This year the Utah Jazz played in all 82 games, and that was good. No weather related game cancellations. There were plenty of crazy things that happened in Jazz games though. So let's go over 13 - 14 things in the 2013-2014 season . . .
- Six different players (Gordon Hayward, Trey Burke, Richard Jefferson, Derrick Favors, Alec Burks, and Enes Kanter) all played more than 2,000 minutes this season! The last time that happened was in 1985-86 and the players were Adrian Dantley, Mark Eaton, Karl Malone, Thurl Bailey, Bob Hansen, and Rickey Green. John Stockton finished that season with 1,935 minutes played. So that is a crazy distribution of playing time.
- G-Time didn't finish the season averaging 1.5 spg, but he was really close: he needed 5.5 more to make that lofty 15 / 5 / 5 / 1.5 club. He did go over and above on the other three categories though, and finished this season at 16.2 / 5.1 / 5.2 / 1.4. Well done!
- Five players took shots from at least halfcourt this year: Burks (9), Marvin Williams (5), Diante Garrett (5), Burke (4), and Hayward (1). Of course, none of them made any of their attempts. Five or fewer shots is still too many, but Burks damaged his 3pt% with these nonsense attempts. For the season he shot 35.0 3pt%, and yes, it's a better mark than Hayward or Burke, it's still not as good as it would have been without these heaves -- Alec really shot 37.3 3pt% this year. Which would place him as 3rd best on the team behind Richard Jefferson (40.9%), and Diante (37.5%). Now, if Diante didn't take HIS 5 heaves he would have finished the season shooting 39.56% from downtown. DO NOT TAKE THESE SHOTS UNLESS THE GAME IS ON THE LINE.
- For the season the Jazz ranked #14th best in DRB% in the league. This is great news because back during the first few months of the season the Jazz were in the mid to low 20th ranks in this. A lot of people (myself included) wanted the Jazz to play at a faster pace this year. You can't run without the ball. And the defensive possession isn't over yet until you have the ball. Steals are hard to get, but safest route is to get the defensive rebound. No rebounds, no running. And the Jazz corrected their early season problem as the season went on. This is awesome, and the first step towards a counter-attacking game plan.
- The bigs who played the most minutes this year were okay on the glass: Favors had a DRB% of 23.7%, Kanter with 20.9%, Marvin with 17.9%, and Jeremy Evans with 18.7%. The wings could only help so much, but getting these boards aren't their primary job on defense. Hayward chipped in with a DREB% of 14.0. Two guys who did not play much were great at this, though. Andris Biedrins had a DREB% of 39.7% and Rudy Gobert had one that wasn't that shabby either -- 28.5%. There was a reason why Mark Eaton played so much, he would get all of the rebounds and there lies the secret to how those Jazz teams of the 80s ran so much. They got the defensive rebound and counter attacked.
- Brandon Rush finished this season without a dunk in 418 minutes this year. Malcolm Thomas had 4 in 48 minutes this year. Favors led the team with 77 dunks in 73 games. Evans came second with 59 in 66 games. And probably the craziest thing of all, Richard Jefferson and Enes Kanter tied for third with 39 dunks. RJ's dunk attempts that were misses were more impressive than some of the dunks our team made this year.
- Who is the true Corner Pimp? It's not Alec Burks who shot only 39.5 3pt% from there. He was beaten by Trey (40.5%), Brandon (46.2%), RJ (49.1%) . . . and a tie for first between Diante and John Lucas III (50.0%). Three guys who did not impress from there were Marvin (35.8%), Ian Clark (33.3%), and Gordon Hayward (27.5%). C'mon G. Gotta make that shot.
- Enes Kanter had the 4th best fg% on the team when shooting two point shots from 16' to the three point line. These long-twos were made by Trey (41.9%), Gordon (41.3%), Marvin (38.3%), and then Enes (37.4%). While they were the Top 4 guys at the long two on the second least points scoring team in the league this year, that doesn't mean that a) they were good at this shot, or b) this is a shot that we need to take more of. As a point of comparison look at the Dallas Mavericks -- their Top 4 from this range went as: Samuel Dalembert (54.5%), Dirk Nowitzki (51.8%), Brandan Wright (42.9%), and Jose Calderon (42.6%). What about the Golden State Warriors? Andrew Bogut (57.1%), Hilton Armstrong (50.0%), Stephen Curry (46.6%), and Klay Thompson (44.9%). As demonstrated by in game performance, the Jazz are not good at the long two. Funny then that our offensive playbook seemed to be all about getting players that shot.
- It may come as no surprise that from that Data available, it indicates that Tyrone Corbin shot 47.4% of all his FGA as the long two. Last season Gordon shot 29.6% of all of his FGA from there. Shouldn't we, you know, post up the 6'8 on SGs more?
- Andris Biedrins made $9,000,000 USD this year, not including all the perks (money for food on road trips, etc). He played 45 total minutes this season. So, his hourly rate is over $9 million dollars. He charged the Jazz more per hour than some private military contractors who were hired to defend American Embassies in Iraq.
- Four players finished the season with a better ORTG than DRTG (so, Net RTG that was positive): Mike Harris, Jeremy, Derrick, and Marvin. Marvin was the perfectly balanced, Ying-Yang guy on the team. The Jazz had an OFF RTG of 110 with him on the court, and so did the other team. Beans' split was horrible, ORTG 62, DRTG 109. That's nearly half.
- Rudy Gobert almost didn't play more minutes this season than Brandon Rush (434 to 418). Gobert's Per 36 minute minutes make me cry about our rotations this year. I think that there could have been more creativity with the lineups if RJ wasn't 100% locked into having to start at SF for all but four games this year. Well, here's to looking at next year!
- The Jazz scored 7,791 total points this season. The last time the Jazz scored fewer points in a season (outside of lockout years) was 2003-2004 -- that team scored only 7,271 points. But you know what? That team won 17 more games. You know why? Because of defense.
- Erik Murphy was signed on April 5th, and did not play in any games this year. Last year the same thing happened to Travis Leslie and Jerel McNeal. They sign, they practice. And they don't log a single second of game time.
This was truly a strange season.