ESPN Reveals Biggest Issue for Utah Jazz This Season

It's safe to say the Utah Jazz haven't had it easy to start this year off.

Dec 8, 2024; Sacramento, California, USA; Sacramento Kings guard De'Aaron Fox (5) and Utah Jazz forward Brice Sensabaugh (28) reach for a loose ball during the second quarter at Golden 1 Center. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

It's been a rough start to the season for the Utah Jazz during their 2024-25 regular season campaign, which becomes abundantly clear when looking at their current 5-18 record to begin the year.

They currently rank as the 14th-place team in the Western Conference and are among a small group of rebuilding teams positioned firmly in the race for Cooper Flagg come this summer's draft. After beginning the past two seasons seemingly gunning for a spot in the Play-In race, Utah has had a polar opposite approach for the third year of this rebuild.

However, ESPN and Tim MacMahon's latest power rankings make Utah's struggles this season even more apparent, especially when considering how the Jazz stack up statistically against the rest of the NBA.

In ESPN's latest league rankings, the Jazz continued to stumble towards the bottom of the barrel, placing 29th out of 30 teams; one spot lower than the previous week, and only having the three-win Washington Wizards below them. MacMahon also laid out Utah's biggest weakness through a quarter of the year: turnovers.

"Utah averages 18.4 turnovers, 1.5 more than any other team," MacMahon said. "The Jazz have many flaws -- and until recently were at the bottom of the Western standings -- but turnovers might be their worst on both ends of the floor, as Utah also leads the league in points allowed off of turnovers (23.7, 2.6 more than any other team). Second-year point guard Keyonte George leads the team with 3.3 turnovers per game, but he's far from the only culprit. Five Utah players average at least two turnovers."

The Jazz's inconsistencies in the turnover battle have spanned from last season into this one, as the team is now gearing up to lead the league in turnovers for the second straight year, and being top-three for the third.

Having such a young, inexperienced roster, it's widely expected for the Jazz to have some ups and downs in the turnover margin, as a mistake-prone rotation continues to get increased reps. Most rebuilds go through a similar process. However, with such development in place, it's easy to see why Utah stands exactly where they do in both league standings and power rankings.

With so many giveaways on the stat sheet, it makes staying competitive in games consistently extremely difficult, and until this roster gets that aspect of the offense ironed out, it's going to be tough to see that status change. Thankfully, a strong, young coach like Will Hardy looks to have what it takes to get this roster where it needs to be, but that progression to becoming a sustainable, competitive team takes time to grow.

The growing pains of this year are likely to continue. Yet, the more reps and experience this youth movement is able to get, the better chance there is for this core to get where it needs to be in a tough and competitive Western Conference.

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