The Utah Jazz have been pretty dang porous defensively over the last three years.
Dating back to the 2023-24 campaign, the Jazz have ranked among the bottom two teams in the league for defensive rating. Last season, things got as worse as they've ever been in Utah, as they recorded a franchise-worst 122.3 defensive rating on the year.
And really, those defensive shortcomings could be attributed to several factors.
The Jazz have a young roster, have been tanking for the past four seasons, and last year saw their then-defensive anchor Walker Kessler get ruled out for the season five games in with a shoulder injury that killed any chance of this team building any type of momentum on that end of the floor.
But over the course of the Jazz's most recent offseason, the front office made an effort to go out and add a couple of new perimeter defenders to their rotation in hopes that they can flip the script for the 2026-27 campaign.
And one of the more experienced defenders the Jazz added into the mix was none other than Josh Okogie, who was signed on to a two-year, $12 million deal in free agency , and has a nice history of being a consistent three-and-D wing who's well capable of being a nightly rotation piece in Utah.
Yet, when it comes to helping improve the Jazz's results on defense, how might Okogie approach those aspired upgrades on that end of the floor?
Okogie was asked after a recent Jazz practice heading into their preseason game vs. the San Antonio Spurs about how this group can see their aspired defensive improvments come to fruiton.
And the main takeaways for Okogie were pretty simple: players have to be willing to compete on defense, but building chemistry on the defensive side also remains an important piece of the puzzle.
"I feel like it starts with the willingness to compete on the defensive side," Okogie said of how the Jazz can improve defensively. "For the most part, the guys have been willing to step up and put their bodies on the line to get stops. It's still a work in progress, both defensively and offensively, as everybody figures out what their teammates like to do and don't like to do."
"I think defense is similar to offense in that you have some guys who can shoot better than others, some who can drive better and some who can finish better. You want to put guys in positions where their strengths are at the forefront. It's the same defensively, and that takes time as you learn what your teammates are good at.
Oct 6, 2026; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Utah Jazz guard Josh Okogie (21) and Denver Nuggets guard Julian Strawther (1) battle for a loose ball during the second half at Delta Center. Mandatory Credit: Rob Gray-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The Jazz's defensive side of the ball does tend to have a bit more optimism heading into this season simply because of the personnel this roster is able to have in place compared to year's past.
Okogie gives the Jazz a more experienced perimeter defender to throw into the rotation on a nightly basis, and has another solid wing defender in Josh Green , who was just traded for earlier this offseason. And of course, Utah has still only seen last year's deadline addition, Jaren Jackson Jr. on the floor for three regular season games since being dealt.
Will the Jazz find themselves as a top 10 defensive team in the NBA this season? Probably not. As Okogie himself noted, it takes time for a team to develop that aspirational chemistry defensively, and this young roster in Utah will be no different.
But at the same time, will the Jazz find themselves in the bottom three of the NBA's defenses like they have been for the past three years ? That seems pretty tough to imagine too. So at the very least, some form of defensive improvement seems inevitable, which is great news for all involved in Salt Lake City.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/nba/jazz/onsi as Josh Okogie Knows What Utah Jazz Need to Improve Defensively .
