We are over a week into the NBA season and it has been a dramatic start. The Brooklyn Nets have fired Steve Nash and moved on to Ime Udoka somehow. The Los Angeles Lakers have just one win. But I am hear to talk about what we all want to talk about and that is the Utah Jazz.

The Utah Jazz are 6-2 and currently the three-seed in the Western Conference. It is very early I know so this article will be dealing with lots of hypotheticals. The Jazz moved their two superstars Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell before this season started with the full intention of rebuilding and getting the Holy Grail of NBA prospects, Victor Wembanyama. Danny Ainge is the CEO of basketball operations in Utah and will most likely make sure this team turns its hot start into a garbage fire real quick to try and win the lottery for Wembanyama. But if they don’t they can continue to be a roster filled with players who want to prove everyone wrong and sneak into the playoffs.

As of right now the Mavericks, Warriors, and Clippers are out of the playoff picture but are teams we can peg as eventual playoff teams. The Jazz are currently holding up one of those teams’ spots. That leaves the Jazz to fight with borderline playoff teams like the Pelicans, Timberwolves, and Trail Blazers. All those teams we mentioned have star players that the Jazz are lacking which makes people not believe that the Jazz can maintain this success.

In the Mitchell and Gobert trades, they received a bevy of talented players that have resulted in delaying the Jazz bottoming out so far this season. Mitchell got them Lauri Markkanen and Collin Sexton, Gobert got them, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Walker Kessler, and Patrick Beverley who they turned into Talen Horton-Tucker and Stanley Johnson. They even traded veteran Bojan Bogdanovic for Kelly Olynyk and Saban Lee. A massive haul for just three players. Mike Conley and Jordan Clarkson, key pieces of the former Utah playoff teams, survived the purge and are joined by all of these players.

This all reminds me of that Los Angeles Clippers team in the 2018-19 season. The Clippers traded Blake Griffin and Chris Paul in an attempt to shake the constant mediocre finish year after year. Post-Lob City they acquired Beverley, Lou Williams, and Montrezl Harrell in the big Chris Paul trade with the Houston Rockets (like the Mitchell trade). Danilo Gallinari for Jamal Crawford was a minor deal like the aforementioned Bogdanovic trade. They received Avery Bradley, Tobias Harris, Boban Marjanović, and a pick they would use to take Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for Blake Griffin from the Detroit Pistons (like the Gobert deal). Lastly, Austin Rivers was dealt for Marcin Gortat in the final set of trades.

They missed the playoffs one year which resulted in the Griffin trade happening but quickly returned to the post-season the following year. They flipped even more pieces from that giant haul into more helpful role players like Landry Shamet, Ivica Zubac, Wilson Chandler, and JaMychal Green. So after all this trading what do we get: we get an 8 seed that lost in six games to the Finals runner-ups the Golden State Warriors. The eighth seed may seem like nothing but this team fought and was very entertaining for a team with no superstar. In Game 2 they trailed 94-63 against the Warriors and went on to win the game, completing the largest comeback in NBA playoff history.

The comparisons I see are in both the construction of the roster as well as the players on each team. Both teams are without go-to star players. Jordan Clarkson is essentially this generation’s Lou Williams, he is a former 6th Man of the Year winner and plays the same way as Lou Will. Both can get hot at any time and score like crazy. Collin Sexton can be this team’s SGA for the time being as the young prospect who can score at will much like Clarkson and Lou Williams. Harrell and Olynyk both bring a similar presence as veteran big men who add offensive and defensive help. Lauri has been the team’s best player so far and is like Gallo when he was playing for the Clippers. They are both European players who are creative with the ball and know how to score. It doesn’t stop there, I mean Conley and Beverley share similarities even though Bev ain’t the offensive player that Conley is they both are great defensive guards that can bother any guard in the league. Zubac and Vanderbilt are young rebounders. Ya, see what I am saying.

The one big difference with these teams is the fact that Wembanyama exists for the Utah Jazz and that 8 seed that the Clippers reached isn’t as luxurious for a team that has a chance on the biggest NBA prospect since LeBron James. So like I said it is a big hypothetical that the Jazz keeps up in the playoff race because there is much more of an incentive to lose than there is to win.

But hey here’s to hoping they keep it up and we get another interesting wrinkle to this NBA season.