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SALT LAKE CITY — Kick off those Sunday shoes, Jazz fans.
For the first time in nearly 24 years, the Utah Jazz will play a regular season home game on a Sunday when they tipoff against Phoenix.
You have to go all the way back to Jan. 21, 2001 — coincidentally enough also against the Phoenix Suns — to find the last time the Jazz played a non-playoff home game on Christians' Sabbath.
And, yes, that's all been by design.
Citing the state's religious makeup, the team has long asked the league to avoid scheduling Sunday games in Utah. The thinking went that a decent number of Utahns who would normally fill up the Delta Center — spending oodles of money in the process — would choose to stay home on Sundays.
Former late owner Larry Miller was the first to make the request to the league, and could point to himself as proof of his worries. He famously didn't take his courtside seat during playoff games when those fell on Sundays.
For the last two decades — outside of a handful of those playoff contests — the league has honored Utah's non-Sunday game request.
So what changed this year?
With the league starting a week later and the In-Season Tournament added, the schedule was already squeezed. Therefore, the NBA mandated each team to submit at least four available home Sunday dates. The Jazz ended up with three such games: This week against the Suns, Feb. 4 against Milwaukee, and Feb. 25 against San Antonio.
The move could also be beneficial to the team, though.
Jazz coach Will Hardy admitted he hasn't been around long enough to truly know the effect on not scheduling Sunday games, but said he has noticed this year's schedule seems to not be so compacted.
"I feel like based on the schedule we got this year and some of the compression we had last year in certain instances, I do think that it makes an impact," he said. "But I've only been through one season here, and it was a season where we didn't have a lot of national TV games, which obviously alters kind of where you get thrown into the schedule, as well."
There's some data that points to the Jazz having a tighter schedule due to the lack of Sunday games. For one, Utah was tied for the most back-to-back sets last season.
As Hardy pointed out, there are other factors, including national TV games. The Jazz had just one national TV game scheduled last season — a home contest against the New York Knicks — but that was scrapped after Donovan Mitchell wasn't traded to New York.
Utah had some of the lowest back-to-back totals from 2018-22; seasons where they also had a significant amount of nationally televised games. But the Jazz only have two national TV games this season — and, yet, is still tied for the fewest number of back-to-backs in the league.
Is that the Sunday effect? Possibly.
"There are a lot of factors, but I do think that it helps," Hardy said.
