Okay ladies and gentlemen, here are the stats . . . but with a new cell shading color. Tell me if you like it, or if you don’t . . . I love feedback. Also, here are the past reviews for: 10 games, 20ish games, 40 games, and 50ish games. Yes, I did the stats for the 30 games section, but haven’t posted the data yet.
Shooting:
[Chart too small? Click here (opens in new window)]
Everything Else:
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Words . . . horrible, horrible words . . . after the jump . . .
Obvious points are obvious
Deron Williams is no longer on the team. But because he played 65% of (when it is all said and done after 82 games) the regular season on this team, his stats persist here out of both reverence, but also as a grim reminder of what we are missing. While we may bristle as his on-court leadership, few can argue with his on-court production. He averaged 21 ppg (46 / 85 / 35 shooting percentages) and 10 apg. These numbers are awesome. Aside from Jeremy Evans and Derrick Favors, rookies who have a smaller sample size of FGA with the Jazz, no one but Andrei (who apparently only dunks now) had a better shooing worth (aka Points per Shot) than Deron did. He also averaged 4 rpg and over 1 spg. He will be sorely missed.
Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson
These guys are linked now, if but for no other reason than the fact that no one player outside of them stepped up in the front court this season to give the coaches a reason to break them up. I felt that Mehmet Okur might have been capable of coming back to be a Starter again (or at least played enough minutes to develop a partnership with one of them – a vintage 16/8 Memo working with Big Al would have been awesome to see). Francisco Elson and Kyrylo Fesenko found a way to rearrange the letters in capable to spell awful. You can’t do it, yet they found a way. We’re now hoping that rookie Derrick Favors will solve all of our problems . . . nice. Let’s heap a lot of expectations on a young player now. That always works out for the best. Anyway, Millsap and Jefferson are doing it inside, and it only took all season to finally get there. Paul averages 17 and 8, which is right about what Memo used to bring to the table, but without Millsap’s 4+ free throw attempts per game, or 53 fg% shooting. Al is getting 18 and 9 now, which isn’t quite the 20 and 10 that Boozer used to offer us, Jefferson is shooting (FOR THE SEASON) 49 fg%. Why is this important? Well, he started the season off shooting closer to 40% than 50%. He’s stepped it up on offense, scoring more and scoring more efficiently than before. His shooting worth is still lower than that of a highly efficient inside scorer, but I think part of the reason is that a) he takes way more outside shots than I thought he did, and b) he doesn’t get to the free throw line enough compared to other primary scoring bigs. Maybe that’ll change next season when we’re a contender again? Sap averaged around 1.5 spg and 1 bpg, and Big Al gets 2 bpg. They play both ends of the floor, but I think they have learned to become much more effective on the court at the same time now. (Which is the biggest improvement) They play 73% of all of the potential time available at (combined) PF and C. [69.6/96 mpg] They both sport cumulative GO Ratings over 70. They are both getting theirs on the floor together, instead of earlier in the season when it was either one or the other. Yes, this is actually something that improved!
Devin Harris and Earl Watson . . . and I guess Ronnie Price too by default
This is our point guard tandem. One is steady, yet unspectacular . . . the other is is spectacular, yet unsteady. We have to live with it. In two games with the Jazz, Harris is averaging 16 ppg and 8.5 apg. These aren’t bad numbers by any stretch of the imagination. They do come with a cost though, namely, efficiency. Harris is shooting under 40 fg% and shooting worse than Deron did from deep as well. His saving grace is his ability to get to the line. (Which is just about the same as Williams, so at least we have that to feel secure about) Watson is capable of much more, and now holds the reigns as one of the more playbook savvy members of the team, and he just got here. The only guard with a lower PPP (aka Shooting Worth) is Ronnie Price. I don’t even want to write about this guy though. I love his hustle and his intensity. He worked great as part of the swarm early on in the season. We’re a different team than we were then. He also seems to be a different player now. He is shooting 36 fg% and 28 3pt%. Let’s not forget that he’s now playing ‘shooting guard’. MySynergySports further gives fuel to the ‘Don’t Play Ronnie’ tea party; so just don’t go there.
Andrei Kirilenko, C.J. Miles, and Raja Bell
These guys are major rotation players, and should have been helping our stars as a supporting cast. At different times during the season one of these guys has stepped up. We don’t beat Portland that one time without C.J. getting hot. We don’t beat the T-Wolves without Deron if Andrei doesn’t turn back the clock to 2004. We don’t beat the Nuggets (maybe) if Raja doesn’t make J.R. Smith go coo-coo for crazypuffs. (funny, all division opponents) Sadly, I don’t remember two of them really bringing it in the same game. (Save, for perhaps, this past game @ Detroit where Bell and Andrei had good games) All three do score the ball, but if you remove Andrei from the equation the efficiency of these guys plummet. You need that ace in the hole who can get hot and carry a team, while still being efficient. That guy was Okur, but now we’re looking for the same type of magical production on offense out of a group that includes: a defensive player with a history of injuries, an old defensive player, and a guy who has a shooting worth of 1.11, but a very high shooting frequency of 2.16. It’s not going to work this way, and so far this season, it has not.
The Three Rookies: Gordon Hayward, Jeremy Evans, and Derrick Favors
We now have two lotto picks on the team and a second rounder / specialist. While Favors has played like a lotto pick, The Precious has not. Gordon has gotten better over the course of the season, but he never received the type of playing time that a lotto pick usually receives. Now that the Jazz are clearly in Super-Duper Transition, perhaps he could get more – oh wait, he got a DNP-CD last game, on the 2nd night of a back to back. Evans continues to be crazy efficient. Yes, a majority of his points come off of dunks (a product of pure athleticism and not being scouted), but dude makes his dunks. It’s not like what he does is easy. We’ve seen guys blow dunks all the time, we used to have this Greg Ostertag fellow, you see . . . anyway, dunks aside, Evans is hyper efficient but his playing time looks to have all been gobbled up by new edition: Derrick Favors. Favors is very talented. There is no doubt. Earl aside, he has so far challenged the rest of the team as the most effective bench threat, and he’s only played 2 games. He can rebound, score, and block shots. His vigor make me think that he can (for the short term at least) replicate some of what we lost when Millsap became a starter. I would like to see him play a bit more than his 15.5 mpg though. That said, it’s hard to find enough time for him. There is only 26.4 mpg left after Big Al and Paul take their normal minutes away from the 96 total possible minutes in a game for the PF and C spots.
Larry, Curly and Moe
I mean, of course, Francisco Elson, Kyrylo Fesenko, and Mehmet Okur. Memo is hurt. Francisco tries to go out there and hurt people. And Fes shoots free throws like he’s hurt. If we could somehow combine them together we’d have a pretty capable basketball player. Only Okur is under contract for next season, and with the apparently emergence of Favors, there does not look to be much more time to spare for the bigs. I could easily see Fran and Fes not make the team next season, and I could easily see them both making it as well. You never know. I fail to see how the Jazz could justify having 5 guys on the roster who can play center – but with the way with which our players collect injuries, this may actually happen next year. We’re doing it now. We’re still getting killed on the offensive glass. I hope the coaches can re-teach fundamentals to this group.