This NBA offseason has been very eventful, and we’re only a few short weeks away from the start of team training camps. To help bridge that gap for hoops junkies, we here at numberFire will be rolling out our projections for next season in the form of team previews, starting at 30 and going all the way to number one. We continue today with the 28th-ranked Utah Jazz!

Last year, the Jazz ended with 25 wins, but outperformed their Pythagorean Wins by three games. They struggled mightily on both ends of the floor, ranking in the bottom five in both offensive and defensive rating. They couldn’t blame health - their top eight players all played at least 66 games. Their starting five wasn’t terrible offensively as a unit, but was bad on the other end, allowing 111 points per 100 possessions. The Jazz have several intriguing young players on their roster, and developing them will be priority number one this upcoming season.

numberFire Metrics

Projected Record: 29-53
Western Conference Rank: 15th
NBA Rank: 28th
nERD: 33.5
Playoff Chances: 4.55%
Championship Chances: 0.00%

While projected to be better than both the I wrote about teenage rookies and how they’ve historically performed in their first respective seasons. The answer is, not like All-Stars. Only five players in the history of the league put up five or more win shares as a teenager in their first season, and those five are all Hall-of-Fame bound. The data also says that the learning curve is steeper for guards than it is for big men. We should temper our expectations for Exum in his first year. Baby steps and flashes of potential are all we need right now.

Fantasy Hoops Stock Watch

SG/SF Gordon Hayward (Yahoo O-Rank: 60)
Hayward finished the year as the 65th best player in standard leagues last season, according to BasketballMonster.com, which was lower than his preseason ranking. However, he was really the only playmaker for the Jazz for the majority of the season and his shot selection (and thus FG%) took a hit. But he was still a very good fantasy player. In fact, if you punted FG% last year, Hayward became the 34th-ranked player. With the addition of Exum and Hood, along with added experience for Burke and wrote a great piece about Gobert a couple weeks ago, talking about how he could turn into a Tyson Chandler-type player. Obviously, being a useful fantasy player is dependent on minutes, but Gobert’s recent play in the FIBA World Cup might demand such playing time. A big part of the development of the Jazz will be on the defensive end, and Gobert looks like he could become an elite rim protector in the NBA. Blocks are also hard to come by other than the top guys, so Gobert could be an interesting guy late or in deep leagues for you to keep your eye on.