Welcome to our 2010-11 NBA Blogosphere Previews, in which we contact the finest team bloggers on the web and ask them to contribute their thoughts on the squad they cover. What follows is their take, along with the team's depth chart (courtesy of ESPN.com), projected 2011 stats via our Simple Projection System, and polls where you get to have your say. Enjoy!

Utah Jazz

Coach: Jerry Sloan

2010 Summary:
Record: 53-29, Finished 1st in NBA Northwest Division
Pythagorean W-L: 55-27 (3rd of 30)
SRS: 5.33 (3rd of 30) ▪ Pace Factor: 93.8 (9th of 30)
Offensive Rating: 110.7 (8th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 105.0 (10th of 30)

2011 Depth Chart (with 2010-11 projected per-36 minute stats ... yellow = newcomer)

2010-11 Blogger Outlook by Amar Acharya, slcdunk.com

Strengths:

• Coach Jerry Sloan continues to display a passion for the game that a number of current NBA players lack. He’s not the kind of guy to sit down on a padded chair and occasionally whistle at his players from a seated position. And he never will be.
• Deron Williams is one of the top floor generals in the league and has no weakness in his game.
• The Jazz have had one of the loudest home courts in the league for two decades now. Their home court advantage was recently lauded in the annual GM survey.
• Without the jump shooting Boozer, the Jazz will re-establish a dedication to inside scoring with a healthy diet of Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, & Andrei Kirilenko while Okur heals his Achilles.
• Utah always plays better when overlooked, everyone and their mom thinks the Thunder will ascend to the top of the North West division. That’s just what Deron Williams wants people to write about.

Weaknesses:

• The greatest strength for the Jazz used to be consistency, cohesion and familiarity. Utah replaced a number of key players with Al Jefferson, Raja Bell, Earl Watson, Francisco Elson, and rookie Gordon Hayward this off-season.
• The Flex Offense is precision-based, and worked so well with all the guys on the same page. This season will have some growing pains for sure with all the new players.
• Interior defense (inc. shot blocking) continues to be a sore spot for the Jazz, especially when the two tallest players (Elson and Fesenko) look to see the fewest minutes out of all the bigmen during the season.
• Star players get the calls on offense and the leeway on defense. The Jazz will struggle in the playoffs as a small market team with only one star.

Poll Time

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 14th, 2010 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Analysis, From the NBA Blogosphere, Polls, Projections, Season Preview. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.