Utah Jazz Power Rankings Round-up Week 18

The Utah Jazz are in the middle of an up-and-down, somehow right now below .500 season. The main national writers seem to agree, if you look at their power rankings. Here we chart their rise and fall over time from the ESPN (Marc Stein), Sports Illustrated (Jeremy Woo), and NBA.com rankings (John Schuhmann).

If I was more diligent I would have more than just three rankings to chart. But, meh. For the season ESPN averages a 14.55 rank for the Jazz, 14.60 for NBA.com, and 15.79 for SI. The high was a Top 10 rank (6 times), and the low was being #22 (twice). Injuries suck, and I seem to write that in every piece now. But it's still true.

I think that a healthy team of Dante Exum, Rodney Hood, Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors, and Rudy Gobert should be enough to get you a winning record. And a bench that has some valuable pieces, like Alec Burks and Trevor Booker, should be enough to make you a #5 to #7 team in your conference. But that's just me. I don't know much about basketball.

And it's good to remember that these rankings indicate how the team is playing, not how good the team could actually be. And sure, the on-court performances this year have been wild and varied. They'll win in OT on the road against playoffs teams (Atlanta Hawks, Dallas Mavericks), and then poop the bed at home to lotto teams (most recently, the Brooklyn Nets). It's been frustrating for fans, and the inconsistency has hurt the team.

Even the "never wrong" national writers don't know where to put them week from week. But they do seem to all be cheating off of one another's papers though. Or maybe they're all right in where the Jazz are each week?