One Eye-Catching Stat Might Swing Utah Jazz's Season

The Utah Jazz will be heading into the 2025 season banking on their youth movement more than ever before in their rebuild process, as this most recent offseason has been defined by shipping out veteran pieces, bringing in young ones, and building a strong environment for this core to develop.

With those changes in mind, it's bound to be a bit of a different season for the Jazz than what we've been accustomed to. We won't be seeing as much veteran talent on the floor outside of Lauri Markkanen. The responsibilities can be opened up for the first, second, and third-year players on board, and thus, this rebuild can see some positive momentum.

And for ESPN's Zach Kram, there's one stat surrounding this Jazz roster heading into next season that could define what the year ahead has to offer, which actually revolves around the age of this roster.

The stat? Out of the 11 players to log over 800 minutes last season, four of them were above the age of 23, a number which has since shrunk by three following the moves surrounding Jordan Clarkson, John Collins, and Collin Sexton.

"Three years into their rebuild, the Jazz are still getting younger. Out of 11 Utah players who reached 800 minutes this past season, only four were older than 23 years old -- and they dumped three of them (Collin Sexton, John Collins and Jordan Clarkson) in the offseason. Only Lauri Markkanen, now 28 years old, remains from Utah's small veteran contingent."

"While it remains to be seen how much the likes of Jusuf Nurkic, Georges Niang, Kevin Love and Kyle Anderson play for Utah this season, after they arrived in offseason trades, it seems more likely that Utah will give even more playing time to youngsters in 2025-26. Two new first-round picks arrived, and former lottery pick Taylor Hendricks, now 21 years old, needs more playing time after surgery on his leg and ankle limited him to just three games this past season."

The Jazz had been balancing between their youth and veterans for the past few seasons, almost to a point where the front office had kept those experienced names on the roster for a year or two too long, where they were almost forced to make a move on each of Sexton, Collins, and Clarkson this summer.

That shift was finally able to transpire with new president of basketball ops, Austin Ainge, entering the fold. Ainge wasted no time attempting to maximize what this young group had to offer once arriving at the helm this offseason. Moving out their tenured names in the locker room, while a tough trigger to pull, allows the Jazz to lean further into this budding core more than they've ever been able to once October hits.