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The Jazz, building a contender

In my previous post I laid out some thought on how to categorize NBA players and what groupings of players make a contender. In this post I will share my thoughts on were the Jazz are going.

In order to be a contender you need at least 2 Star players and 3 Playoff caliber players (see previous post). A Super Star makes building a contender much easier. So what level of player are the Jazz C4 likely to become? (In this table I am going to estimate the percent chance several Jazz player have of making it to the valuable player levels. This is all opinion, with zero data)

SS S P RP F (Every one on a NBA roster makes it at least this far)

Gordon Hayward <1% 5% 90% 100%

Derrick Favors 10%* 40% 90% 100%

Enes Kanter 20% 50% 90% 100%

Alec Burks 0% <1% 50%** 90%

Jeremy Evans 0% 0% 15% 35%

Trey Burke 0% <1% 25% 60%

Ian Clark 0% 0% <10% 35%

Brandon Rush, and Gobert or the only other player I feel have a shot of becoming RP or more.

* If Favors is going to make the jump to one of the leagues best players, we will know by the end of the 13-14 season.

** I think this number is 80% if Alec is on any other NBA team. Is there really any team more clueless about shooting guards then the Jazz?

In order to build a contender the Jazz will need to try and get two stars and 3 playoff caliber players and we are well on our way to getting 3 of those needed pieces with Kanter, Favors and Hayward. Burks may also become one of these players, or it is possible we will need to upgrade the shooting guard spot. I think it is unlikely that Trey ever becomes one of the players to drive the Jazz to a championship. Trey's most likely outcome is back up PG on a contender or a starter on a weaker team (summer league did not change my thoughts on this). I honestly think a year from now we are going to be in need of a PG upgrade (sounds familiar), but we will not go for it in the draft because the FO will want to give Trey more time. This will ultimately push our true building process out at least 2-3 more years.

I will not even go into how coaching might influence this whole process.

Hopefully, this all makes sense. Let me know what you think.

All comments are the opinion of the commenter and not necessarily that of SLC Dunk or SB Nation.