I'll always be a fan but I'm not going to fool myself into expecting greatness from this team when they continually fail to actually show the progress needed to be great.
As for the Jazz early in the Stockton & Malone era, you're right. There was an eight-year gap where they were pretty middle of the pack. The difference is that they actually had some competitive second-round series and quickly built themselves into a franchise that didn't just roll over in the second round. Four years into that era, they took the World Champion Lakers to seven games in a series widely regarded as one of the best in franchise history. Four years after that, they were in the WCF and went down fighting against an experienced, deep and talented Portland team.
We're not talking just eight years, though. We're talking the exact same season playing out the last twenty years. Again, my issue isn't just that they've failed to win a second round series. That's part of it, as I already showed nine other WC franchises have made the conference finals more recently than the Jazz, but it's also their lack of even being marginally competitive in these series.
And for that, I don't even have to go back to the tail-end of the Stockton & Malone era. It's been like that the last decade.
2008's Jazz was the last real good Utah team - and they played the Lakers pretty damn tough in that series. Since?
2009's Jazz lost 1-4 to the Lakers. 2010's Jazz lost 0-4 to the Lakers. 2012's Jazz lost 0-4 to the Spurs. 2017's Jazz lost 0-4 to the Warriors. 2018's Jazz lost 1-4 to the Rockets.
In series they were bounced from the playoffs, the Jazz just isn't competitive - and haven't been in a long, long time. That's a 2-20 record. Props to 'em for really doing well in that 4/5 match-up, though, as they've won every series there (which have gone a minimum of six games each time over that span)...but I'm skeptical of the next big step because, as a fan for 20 years now, I've yet to see it.
Don't get me wrong, I hope this is the year. But right now, if the season ended today, we're set for a repeat performance of what we've experienced pretty much every season the last decade - the Jazz have a good shot in the first round and absolutely zero shot in the second. Frankly, I'm hoping the Jazz drop below 5th just to shake things up and give us something new because as is, I think the Jazz could take Portland in seven and would then get absolutely wrecked by the Warriors again.
