Over the next month, we will be previewing every team in the NBA. Here is the next installment of our series on the Utah Jazz.

2014-15 Record: 38-44

Notable Acquisitions: Tibor Pleiss (Trade), Trey Lyles (Draft) Raul Neto (Draft)

Notable Departures: None

Temperature Check:

A multi-year rebuilding effort was jumpstarted by Rudy Gobert and a fascinating late-season surge. After producing one of the best records in the league after the All-Star break, Utah heads into this season as everyone’s favorite darkhorse playoff contender. With some further growth from their young core, the Jazz could be ready to battle it for a postseason spot in the uber-competitive Western Conference.

Inside the Playbook:

Upon the news that starting point guard Dante Exum was lost for the season with a torn ACL during service with his national team, the “Utah to the playoffs” bandwagon thinned out some. And for good reason. While Exum didn’t bring much to the table offensively, his defensive ability (to a much lesser extent than Gobert’s) buoyed the team’s overall potency, mainly because of the player he replaced, Trey Burke. By pretty much any metric, Burke was an abject disaster last season. He wound up 55th out of 83 listed point guards in ESPN.com’s Real Plus/Minus rankings and according to NBA.com data, the Jazz as a team were nearly three points better per 48 minutes with him off the court. With numbers like that, it’s easy to see the pessimism after Exum’s injury news.

Most teams would struggle with a roster full of underwhelming point guards, but Utah may actually end up thriving. That’s because Utah’s wing rotation is filled with players capable of fulfilling the duties typically associated with today’s NBA point guards.

For starters, small forward Gordon Hayward ran nearly as many pick-and-rolls (431 charted plays) -- the action most commonly used by primary ballhandlers to start possessions -- as Burke did (455 charted plays), per Synergy sports data. And Hayward actually ran them more effectively (though both players ranked in the bottom half of the league).

As a pick-and-roll passer, Hayward has the potential to be a playmaking force due to his willingness to play with balance -- he was third among all players over 6-foot-6 in Assist Opportunities, per NBA.com player tracking data -- and size, the latter being more important because seeing over defenses, well, it helps a lot. But while Hayward can make simple plays to the roll man and the occasional pass out to a spot up shooter on the perimeter, he generally doesn’t read the court very well. Too often his passes are rushed out as a result of driving recklessly into bad areas of the floor without much of a plan. And Hayward’s tendency to lock in on the roll man when looking for an emergency outlet can put his big men in bad spots: 

That same haphazard approach affects Hayward’s ability to find efficient looks in pick-and-rolls as well, explaining why his adjusted field goal percentage in the action is a middling 38.9 percent. That said, there is a time and place, like late in close games when defenses are locked in, where offenses need players like Hayward who can make tough, hanging jumpers like this: 

Whereas Hayward’s greatest attribute acting as a leading man is his scoring, forward Joe Ingles can act like a lob specialist. Perhaps because of his time spent overseas, where a shortage of top-end athletes and a shorter 3-point line make it easier and more beneficial to force the ball into rolling bigs, Ingles showed a knack for creating windows to deliver the ball to Utah’s big men for easy finishes near the rim.

Now Ingles is extremely limited as a scorer in pick-and-rolls, which doesn’t lend well to being a primary option versus a set defense. As you saw in the above clips, Ingles is at his best as more of a secondary operator, finding his rolling bigs against a defense that has already been shifting and rotating around, which is definitely a valuable asset for a team to have.

The opposite of Ingles is shooting guard Alec Burks, who returns after missing nearly all of last season with a shoulder injury. Two years ago, Burks was emerging as a quality scoring option, almost like a poor man’s James Harden, racking up enough fouls that he finished 13th in league in Free Throw rate behind a lot of really good players, per Basketball Reference data. To this point, Burks hasn’t been into that whole passing thing too much, but if Utah needs someone who can go get buckets in pick-and-roll, Burks can certainly fill that void.

And last but not least, is second-year man Rodney Hood. Most players drafted in the late first round aren’t expected to pan out to much. That’s why it’s somewhat shocking to find out that Hood was the team’s best pick-and-roll scorer by a wide margin last year, finishing in the 91st percentile in the league, though he only registered 109 plays (small sample size alert). But digging into the film and you can see that Hood’s success is no fluke.

What should make Utah fans excited is that the best part of Hood’s pick-and-roll game isn’t even his ability to score, it’s his passing. Very few young players come into the NBA proficient at two things: their pace and their understanding of shifting defenses on the weakside of the floor. Hood already looks like a 10-year NBA vet because of his grasp of both things. Just look at this play:

As Hood comes off the pick-and-roll, he slows his pace, reads and baits the weakside defender (Jason Terry) into sucking deep into the paint to “tag” a rolling Derrick Favors, then whips an on-target pass to his teammate (Exum) in the far corner for an open 3. All the aspects of what created that open shot -- Hood’s pace, vision and awareness of the defensive responsibilities -- are things you typically don’t associate with rookies, especially 6-foot-8 wings that come into the league billed as scorers.

So while Exum’s injury is a tough break for both the player and the franchise, Utah might still be on track to turn a few heads this season thanks to their uniquely skilled, playmaking wings.

Lineup to Watch:

Point guard-less lineups featuring some three-player combination of Hood, Hayward, Burks or Ingles.

With Burks out the majority of last season due to injury, the chance to try this last year without much consequence never materialized. The only combination of those three that played together last year was a Hood-Ingles-Hayward trio that registered just 22 minutes together, during which they outscored the Jazz opponents by nine points -- though it’s unclear (and probably unlikely) that those minutes came without Burke or Exum alongside them.

Burke will likely be given some time to showcase any offseason improvement, but nothing he’s done up to this point in his career suggests he’s a player ready to take off into a major role. And his backups don’t offer a ton of upside. Bryce Cotton is a tremendous athlete with the potential to score in bunches while Raul Neto is a fantastic playmaker, but both have limitations with their size and, in Neto’s case, his shooting ability. With as good as Utah will be in other spots, it will be hard for Snyder and the front office let one position undermine a potential playoff berth, assuming none of these point guards prove capable of handling a major role in the rotation.

To avoid this, the Jazz can either go outside the organization for help (probably off the veteran scrap heap) or go outside the box, and rely on this oversized lineup with no point guard. As mentioned above, these players have both complementary skill sets and the general competency in at least one aspect to shoulder the load as a team’s primary attacker. Plus with the foundation of the Utah’s system being ball movement and multiple actions per possession, they don’t need a true point guard as much as they need skilled playmakers, a requirement a three player combination of Hood, Hayward, Burks and Ingles can certainly fulfill.

The Wildcard:

Derrick Favors

In the 857 minutes Favors paired with Gobert in Utah’s frontline, the team’s defensive rating was an incredible 96.2. Any team that can defend like that for that long gives themselves a great chance to make a deep playoff run unless they can’t score. And, well, Favors and Gobert on the court didn’t make for much scoring. Utah posted an offensive rating of just 100.9 during that same time, a mark that would be the worst in the league by far if it held up for an entire season.

Being that bad together offensively limited the impact of Favors to pair with Gobert and control teams at the other end of the floor. The burden to improve that likely will fall to Favors, as Gobert is probably going to be limited to catching and dunking things near the basket given his position (center), physical makeup and current skill level. As a four man, Favors needs to have some offensive versatility, whether that comes in the form or a mid-range jumper, killer post game or, maybe one day, a 3-point shot.

As of right now, Favors has none of those things. He ranked near the bottom third of the league in post up efficiency, per Synergy data. Favors also shot just 34.2 percent on 178 attempts between 15-24 feet last season. He’s also shot just 1-of-12 from 3, over his entire career.

If one of those things moves from a liability to a threat, it will ease the burden on Snyder’s offense when Favors and Gobert occupy the floor together, which means the team will have more time to benefit from the duo’s incredible defensive impact.

Coach’s Question:

How long will Snyder stick with Trey Burke if he doesn’t show immediate improvement?

Burke is just 22 years old, but it’s hard to see much hope for him as a major contributor in this league. Defensively, he’ll always be at a disadvantage due to his size, even if he cleans up the other areas that he’s subpar at. Offensively, Burke has spent two straight seasons struggling mightily at all the things he was projected to be good at.

The Jazz would no doubt love to see him turn it around and become part of their exciting young core, but now that this team has shown a real ability to compete for a playoff spot, there isn’t time for Burke to struggling through even more growing pains until he figures it out. So unless he starts the season out gangbusters, the clock will ticking on his involvement in Utah’s grand plans. But the question facing Snyder is how long that leash will be.

If he pulls the plug on Burke too early, he may miss out on the “light bulb” moment (or stretch of games) where his young point guard finally starts putting the pieces together at the NBA level. If Snyder sticks with Burke too long, costing the team a handful of games better minutes management would have won the Jazz, and it may be the difference between the playoffs and lottery in a very competitive conference.

Best Case Scenario:

48-34 If…

Favors does just enough to warrant more extended time on the floor with Gobert. The team finds a way around their point guard issues, whether it’s through clever rotations from Snyder or unexpected production from Burke, Neto or Cotton. Hood solidifies himself as an up-and-coming star and Burks shows no ill-effects of a lost season to injury.

Worst Case Scenario:

40-42 If…

The point guard spot becomes a black hole that sucks away all hope for the playoffs. Favors and Gobert continue to be great defensively, but a disaster on the other end of the floor. Burks fails to bounce back from his injury and Hayward’s efficiency falls off again due to the offensive burden placed upon him.

Click here for a full list of NBA Season Previews from Brett Koremenos.