FanPost

What's the Story? Jazz Simply Playing Together

I haven't done a FanPost in a while, and I've been humming to put together some thoughts on our beloved Jazz and contribute them to the site. So I thumbed through some stats to see what I could pull together. For a while I was a little dismayed at the lack of being able to find a story. I couldn't find any particular member of the Jazz that looked like they were lighting up a particular stat. BBJ did mention the other night that we seem to be taking Deron Williams (22 ppg and 10 apg) for granted, so maybe that applies here, but still I didn't find anything that really screamed to be "Holy crap, this guy's doing insanely well for us".

But that is the story of this 2010-11 season so far. Check out some of our team statistics...

Notable Jazz Team Stats

8th in the NBA in points per game and points allowed (102-96.9).

7th in field goal percentage (.470)

1st in field goal percentage allowed (.425).

3rd in free-throw percentage (80.3) after OKC and LAL.

2nd in the NBA in assists per game (24.7)

1st in the NBA in assists allowed per game (18.2)

Team assists are an interesting measure of chemistry, because let's face it, even a great distributing point guard is not going to come up with 15 or 20 assists per game for their team.  A team's measure of assists are based on the collection of all players contributions, which means A) all Jazzmen are moving the ball around more accurately than every team but Boston (thanks to Rondo's excellent start), and B) the Jazz are discouraging opposing assists more strongly than anyone.

Add to this the fact that we're defensively the toughest team in FG% allowed, and in conjunction, that last bit should make a Jazz fan proud.  Not because the Jazz are winning, but because they are playing very balanced, stable basketball after an offseason which was the picture of anything BUT stability.  It was a given that our ability to retain that stability through good coaching and team play would be put to a rigorous test. It seems, at least for now, that we've passed.

All comments are the opinion of the commenter and not necessarily that of SLC Dunk or SB Nation.