Jazz open season Wednesday against a Nuggets team they'll have to beat to earn playoff spot

Last season, the Jazz did something for which they received no trophy or banner — nor did they expect any spoils.

It’s not that winning the Northwest Division of the NBA, edging the Oklahoma City Thunder by four games, wasn’t difficult. In today’s NBA, it just doesn’t mean all that much. It doesn’t affect seeding, nor does it give any sort of advantage in the playoffs. Coach Quin Snyder joked Monday that NBA divisions only matter to keep track in newspapers.

And yet, those teams in the division with the Jazz — including the Denver Nuggets, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Oklahoma City Thunder whom Utah plays this week — are ones which many analysts and observers view as improved and competing for playoffs spots. And if that’s the case, those teams may be the ones that could be squeezing the Jazz out of the postseason at the end of the year.

“They’re actually ahead of us, based on every one I’ve heard and looked at, for playoff spots,” Snyder said. “We’re all competing for playoff spots. Whether someone is ranked, we try to stay away from that, but if we’re going to say it, then we should look at the fact that Minnesota’s picked, what, fourth in the West? And depending on who you ask, Denver’s picked in front of us.”

A quick accounting of All-Stars that have joined the division: Denver added Paul Millsap. Minnesota added Jimmy Butler. And then there’s Oklahoma City, which added Paul George and Carmelo Anthony. And even though Portland hasn’t picked up new stars, Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum haven’t gone anywhere.

While divisions may not matter on a practical level, they do ensure that the Jazz will play each of those opponents four times during the regular season. Each result between them will likely have implications for who is sliding into a playoff slot, and who is sliding out.

That’s the reality of the Western Conference this year, where even more stars migrated. In fact, the Jazz were one of the few teams in the West which actually lost an All-Star. But that hasn’t changed the team’s resolve to get back in the postseason mix.

“You gotta go out there and play,” Rodney Hood said. “Everything out there looks exciting, you see different teams you might put up there in a spot. But that’s why we gotta go out there and play 82 games. You never can get caught up in preseason rankings.”

And yet, the rankings are noticed. After winning 51 games last year, you can bet that there are Jazz players who scoff when they see other teams sliding up ahead of them in predictions.

No one has said so yet publicly, but Snyder believes that several Jazzmen have, ahem, taken note that the popular opinion nationally is that other teams have improved while the Jazz are expected to slide without Gordon Hayward.

“It’s something the players are very aware of,” he said. “Players know who’s out there, and they see those things. Obviously as the season progresses, it becomes really real.”

Denver, which finished only one game out of the playoffs last year, comes up first to Vivint Smart Home Arena, with former Jazzman Millsap as their new star. It’ll be a game plugged with emotion to kick off the season, as well as one which will lead to speculation over whether the Jazz are primed once again to make the postseason.

Snyder said he doesn’t want to talk with his team about preseason predictions, and he thinks the Jazz roster has enough internal motivation to succeed. But if seeing some outside doubters helps give Utah an edge, he welcomes it.

“If we can gain extra competitiveness from that and keep an even keel,” he said, ’we’ll take that.”