The Downbeat: Utah Jazz Schedule Released Edition

With the NBA announcing the schedule yesterday, we are one step closer to the beginning of next season. Unfortunately we are still 65+ days away from opening tipoff, so for now we just get to discuss, analyze, complain, celebrate etc.

Here’s a simple look at the schedule for next year:

For those of you that somehow missed it, Diana’s initial piece can be found here. Mychal wrote about Haywood’s return here. And Jazzy brought us an initial impression and breakdown here.

I found a few couple initial thoughts/reactions that I thought you might find interesting:

How the Dallas Mavericks, Sacramento Kings, and Phoenix Suns got more games than the Utah Jazz is beyond me.

It’s not a Downbeat unless there is some Donovan Mitchell news!

Chris Johnson from SI’s The Crossover team made a list of the Ten Rookies worth watching this year. Here’s a part of what he said about Mitchell:

The Jazz’s deal to move up and snag Mitchell looked like a prudent move on draft night, and it feels like a home run after watching Mitchell kill it during summer league... Even if he needs some time to adjust to the NBA (3 pt) line, Mitchell can contribute in too many other ways for Snyder to keep him off the floor for long stretches.

FanPosts are back! Because you all are so awesome, we’d like to start giving FanPosts a spot in the Downbeats again. Please feel free to help contribute to the great content here by writing up your own FanPosts. These can be anything from statical analysis to mock trades to silly stories. We’ll try and spotlight your articles here in a Downbeat like the good old days.

This week, Beeblebrox brings us some offseason entertainment by having us play a little game:

Pick your all-time starting 5 for any given team

Here are the rules:

Players had to have at least three years with the team (so Kirilenko can't be considered for Minnesota in this exercise)

Try to stay close to the traditional position the player had (so no putting Magic Johnson at power forward, he was a guard for the vast majority of his career)

New comments have to be a team no one has done before. If you disagree with someone else's picks, then you have to reply to that person and give your starting 5 for that team.

Everyone's reasoning is valid. You can pick your team based on stats, likeability, fit with other players, or any other reason. Feel free to ask why a person picked player A over player B, but don't criticize.

Go through and add to the discussion a team that hasn’t been done yet.

What do you get when a 7’4 Mark Eaton and a 7’1 Rudy Gobert get together? Well besides the 3,643 career blocks between the two of them (Rudy is already #7 all time for the Jazz by the way), you get a bike that is probably taller than 100% of us. I’m sorry, is that your bike tire or a ferris wheel?

I came across some pretty random news the other day:

Apparently Deron Williams has teamed up with Sean O’Connell (previously from ESPN 700 in Utah) for a podcast. It made me want to ask all of you the following question: Which current or previous Jazz player would you be most interested in doing a podcast and what would you want it to be about?