What will success look like during 2024-25 season for rebuilding Jazz?

For most NBA teams, the success of a season is determined by how far they progress in the playoffs, how they stack up against the other top-tier teams in the league, how close they are to being able to compete for a title, or if they win a title. But for the Utah Jazz, success in the 2024-25 season will not be dependent on wins and losses.
At the most basic level, a successful season for the Utah Jazz will be one in which the coaching staff and front office come away with more clarity and a better understanding about the players on the roster and their potential for future growth. An even more successful season would be one in which significant growth and development is tangible when evaluating individual players.
The Jazz have seven players on the current roster that are 23 years old or younger, and while we would like to see everyone be successful, the truth that the odds of each of those players turning out to be reliable rotation players in the future are low. So, tracking development is one of the most crucial pieces of the Jazz’s rebuilding process.
With that in mind, the Jazz’s top priorities this season are the continued development of Lauri Markkanen, Walker Kessler, the three 2023 rookies (Taylor Hendricks, Keyonte George, Brice Sensabaugh) and the three 2024 rookies (Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier, Kyle Filipowski).
In order to internally track development, the Jazz coaching staff will have biweekly check-ins with the players to discuss their performance. Jazz coach Will Hardy wants to make sure that the players are being held accountable for the things that they have been asked to work on, but he doesn’t want to pick at those points after every possession or every game.
“That becomes really distracting,” Hardy said. “So we track things like sprinting back and blocking out and crashing the glass on offense and contesting shots defensively, and we’re going to give the guys feedback every five to seven games. We don’t want to be the staff where they feel like they’re being picked apart all the time, because for the development to happen, it’s more about big-picture trends than every possession.”
The Jazz made a huge investment in Markkanen over the summer, signing him to a lucrative contract extension. Their intention is for Markkanen to be a part of the Jazz squad that eventually moves away from rebuilding and into title contention. While that is probably a few years away, the way that Markkanen is able to handle these rebuilding years could help him immensely down the road.
As it stands, Markkanen is without a doubt the best player on the Jazz roster. That has been true for two years, but in previous seasons, there were other players on the roster that could shield Markkanen from being completely bombarded by opposing defenses. This season, the Jazz have an even larger number of inexperienced players on the roster, which opposing teams will see as a weakness and a point to exploit.
Markkanen’s greatest hurdle this season will be finding ways to be effective within this ecosystem. It will mean making quicker decisions, tightening up his handle, exploiting mismatches and trying to be efficient even when things are difficult.
Meanwhile, it’s important for Markkanen to help guide the younger players and continue to hold a leadership role.
The peaks and valleys of Kessler’s first two years have been well documented. We know who Kessler is as a player and what his strengths and weaknesses are.
Kessler is an instinctual and natural rim protector. He plays defense with both hands, he sprints down the court and when he’s not overthinking things, he has great footwork and touch around the rim.
In order for Kessler to become even more effective and take a step forward in his development, he’ll need to set better screens, allowing good angles for the ball-handlers. He needs to work on his free-throw percentage, needs to be stronger with the ball in his hands, and most importantly, he needs to play with more physicality.
Kessler’s ability to run in transition is a huge weapon, but that weapon can’t be utilized to its full extent if he isn’t tough and strong with the ball. Too often Kessler goes up without force or loses the ball after a rebound and learning to use his strength to his advantage is going to be really important.
Keyonte George, Taylor Hendricks and Brice Sensabaugh are going to have a lot of things thrown at them this year. While George played in 75 games last season and got a really good feel for what the NBA game is going to require of him, Hendricks and Sensabaugh played in just 40 and 32 NBA games, respectively. Despite not having played as many games, both Hendricks and Sensabaugh are going to have significant expectations to show improvement this year.
There are certainly broad things that the Jazz coaches want to see from each of these players (Kessler and incoming rookies included), and fans will easily be able to watch for them as the season moves along.
“The bigger-picture things for them are changing ends of the court … pressuring the ball defensively, physicality, rebounding — and that’s not just going to get the ball, that’s blocking out players in rotation,” Hardy said. “Those would be big-picture, broad things that you can watch and you’ll see.”
As an example, Hardy said that if you zero in on Hendricks and watch him when possession changes, you’ll be able to easily see when he’s running hard and when he isn’t, which is something that Hendricks struggled with last season and has been better in during this preseason.
The goal there is to make sure that those things become habit and second-nature for these young players. If Hardy is having to call out to Hendricks, or any other player for that matter, to run back on defense by the end of this season, then that’s something that the coaches and front office will take into consideration when evaluating players.
Outside of those more big-picture concepts, the players will have smaller technical things that are going to be tracked throughout the season. For example, George’s shooting discipline and keeping his follow through, Hendricks’ base and getting set before he takes open shots, Sensabaugh having correct defensive spacing and filling gaps at the right distance.
Since these are the sort of things that fans will need to watch for, it will make determining success a little more difficult than watching a win and loss column, especially because as the season progresses, goals will evolve and change. So that’s something we’ll be talking about a lot this year. I’ll make sure to update as often as possible to make sure that you’re informed about not only the progress of the young players on the roster, but also what you should be looking for.
Many, if not all, of the big-picture concepts that are used to evaluate the other players will be used to evaluate this year’s incoming rookies. But a rookie season is more about setting a baseline.
As we see Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier and Kyle Filipowski earn minutes throughout the season, we’ll learn about their strengths, weaknesses and areas that need improvement. That’s what is going to inform the areas of growth that need to be tracked.
But more than anything, Hardy said he is looking for consistency from the players this season. No one is expecting for the players to be perfect or for them to learn everything right away. But they need to be consistent in their approach, in their work ethic, in their film study, in how often they ask questions, and in how much time they put into making sure they are improving.
The hope is that if there’s consistency away from the court, there will be more consistency on the court.