NBA: 9 extremely bold predictions for the 2019-20 season

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NBA Utah Jazz Rudy Gobert (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /

The Utah Jazz will make it to the conference finals

The western conference is stacked this year with several teams all feeling that they have legitimate championship chances. The Clippers, Lakers and Rockets seem to be the big three that everyone talks about but one team that I think will catch some people by surprise is the Utah Jazz.

After a near-flawless offseason, the Jazz enter the 2019-20 NBA season with one of the more well-balanced rosters in the league.

They still have the best defender in the world in Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell will be looking to make the leap to true stardom in his third season and Mike Conley projects to be the perfect point guard and third star for this squad.

Replacing Derrick Favors with Bojan Bogdanovic in the starting lineup will do wonders for the team’s offence and floor spacing, while the additions of guys like Jeff Green, Emmanuel Mudiay and Ed Davis really help bolster the bench unit.

All of that and they are led by one of the better head coaches in the NBA in Quin Snyder.

I think a lot of their success this season will hinder on the kind of development Donovan Mitchell shows but if he can make that jump and become a true star on the offensive end, then I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Lakers vs Jazz conference finals.

And speaking of the Lakers.