They play in the ultra-competitive West where there are legitimately 10 teams vying for the 8 playoff spots. They are like Philly three years into their tanking program, but the feeling is that there will be more losses piling on for the Jazz. Talent wise, they have three Top 5 Picks (Exum, Kanter, and Favors), six lottery picks (+ Hayward, Burks and Burke), and nine first rounders (+Booker, Hood, Govert), pedigree which suggests they should be good. Twelve of the 15 players that will suit up for the Jazz are 25 and younger. Major Subplot of the Season- How Toure Murray and Steve Novak will save the Jazz! Young and the Restless- The Utah Jazz have the youngest roster in the NBA. I’m not going to venture a guess on his ceiling because nobody knows, but a point guard that can fly and has court vision? Should be fun. I like what i’ve heard, and I’m more intrigued by the few highlights I’ve seen from Jazz preseason games. Now comes the human element: actual games. Which is to say he’s a completely digital creation.

Exum is the baby of a youtube highlight clip, reared by Twitter GIF’s and raised by the blessing of the NBA Twitterverse. Player to Watch- Dante Exum (PG?)- I put a question mark because the Jazz and rookie coach Quinn Snyder will likely use him in a variety of roster spots. Suffer for a few years, but beware when the tag of losers are ripped off. Fans will come back once the team starts winning. The NBA and its righteous police will surely devote thousands of words and twitter memes to symbolize what a horrible thing this is, but I’m all for any careful, thought out process of becoming good again. Zach Lowe of Grantland expertly outlined what was at stake for this vote.

Major Subplot of the Season- Tankapalooza- Technically the Sixers won their first game of the season when major lottery reform was shot down by a vote of 17-13. Obviously this season is lost in the midst of the biggest, most open tanking party known to sports (as the NBA Twitteratzi will have you believe), so the most important story on the court will be Noel’s development along with MCW’s development playing with Noel and then maybe if we’re lucky we may even see a Joel Embiid sighting! He’s a long armed, afro-d rim protector sent to the Sixers to play with the emotions of players hoping to score in the paint. Player to Watch- Nerlens Noel (C)- Noel is in his second year out of the NBA training academy in Kentucky known as the Wildcat collegiate program. Hope you enjoy it and hope you learn and hope you care enough to curse me out over the internet and tell me I don’t know crap. For this preview I decided rather than write some long winded thing about how Kobe Bryant is ruining the Lakers franchise (more on that later), I would rather structure it in a crowd pleasing way: go reverse order in rank of all 30 NBA franchises heading into the season and list one player to watch and one subplot over the course of the season.

The NBA season is upon us and with that, its time to preview the season.

Steven schwartz utah jazz