The Utah Jazz Couldn’t Have Asked For A Better Early Schedule

Goodness gracious, talk about a schedule. With a slew of opponents that will likely compete for lottery balls instead of wins, and two challenging opponents who can provide a measuring stick for an upstart roster.

The Utah Jazz open the 2026-27 regular season in the same way I open the front door to the local Taco Bell establishment. My eyes wide, determined, focused. Mouth agape and salivating.

The Jazz open their season in October against the Memphis Grizzlies — a plastic cup overflowing with ice-cold Mountain Dew Baja Blast.

The home opener against the New Orleans Pelicans — a Doritos Locos Taco, nacho cheese.

A revenge game against Walker Kessler and the Los Angeles Lakers — the immortal Crunchwrap Supreme.

Another refreshing meeting with our old friend Memphis — take a refill and bask in the Blast.

Along strides the big one. The reigning Western Conference champions and keepers of the beast, Victor Wembanyama. If I weren’t doing a Taco Bell theme, I’d call this matchup the whole enchilada; the ultimate test to determine whether Utah’s young core has the chest hair to compete with the band of killers who assassinated Oklahoma City last spring. Seeing as this is a measuring-stick game with little expectation of victory, San Antonio takes the shape of the Build-Your-Own Cravings Box — enjoy as you see fit.

I’ll divide these matchups into two categories: the sure-thing wins and the aptitude tests.

The sure-thing opponents (Memphis, New Orleans) offer Utah’s youngsters (Keyonte George, Ace Bailey, Darryn Peterson) adequate space to get their sea legs beneath them while simultaneously building chemistry with the stabilizing veterans (e.g., Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr., Jusuf Nurkic).

A first impression is everything for a team like Utah. Young players need a confident foundation, and these early games against lottery teams should provide that in spades if the Jazz are, in fact, the team we expect them to be in ‘26-’27.

Then you have the aptitude tests. The early assessments (or pre-tests, if you will) of Utah’s ability to play with the best teams in the league. And though Los Angeles is far from even being the best team in the Western Conference, they should be fired up at the chance to host Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, and the man I still see gracing Utah’s public transportation in the form of a UCCU advertisement, Walker Kessler.

For the reasons I’ve already shared, San Antonio is the ultimate measure of where the Utah Jazz stand at the beginning of the year.

Now fully healthy (knock on wood) and loaded with a chamber full of Darryn Peterson-shaped slugs, the Utah Jazz have rediscovered their appetite for winning basketball games, and the schedule-drafting elves have tailored an ideal path for this young, hungry roster. Momentum is everything in the game of basketball, and pumping your young core full of optimism at the dawn of the season would be absolutely ideal for Will Hardy’s squad.

Despite numerous reasons to believe the Utah Jazz could disrupt the status quo at the top of the NBA standings, this is a team rather unfamiliar with competing for wins. By nature, this team is an unknown commodity — a question mark that sparks optimism but poses uncertainty.

The regular season is not defined by its first five games, of course. The Utah Jazz will have to play a full 82-game season, and will certainly face stretches of tribulation in equal measure to their streaks of triumph. But it never hurts to open the year on a hot streak, and Utah’s early schedule provides the perfect kindling to spark a spicy wildfire.

Live Más, Los Jazz.

Calvin Barrett is the Associate Editor for SLC Dunk. Originally from Springville, Utah, he currently lives in Japan and has covered the NBA and college athletics since 2024.