LoPo
Well-Known Member
No one is really assuming, it's making educated guesses based off the remaining schedule before ASB. The Jazz are going to get to play 12 of their last 16 games at home before ASB, with a lot of them coming against inferior opponents. The Jazz should absolutely be able to take care of business against those teams.
Also I don't think this team as constructed is a championship contending team unless there's dramatic improvement across the board starting with Mitchell post ASB, but a couple of minor moves isn't going to change that either. If the trade deadline is cold on sellers I'd rather just let the team have another crack as constructed and then use draft night/the offseason to make some major moves with all the cap space we'll have, and really think about trying to contend for the following season with a hopefully improved Mitchell, a potential upgrade somewhere on the roster, etc.
I agree that we will play better and improve our record. But like I said earlier, I just don't see another magical franchise defining run happening this year like it did last year. Didn't we go something like 29-6? I don't see this team having that in them even if we played every single game at home. I know our team had a worse record at this point last year, but we also don't have some "Gobert coming back" boost to the lineup or "Donovan Mitchell emerging from nowhere" boost either.
We won 48 games last year. I just have a hard time believing we can get to that level this year. We have too many solid role players and lack another really good player.