16 in second-round series going back to 2008 - and two of those wins came in that 2008 season against the Lakers. 3-16! That takes skill to be THAT bad in a seven game series. That includes two sweeps and one series that very well should have been a sweep (last year against Houston).
How you can look at those stats and state the Jazz are anything but middle of the pack is beyond me. It's the definition of being a middle of the pack WC team - which, to their credit, they do consistently. They're not good enough to ever be a threat to come out of the west and they're not bad enough to fall in the bottom-half of the conference.
Just as the franchise has been since game six of the semifinals against Portland in 1999 - a game they lost and all but ended any hope of the franchise delivering a NBA title for a long, long time.
Going back to that 1999 season, twenty years ago, the Jazz is just 1-5 in second round series (overall record: 10-25). Thank God Golden State upset the Mavs or it'd be even worse.
Until the Jazz can even get back to the Conference Finals, my view of them being a ho-hum franchise won't change. No one looks at the Jazz right now as a threat to come out of the West. And why would they? History has been a pretty good indicator of what to expect from Utah in the playoffs: if they get out of the first round, they almost certainly are going to lose, very likely lopsidedly, in the second round. As it was in 1999. As it was 2000. As it was in 2008. As it was in 2010. As it was in 2017. As it was 2018. And as it will be in 2019.
That's what middle of the pack teams do.
