No one could have seen this coming a summer ago. The Utah Jazz were in every headline last offseason. No one could have anticipated that the Utah Jazz would turn into the most hyped team in the Association outside of Golden State, Boston, and Philadelphia heading into the 2019 season. After all, it had just been one year since Utah’s future had cratered faster than a sub-prime mortgage in 2007.
In the summer of 2017, the Jazz had just completed an upset of the Los Angeles Clippers in the 1st round. When the offseason hit, they made preparations to retain Gordon Hayward like a bird building a nest for its potential mate: they had traded up in the NBA Draft for Donovan Mitchell, traded away their 2018 1st round pick from Oklahoma City for Ricky Rubio, and re-signed Joe Ingles to a big time deal.