The Downbeat #1993: Jazz Power Ranking Edition

The first Marc Stein NBA Power Rankings were released on ESPN yesterday. The Utah Jazz are ranked 7th after being ranked 15th at the end of last year. Here’s what the Stein had to say about the Utah Jazz.

Folks tend to forget just how consistently good Utah was for the better part of two decades with that Karl Malone-John Stockton-Jerry Sloan foundation, but I'm not sure I've ever been more intrigued by a Jazz team than this one. Adding Joe Johnson, Boris Diaw and George Hill, along with a healed Dante Exum, to what the Jazz already had makes them the scariest of the West's up-and-comers.

I’m getting to the point where I want the hype train to pump the brakes. I don’t want the Utah Jazz to fall short on expectations.

Read more of his Power Rankings here.

The Utah Jazz have an awesome promo of their Jr. Jazz program with Derrick Favors as the coach & referee which, if you ask me, is a conflict of interest. But the video is awesome. The Utah Jazz digital team is absolutely killing it right now.

Were you a fringe NBA talent basketball player looking for your big break? Well ... you might have missed your chance as the Salt Lake City Stars have started their Open Tryouts today.

Even Boris Diaw is there.*

*Cannot confirm if Espresso Machine is there as well.

Terrible news for Chris Bosh.

Chris Bosh has been an amazing player and the whole issue with his blood clots is one I can’t imagine going through. No NBA owner is going to take the chance of one of their players dropping dead during a game. The absolute nightmare and the weight that would be on that organizations conscience if it happened.

I also see Chris Bosh’s perspective. Ball is life. What else is there to do? He’s not ready to end his career and I doubt many people at his point would be ready to do so either. This is a rough situation. It does appear though, at least for now, that Chris Bosh’s career is over.

I’m not a big Instagram guy, but I might have to be with all these instagram stories that the Utah Jazz are putting down. Here’s one where Dante Exum and Rudy Gobert begin their duel of NBA2K.

Speaking of Dante Exum ...

I really want Dante Exum to come out guns blazing this year. I want to write that “Dante’s Inferno” shot chart SO BAD.