2014-2015 Finish: 53-29

Season Highlight

What a turnaround! A 40 win difference between 2014 and 2015, are you kidding me!? After the torture that was the life of a Jazz fan in 2013-2014, just winning some games was all of the highlight you could need. Derrick Rose nearly doubling the number of games he played in from the last 2 years combined is hard to overlook. However, Andrew Wiggins burst onto the scene, looking like a dominant ROY contender all year and in the end narrowly losing out to Marcus Smart, who had the luxury of throwing up shots for a bad Magic team.

Season Lowlight

It’s difficult to be skeptical with the amount of improvement this team showed. You’d love to see more health from Rose, but he made strides in that area. Also, Julius Randle not even getting the season started before an awful leg fracture is a devastating start to a promising career. Even with those things considered, the way that Markieff Morris ended the season on both the PR and legal fronts cast a dark cloud over a season in which he really looked good. He and his brother got arrested for some fairly serious charges that he could do real time for, then to follow it up he made a huge spectacle of his desire to be anywhere but Utah. Rumor has it that he is on his way out of Salt Lake City, but I’m sure that the Jazz fans can’t wait for that moment to arrive after the way he has represented their city.

Best Trade

The New York Knicks send Kenneth Faried to the Utah Jazz. The Utah Jazz send Tony Wroten and Tony Mitchell to the New York Knicks. 

Most of the Jazz’s moves over the last year have been pretty solid and headed in the right direction, which will make the worst trade section difficult. The salary situation of the uber-talented New York Knicks allowed this sweetheart of a deal to get dropped in the lap of Merencio. Sure Wroten has looked like a good prospect at times, and Tony Mitchell may find a way to have a career in the NLL, but Faried is one of the best rebounders in the league. Utah found a team that was interested in low salary guys with some potential and was able to sweep away a very solid starter on a pretty reasonable long-term deal.

Worst Trade

The Washington Wizards send Andrea Bargnani to the Utah Jazz. 

The Utah Jazz trade -10 GM points.The Washington Wizards receive 10 GM points.

Alright, I was able to find one that definitely hits the worst trade radar. Not only was Merencio okay with paying Bargnani $10 million to sit on the bench injured this season, but he paid GM points for that opportunity. In hindsight, darko probably should’ve had to be paying points in the other direction to clear that much cap space off of his books. Merencio did manage to include Bargs in a later deal with Brooklyn in a swap of bad contracts. He went on to actually play some in Brooklyn, which probably says more about the Nets than it does about Andrea.

 

Other Notable Trades

The Memphis Grizzlies send Markieff Morris to the Utah Jazz. The Utah Jazz send C.J. McCollum to the Memphis Grizzlies. 

Had Morris not had a psychological breakdown towards the end of the year, this may have been their best trade of the season. Morris underwhelmed when he was on the court and eventually got himself benched, but all of the skills of a very solid starting power forward are there.

The Brooklyn Nets send Timofey Mozgov and Mike Scott to the Utah Jazz. The Miami Heat sendIshmael Smith to the Brooklyn Nets. The Miami Heat send Reggie Bullock to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Oklahoma City Thunder send Ersan Ilyasova to the Brooklyn Nets. The Utah Jazz send Mike Dunleavy to the Miami Heat. The Utah Jazz send Gerald Wallace to the Oklahoma City Thunder. 
The Brooklyn Nets send a 2nd-Rounder (Mia) and 2nd-Rounder (Utah) to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Miami Heat send a 1st-Rounder (Mia) to the Brooklyn Nets. 

The Brooklyn Nets receive 9 GM points. The Miami Heat receive 3 GM points. The Utah Jazz trade -12 GM points.

This is going to end up being the “jury is still out” kind of trade. Getting Mozgov was a huge coup for a team looking to solidify their interior on both ends. Mike Scott also looked to be a solid piece until he hit his own run in with the law, but the jury is literally still out on that one. Dunleavy was difficult to lose during their playoff push, but that is in the rear-view now. What it will really come down to is what will the Jazz look like this year? They gave up an unprotected 1^st to bring in the Timofey… if they stumble due to the legal issues that seem to be storming in from all fronts and end up in the lottery, this deal could look bad in hindsight. But, if they’re able to hold it together for another 50+ win season, giving up two late 1sts and an aging vet for an asset that doesn’t grow on trees is a pretty palatable deal.

The Cleveland Cavaliers send Devin Harris and Pero Antic to the Utah Jazz. 

The Cleveland Cavaliers receive 12 GM points. The Utah Jazz trade -12 GM points.

The LA Clippers send Chris Andersen to the Utah Jazz. 

The LA Clippers receive 15 GM points. The Utah Jazz trade -15 GM points.

I think the Bargnani deal was supposed to be viewed in this vein. Merencio had some GM points burning a hole in his pocket, so he went out and tried to fill his bench with capable vets. These two deals worked out a little bit better than the Bargnani one and gave the Jazz some depth behind what was looking like a very thin lineup heading into last October.

Best FA Signing

The Jazz haven’t historically been a huge player in free agency and have preferred the trade route. They continued this pattern this year with a few signings to round out their 15 man roster. The most significant was probably James Jones – I believe he was the only player that had multiple teams pursuing him to play for them.

Worst FA Signing

Austin Daye- Signing him wasn’t much of a gamble and they were really just looking to fill out the roster. But Daye may not even be in the league this season and really didn’t look like he should be last season…

Star

Derrick Rose – Andrew Wiggins exceeded already-high expectations and Rose only played in 50 games. But when he was on the court he was deadly. Like MVP-level deadly. He averaged better than 36-3-4 with a couple of steals each game. Even in just better than half a season, he more than justified the faith Merencio put in him when he was in the midst of a stretch that saw him average a dozen games per season for two whole years.

Surprise

Bojan Bogdanovic – Bojan was traded with another prospect for 4 GM points less than 2 years ago. He came out of the gates hot and really helped the Jazz through the early portion of the season. He didn’t make the season a success for the Jazz by any means, but he did help get them off to a great start.

Goat

Mike Scott – The Jazz were really excited to bring in Mike Scott as part of the Mozgov deal. He only played 2 minutes in his first 2 games and then promptly was injured. He followed that up by getting arrested for some reasonably serious legal problems. He didn’t do much damage to the team on the court, but they sure would’ve like to count on him to hold down one of their backup forward spots.

Draft Report Card

The Jazz traded out of the 1^st round to get Mozgov which was discussed previously. They did manage to snatch up some potential in the early-mid 2^nd round. Specifically, Olivier Hanlan has the potential to take over as the lights fade on Devin Harris’s career and take over some of the ball-handling responsibilities to give Derrick Rose a break.

Looking to the Future

The future looks cautiously bright in Utah. They have a star player in Derrick Rose, the makings of another potential star in Andrew Wiggins, and a few guys that look like they could be just on the outside looking in for the All-Star game over the next several seasons. They also have some guys with injury lists that go for days, and some with newly acquired legal rap sheets that are even longer. Assuming they can be healthy and not imprisoned, 2015-2016 should be another great season to build upon for the Jazz and there shouldn’t be anything slowing down that growth beyond there.

Upcoming Free Agents

Chuck Hayes – Chuck looks like he may be at the end of the road related to his NLL career. He’s been barely hanging on these last few years and really never had the skills that usually forecast a successful career in the NLL, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see him go.

Andre Miller – Andre just keeps holding on. Age-wise, he’s to the point that you wouldn’t be predicting another contract. But both his game and his conditioning have weathered the storm of aging quite well to this point. He’s not the offensive maestro that he was 10 years ago, but he still looks like he’s got enough left to play some minutes off the bench.

Markieff Morris – As discussed previously, it sounds like Morris will probably be a sign and trade, and it also sounds like both parties will be quite amenable to that ending.

Kenneth Faried – In the opposite corner from Morris is the Jazz’s other talented pre-prime power forward. Faried will likely resign with the Jazz without much fanfare.