Welcome to the first edition of The Two-Man Game, a recurring series in which Salt City Hoops’ Mark Pereira and Benjamin Gaines informally and arbitrarily exchange thoughts on whatever Jazz- or NBA-related topics are on their minds. ‍

Mark Russell Pereira (Bsky | SCH): It's time to welcome Jazz fans back for the 2026-27 season. And I imagine that for many, many fans, it will be their first serious bit of attention given to the team since the seminal trades of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert in the summer of 2022. And I have to implore to folks that there are several reasons to come back and check out this year's mostly-rebuilt team.

I literally do not care if someone watched 0 or 328 games over the past four years. I am loathe to ever tell someone 'how to fan.' I only hope that whatever someone chooses to do with their fandom, they have a lot of fun with it. I get a ton of joy out of planning a long-term rebuild, so, yeah, I tuned in to a lot of what was happening around the Jazz the past four years. And aside from random guys I knew didn't have any chance of sticking around (Andersson Garcia), I always found myself interested in anyone wearing Jazz purple (or, regrettably, Jazz Highlighter Yellow) improving and taking it to their opponent. It was only until the double-tank games of 2026 that I really struggled to keep my eyes open, but that's just me.

So I won't be one to call the last four years useless, but they were certainly a different type of rebuild than Utah fans are used to.

Are you ready to dial up your Jazz fandom this year?

Benjamin Gaines (Twitter | Bsky | SCH): I went into the long-term rebuild thinking, “I’m all in on this long-term rebuild! I can’t wait to see how the young players develop!” But, man... that was a looooong 3.5 seasons. My eyes were bigger than my stomach on that one (as my wife likes to tell me whenever I order $60 worth of Chinese food).

I genuinely appreciate your magnanimity welcoming those of us who didn’t watch every game during that time. There’s a subset of fans who really do lord it over everyone else that they watched all 328, proverbially if not literally, and that they therefore deserve all the front-row spots at the championship parade. To which I say: Nope.

But I digress. Yes, I am absolutely ready to dial up my Jazz fandom this year. I never stopped “following the team,” but the sheer watchability of this version of the Jazz is going to turn games back into appointment viewing. Zach Lowe is back writing again, and is doing his League Pass Rankings (in five parts, with parts 2-5 available only to paid-tier subscribers); I’m biased, but don’t the Jazz have to be a top-10 LPR team this season? Ace Bailey appears to be ready to make The Leap™, Darryn Peterson might be Kobe Bryant 2.0, and the way they complement Utah's known entities — Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Keyonte George — is going to involve copious amounts of really fun offense and some intriguing (if perhaps incomplete) defense.

I think the biggest thing, though, is that the Utah Jazz are trying to win games again. They will be competitive. That, even more than the talent on the roster itself, is what has been missing for me at least since the February 2023 trade that sent Mike Conley from Utah. I have been flummoxed to hear that there are Jazz fans who don’t think this is the case, and that we’re still tanking.

Mark, what is up with that? Why do people think that?

Mark: I think those of us who casually write or podcast (or just generally post on the internet too much) forget that the Jazz aren’t anywhere near the average Utahn’s daily thoughts, and won’t be unless and until they hear somewhere that they are pretty good. So I’m always okay with the zeitgeist being a little slower on the uptick. And that’s fine; the Delta Center isn’t louder if it’s exclusively filled with tankwatch sickos. It takes fans of all types and we’ll have a lot of fun.

But what anchors the immediate perception down even further is that teams generally aren’t expected to immediately pivot to playoff contention after getting a #2 pick. Chicago, Memphis, and Washington all have degrees of friskiness for the season ahead, but are all considered a degree or three worse than Utah. And it gets even worse when you look at non-lottery winners in Sacramento and Brooklyn. These teams don’t have the proven All-Star talent at the peak of their powers like Markkanen and Jackson, or a third banana as exciting as George whose skills are just starting to get tapped. Utah is simply way further along in this race than teams with similar, crappy history.

The Jazz have spent the past four seasons like a boxer wearing out his opponent by blocking hundreds of punches and preserving energy. Now he’s ready to unleash that energy and start throwing haymakers, but fans have spent the past several rounds watching him seemingly get his ass kicked and aren’t excited for the next round. A trained eye knows what the boxer is up to, but I can’t fault anyone who thinks we’re up for another round of blocking body blows.

So let’s bring ‘em back, Ben. There is so much to be excited about. What gets you going the most?

Ben: So many things about this team, but let me pick just one: I have been a Jaren Jackson Jr. fan since he came into the league; you know how sometimes you just sort of latch on to a rookie for mostly irrational reasons—you like his game, even if he doesn’t play for your team, and you adopt him as your guys? That was me with JJJ in Memphis. That he turned into a DPOY and All-Star level player was more than I expected. So, for me, other than a couple of games in a dead season after the trade, this is an aligning of my fandoms. That so rarely happens, and I’m thrilled that I get to cheer on this guy in a Jazz uniform. I can’t wait to see him dart all over the floor defensively blocking shots.

I’ll also say: it isn’t just being competitive and trying to win games. Of course winning is fun. There’s a different energy when you’re aiming for a semi-specific spot in the conference (which, to me, is sixth in the West). Every single game matters again, and not in the conflicted way that Jazz fans have gotten used to, where a win is fun and enjoyable but a loss is necessary. No, we are not conflicted anymore. For those who are just getting plugged back into the NBA at the start of the season, the narrative you might remember was where the Western Conference was really deep across its top nine or 10 teams and the Eastern Conference had a contender or two and then a bunch of garbage. The West still has the presumptive two best teams (Oklahoma City and San Antonio), but then there’s a pretty quick and precipitous dropoff; the Eastern Conference is the one that appears to have a deeper set of playoff-caliber teams this season. That’s an opportunity for the Jazz to make a real splash in the West. I’m excited for every game to move the team closer to or farther from realizing that opportunity.

I have already written that I’m terrible at predictions, but you aren’t. What do you see as the ceiling for this squad?

Mark: I can’t say I’m Nostradamus, but I do tend to dip my toe in daring predictions that I either get right or come scarily close. If you don’t reach the moon, you’ll land among the stars, right? I think the Jazz are primed for a wildly successful season, and I’ll cobble together a few mini-predictions and anti-predictions to get to their audacious ceiling:

• If the Jazz still had Walker Kessler, I’d be no-joke predicting a 50+ win season from them. A top-10 in offense and defense type of team. The puzzle pieces and depth just fit too well. Alas.
• I don’t think Kessler is a 10+ win player on his own, and Jusuf Nurkic and Jaxson Hayes are replacement-level centers (read: not BAD centers).  
• Two of the Lakers, Nuggets, Rockets, and Timberwolves will be play-in teams.
• Two of the Jazz, Suns, Mavericks, and Trail Blazers will be Top-6 seeds.

So I think there is a specific “everyone does their specific job and does it really well” alchemy to Utah that makes them a fabulous candidate for a Top-6 seed. Add in the real factor that Utah is angling to improve the team further with their trove of future draft picks (they still have 10 (!!!) tradeable first round picks), and we could see the Jazz hosting a first-round playoff series with 48 wins, powered by a Top-5 offense and Top-20 defense.

My actual prediction? I love specificity, because it makes a prediction more thoughtful and daring. 43 wins, 8th seed in the West, win a blowout on the road in the 7/8 play-in game, and steal 2 wins from the Spurs in the first round in the 7/2 matchup.

Let me level it up even higher, though: The entire perception about the Jazz is going to change. I must acknowledge that this started with the Great Works of Donovan Mitchell (my kids have several D.O.N. Issues), and Ryan Smith has made inroads in the public sphere with his Pat McAfee and other media appearances. And as much deserved grief the team/Smith gets for the highlighter yellow fiasco, the pivot was as quick as Nike/the NBA would allow, with new purple motifs that are divine and attractive for TV.

But now, the Jazz are entering a new era of ‘cool’ that is going to rocket their NBA recognition and consciousness skyward. Peterson is a psychotic super-assassin that NBA players and fans love. Jackson is a demonstrative, physical force who attracts the spotlight. George is a jovial, unstoppable engine whose bright disposition is huge for kids and adults alike. Bailey is on his way to countless TikTok videos overlaid with “Ace Bailey is a PROBLEM.” And I haven’t even mentioned the team’s best player, Markkanen, who will quietly make the whole thing fly with nightly 30 pointers.

LeBron himself is intrigued. A lot more people are going to be way more than “intrigued” by season’s end.

Ben: With any luck, the national NBA guys are going to have to at least acknowledge the existence of the Jazz for the first time since 2021-22. You love to see it. Can’t wait to rock my Bailey jersey at the beach in Massachusetts next summer and not have people say, “Who?”

The team’s “best five” (George, Peterson, Bailey, Markkanen, and JJJ) are getting a lot of attention, and rightly so. We haven’t really talked about the bench. I am low-key enamored with them, especially when Ace is part of that group. There are benches in the NBA that are cobbled together randomly, and then there are benches that are Swiss Army Knives where each player has a fairly clear role and a thing that they bring to the group. The Utah Jazz bench is the latter, and I really think it’s a top 10 bench in the league. Will Hardy will have his rotations, but with so many known quantities, he can tactically move them around with confidence to suit various game situations.

Maybe it should be a Svi Mykhailiuk jersey at the beach.

Mark: I always forget if they call it a beach or a shore in New England.

All of these dudes that we’ve watched struggle in primary roles — thinking mainly of Brice Sensabaugh, Kyle Filipowski, and Isaiah Collier here — still showed awesome NBA skills. I predict they will be wildly more productive and helpful now that they will downshift into less prominent roles. They can’t compete regularly against NBA starters (yet), but I’m pretty confident that the bench is now better than most.

Then again, there is a huge difference between regular season quality and playoff quality, and we have no earthly idea what this group can muster in the playoffs. I don’t want to fast forward too much, but I suppose my closing implication to Jazz fans is that I am confidently looking forward to the playoffs again. I don’t see many worlds that are missing the playoff energy of the Delta Center next spring.