The Jazz may not have a championship to their name, but according to ESPN’s Kevin Pelton, Utah still has two of the top 50 teams of all time.
Pelton constructed a formula based on both regular season and postseason point differentials to rank the clubs. For the teams that didn’t hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy, Pelton adjusted their playoff differential “effectively giving them a five-point loss for each game they came up short of the title.”
The 1996-97 Jazz was Utah’s highest ranked team, coming in at No. 35.
“The 1996-97 Jazz put together the best season in team history, winning a franchise-record 64 games and going 11-3 en route to the Finals," Pelton wrote.