FanPost

The Definitive Best Jazz Lineup of this Season

Hello Again Dunkers,

Today I will be taking another method of attempting to figure out who has played the best this season, or specifically who has played better than each other on this roster.

My method involved looking at all 31 five man lineups that have played at least 20 minutes this season so far. I then looked at their plus/minus and then normalized it minutes wise so that I found the plus/minus per 48 minutes.

This plus/minus per 48 minutes should simulate how much this lineup would outscore another team or be outscored if they played the whole game.

I then went through all of the top 31 lineups and found what single differences were from roster to roster.

For example, between the first lineup to the second lineup (Burke-Hayward-Jefferson-Williams-Favors vs. Burke-Hayward-Jefferson-Kanter-Favors) I used the difference in these lineups as how much the lineup benefits from subbing in Kanter for Williams.

Since there were so many possible combinations within the 31 five man lineups, I averaged the differences in substitutions. For example, the 4 different situations where the lineups only varied by subbing in Kanter for Marvin averaged getting outscored by 1.3 points more per 48 minutes. Thus, subbing in Marvin Williams for Kanter leads to the team being 1.3 points better throughout an entire game for this season's stats.

I only left out one out-liar lineup of Lucas, Burks, Hayward, Kanter, and Favors that would get ludicrously outscored 48 points per 48 minutes.

Okay, hope that wasn't too confusing, here is the overall table of data:

Backcourt:

Sub Out

Sub In

Burke

Burks

Hayward

Jefferson

Garrett

Lucas

Tinsley

Rush

Burke

-0.73955

4.137931

13.35255

5.267977

10.77501

17.6838

Burks

0.739545

0.654849

-4.1267

-27.509

-2.99204

18.42334

Hayward

-4.13793

-0.65485

0.212373

4.217358

Jefferson

-13.3525

4.126702

-0.21237

9.931034

-9.70411

Garrett

-5.26798

27.50897

-9.93103

Lucas

-10.775

2.992042

Tinsley

-17.6838

-18.4233

Rush

-4.21736

9.704108

Columns represent who get subbed out, Rows represent who gets subbed in. For instance, when a lineup subs in Burks for Burke, the team does better by 0.74 points per 48 minutes.

So major stats to note in the table:

Subbing in Burke for Garrett, Lucas, or Tinsley helps the teams immensely! (5.27, 10.78, and an insane 17.68 points per 48 minutes). A game where Tinsley plays instead of Burke for the whole game would lead to the Jazz doing nearly 18 points worse for the game. Thank goodness those dark days are behind us.

Frontcourt:

Sub Out

Sub In

Williams

Kanter

Favors

Evans

Gobert

Williams

1.265059

6.151916

-1.09367

Kanter

-1.26506

-9.66981

2.578668

-30.7826

Favors

-6.15192

9.669807

5.469728

-18.5335

Evans

1.093674

-2.57867

-5.46973

Gobert

30.78261

18.53347

Marvin does justifiably sub in for Kanter or Favors this season, however the anomaly Evans outperforms Marvin.

Kanter has not done a good job of helping the team win games this season as opposed to other options.

Favors > Kanter and Evans

Lineups with Evans instead of Marvin do better, but surprisingly lineups with Evans instead of Kanter or Favors do much worse.

Lucas is bad...

Tinsley is historically bad...

Gobert is the new anomaly.

Garrett is a much better point guard than Burks, Lucas, and Tinsley, but not Burke. (We already knew this)

Below is the average points per game each one of our players help improve our team per 48 minutes on the floor:

Burke

8.412952

Burks

-2.46833

Hayward

-0.09076

Jefferson

-1.84226

Williams

2.107767

Kanter

-9.7847

Favors

-2.38646

Evans

-2.31824

Garrett

16.15016

Lucas

-2.21902

Tinsley

-25.8637

Gobert

24.65804

Rush

2.743375

All this basically shows is how much better our players are compared to the people they are competing for playing time.

Burks is negative because Garrett is such a better point guard than him this season. Kanter is negative because both Marvin and Favors have been outdoing him this season.

Rush is positive because he is extremely better than Jefferson and only moderately worse than Hayward.

Looking at the results, I see this stat is flawed but I think it backs up why Gobert should be getting more playing time, why Marvin actually does deserve playing time this season, and why Lucas and Tinsley never did (compared to Garrett, Burke, and Burks).

I would like to see Burke-Burks-Hayward-Favors-Gobert play some more time together. I think that starting lineup combined with Garrett, Williams, Evans, and Kanter coming off the bench could really pay off. My dream would be for this to be our 9-man rotation for the rest of the season (maybe even with a dash of Ian Clark).

Stay awesome Jazzfans

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