ESPN Reveals Jazz's Biggest Need This Offseason

The Utah Jazz have finally wrapped up their turbulent 2024-25 regular season, now officially entering their long-awaited offseason for a chance to move the needle forward on their rebuild process.

It's far from an overnight process. The Jazz have been building their youth movement up for the past three summers to grow a new budding core, yet still stand a considerable distance away from making the strides forward to get back to contention in a brutal Western Conference.

So what needs to happen this offseason?

In the eyes of ESPN's Bobby Marks, their motions of this offseason need to start with internal improvements, as he noted internal development as the Jazz's most pressing priority for this summer.

"Internal development on offense and defense," Marks wrote. "Utah ranked last in turnover percentage and allowed the most transition possessions per game, per Second Spectrum, and the most since tracking began in 2013-14. The Jazz ranked 29th in defense, last in points per game off turnovers and last in fast break points allowed."

There is part of the Jazz's rebuild that largely revolves around their ability to acquire and bring in new talent to help upgrade the state of the roster, but another considerable chunk leans upon this group's internal development.

Especially for a team centric around adding massive amounts of draft capital and young talent since starting their rebuild, getting that internal progression to gain traction is critical. And so far, while Utah's young guys have shown out with their respective flashes, there's still many holes to patch as a unit before getting back to a contending level.

Utah's one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA, and pairs that with being one of the league's most turnover-prone units. Simply put, if you can't generate efficient offense while also allowing some of the most points on the other end, it'll be hard to find considerable success in the standings.

Therefore, for Will Hardy and the Jazz coaching staff, facilitating and continuing development will be a key focus of these next few months

Guys like Keyonte George, Taylor Hendricks, and Brice Sensabaugh will be entering a huge third year in the league, eyeing a potential rookie extension after the season, and pending sophomore names like Isaiah Collier, Kyle Filipowski, and Cody Williams will have the chance for expanded roles as well.

Not to mention, the Jazz will also be bringing in potentially four new young pieces to their rebuild, depending on how their draft picks shake out in June. The need for strong and productive internal development will be more important than ever.

It's a huge summer for this Jazz rebuild. Time will tell how well (or poorly) things shake out for this budding, young core.

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