The Downbeat #2006 - The Utah Jazz upgraded everything this season, go to the games!

The Utah Jazz are coming into some sort of form right now, but how far will this form take them? Will it at least help them finish games this year? Why did the team move the Idaho Stampede? Well, there are some very compelling reasons. #Vote4Jerry and go to the home games!

Did you see the NBA’s preview of the Utah Jazz?

I missed it, and I can’t find any info on it (and no helpful copyright liberator uploaded it to some seedy site yet) . . . but we can go to NBA.com and see some of their video clips in their completely un-embeddable formats:

• The NBA TV crew talk about the Jazz off-season additions (Joe Johnson, George Hill, Boris Diaw) [3:39]
• John Schuhmann breaks down their huge problem finishing close games (Rudy Gobert, Joe Johnson, George Hill mentions) [1:12]
• Greg Anthony talks about the Jazz youth stepping up (Rodney Hood, Trey Lyles, Dante Exum) [2:30]
• Dennis Scott talks about the Jazz bigmen and how they play defense and run the floor (Rudy Gobert, Derrick Favors, Boris Diaw) [1:14]
• . . . and their predictions for the team this year [1:19]

So that’s a total of 9:54 of Jazz time in those video clips. Every half hour of television is 22 minutes, so in their half hour preview of the Jazz, we’re missing about 12 minutes somewhere. I could have NBA TV on all day to catch it, but I’m not that keen on doing that.

The main take-aways seem to be that the Jazz have made a number of good off-season moves, have players who are still on the way up, but aren’t going to win close to 50 games this year. Playoffs? Yes. All-Stars? No. At this stage in the game, everyone has felt that way with few exceptions.

And sorry for the links to NBA.com, I know that site doesn’t always work well with users. But that’s the only way you’ll get to see Dennis Scott and Greg Anthony try their best not to call Gordon Hayward ‘Gordon Haywood’ on your computer screens, tablets, and phones.

If you desire more rigor, check out the full piece by John Schuhmann here.

Even more Schuh? Schure!

This year’s Jazz media PR buzzword seems to be “connectivity”, but perhaps it should be continuity? The Jazz (and Northwest rivals the Portland Trail Blazers and Minnesota Timberwolves) are top 3 there. Add the Denver Nuggets and four of the top five teams in returning players are from the same division. Cool, right?

As for how this plays out, this means the team is adding new pieces to an existing framework, not changing things up with the going out there and getting new foundation pieces. That helps. Yes, the team may have two new starters this season (Hill because he’s Hill; Iso-Joe because Hayward’s hurt right now), but that doesn’t mean there were huge problems that the team tried to fix in the off-season.

No.

It’s way more placid in Utah than you would believe. It’s good.

It’s going to be good.

While the Utah Jazz may not have any All-Stars this year, Utah has the return of the Stars, the Salt Lake City Stars — that is! Here’s Gm Dennis Lindsey battle rapping about it.

Okay, not so much a battle rap. But sounds good for Joel Bolomboy getting some reps with both squads with little interference.

So you all need to go to Utah Jazz home games if possible. First of all, duh, it’s the Utah Jazz. They have a great team that’s going to win a lot of home games. They also have a new floor, new uniforms, and other arena upgrades. Really, it doesn’t matter if you are a Lion King or Haddaway fan — going to Jazz home games this year will leave you with warm feelings that were hard to get during Jazz home games during the 2012-2013 season. The in-game experience is worth the ticket price.

Dude, they have their own DJ who spins at live home games!

#ThatCrossfadeTho

All of these improvements are long coming, and they aren’t the only improvements fans will see — they are consistently tinkering with Game Ops, and even more changes to the Aunt Viv will happen over the next few months. After all, Jazzfans are paying for it. According to TickPick, the Utah Jazz have the 9th most in-demand tickets in the NBA and the 9th most priciest tickets around — with an average of $147 a pop.

As a point of direct comparison, the 74 win Golden State Warriors are charging $358 a seat on average, which is a lot more. But then again, you’re also watching Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala (Finals MVP?), Kevin Durant, and Draymond Green. (And Zaza Pachulia) Also, the Bay is a very expensive place just in general.

Is that worth paying nearly 2.5x as much for the average ticket? I don’t think so. But then again, I’m fine with listening to Haddaway at live home games.

GO TO THE GAMES!

I’d vote for Jerry Sloan every day.