Utah Jazz 2011-2012 Defensive Struggles: Which guys really hurt us?

This season is a transition year for the Utah Jazz. This core may not even be the same core for the team that later on goes to the playoffs in the next few seasons. There are a lot of things that can change. One of the things that absolutely must change is the way the Jazz play defense. Even the traditional media has caught on to the fact that the same types of guys keep hurting us. If my laptop didn't die last week, I would have scooped them by 5 full games. (And let's be honest, in the next 10 years we're only going to see "non-Journalism school bloggisists" continue to scoop the print media more and more and more) After updating my spread sheet for the last five games here are the full breakdowns of which players have hurt us this season.

The time frame is from Game 1 to Game 30. The minimum points scored against the Jazz is 13. The over-all n-value = 94. That's further broken down into n = 31 bigmen; n = 35 wings; and n = 28 point guards. Of course, those are again divided into subgroups showing All the players from that class who scored 13 or more points against the Jazz, and just the non-Allstars who did the same.The critical criterion is Points Percentage Increase. This is very simple, it's how many points a player scored on the Jazz divided by his season PPG average.

Are the Jazz getting burned by the same type of player class each time? Bigs? Point guards? Are the Jazz getting killed by Allstar wings, or bench bigmen? Click on to see the results.

The Data:

• Full player list n = 94
• Bigmen list n = 31
• Wings list n = 35
• Point Guard list n = 28
• Total Games played = 30
• Total points scored on the Jazz by these 94 players: 1841 points
• Cumulative season PPG average of these 94 players: 1366.5 ppg
• That's a Points Percentage Difference of +34.7%
• So on average, the guys who play the Jazz and score at least 13.0 points against us are scoring at a baseline +34.7% rate than their season average.
• That is an average of 19.6 points scored vs the Jazz; while the average of the players is actually 14.5 ppg
• That is a net points difference of +5.1
  

That means that out of the guys who do score on us, they are picking their games up. Of course, that could also mean that our defense is keying in on some players, and guys are stepping up to compensate. I did not make a list of all players who scored on us, there is no doubt a number of players who usually score a solid PPG who have been scoring at a negative % diff against us -- they just didn't score 13 points in a game so far against us.

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The Big Chart, sorted by Points Percentage Difference (% diff)

			Points	PPG	%
Player	Gm	Opp	vs. Jazz	'11-12	Increase	Notes
Courtney Fortson	13	vs. LAC	13	4.3	202.3%	Point
Rodigue Beaubois	17	@ DAL	22	7.3	201.4%	Point
Metta World Peace	1	@ LAL	14	4.7	197.9%	Wing
Steve Novak	23	@ NYK	19	7.0	171.4%	Wing
Jared Jeffries	23	@ NYK	13	4.8	170.8%	Big
Chris Kaman	27	@ NOR	27	10.9	147.7%	Big
Lamar Odom	17	@ DAL	19	7.8	143.6%	Big
Linas Kleiza	16	vs. TOR	25	10.7	133.6%	Wing
Rodigue Beaubois	14	vs. DAL	17	7.3	132.9%	Point
Wesley Johnson	15	vs. MIN	13	5.6	132.1%	Wing
Gustavo Ayon	27	@ NOR	13	5.7	128.1%	Big
Darren Collison	24	@ IND	25	11.3	121.2%	Point
Derrick Williams	15	vs. MIN	15	7.2	108.3%	Wing
Kyle Lowry	30	@ HOU	32	15.4	107.8%	Point
Jeremy Lin	23	@ NYK	28	14.3	95.8%	Point
Jason Smith	5	vs. NOR	16	8.2	95.1%	Big
Serge Ibaka	28	@ OKC	16	8.3	92.8%	Big
Serge Ibaka	25	vs. OKC	16	8.3	92.8%	Big
Manu Ginobili	4	@ SAS	23	12.1	90.1%	Wing
Tony Allen	7	vs. MEM	21	11.1	89.2%	Wing
Drew Gooden	6	vs. MIL	24	12.7	89.0%	Big
DeJuan Blair	4	@ SAS	17	9.0	88.9%	Big
Nene Hilario	2	@ DEN	25	13.4	86.6%	Big
Chris Paul	20	vs. LAC	34	18.3	85.8%	Point
Jarrett Jack	5	vs. NOR	27	14.7	83.7%	Point
Shawn Marion	14	vs. DAL	22	12.0	83.3%	Wing
Jordan Crawford	29	vs. WAS	21	11.5	82.6%	Wing
Tyreke Evans	18	vs. SAC	31	17.0	82.4%	Point
Jason Thompson	18	vs. SAC	14	7.7	81.8%	Big
Jimmer Fredette	18	vs. SAC	14	8.0	75.0%	Point
Luis Scola	30	@ HOU	26	15.2	71.1%	Big
Stephen Curry	21	@ GSW	29	17.2	68.6%	Point
Isaiah Thomas	18	vs. SAC	13	7.9	64.6%	Point
Jrue Holiday	3	vs. PHI	22	13.6	61.8%	Point
Brandon Rush	8	@ GSW	14	8.7	60.9%	Wing
Stephen Jackson	6	vs. MIL	16	10.5	52.4%	Wing
Ricky Rubio	15	vs. MIN	17	11.3	50.4%	Point
Monta Ellis	21	@ GSW	33	22.0	50.0%	Point
Blake Griffin	20	vs. LAC	31	21.2	46.2%	Big
Monta Ellis	8	@ GSW	32	22.0	45.5%	Point
Pau Gasol	22	vs. LAL	24	16.6	44.6%	Big
Spencer Hawes	3	vs. PHI	15	10.5	42.9%	Big
John Wall	29	vs. WAS	24	16.9	42.0%	Point
Mo Williams	20	vs. LAC	19	13.5	40.7%	Point
Marc Gasol	7	vs. MEM	21	15.1	39.1%	Big
Kobe Bryant	10	vs. LAL	40	29.0	37.9%	Wing
Nene Hilario	12	@ DEN	18	13.4	34.3%	Big
Shawn Marion	17	@ DAL	16	12.0	33.3%	Wing
Arron Afflalo	12	@ DEN	16	12.0	33.3%	Wing
Pau Gasol	1	@ LAL	22	16.6	32.5%	Big
Kris Humphries	11	vs. NJN	18	13.6	32.4%	Big
Antawn Jamison	9	vs. CLE	22	16.7	31.7%	Wing
James Harden	28	@ OKC	22	16.8	31.0%	Wing
Andre Iguodala	3	vs. PHI	16	12.4	29.0%	Wing
Andrew Bynum	22	vs. LAL	21	16.3	28.8%	Big
Mike Conley	26	@ MEM	17	13.2	28.8%	Point
Chris Kaman	5	vs. NOR	14	10.9	28.4%	Big
Al Harrington	2	@ DEN	18	14.1	27.7%	Wing
Lou Williams	3	vs. PHI	20	15.9	25.8%	Point
Roy Hibbert	24	@ IND	17	13.6	25.0%	Big
JaVale McGee	29	vs. WAS	15	12.1	24.0%	Big
Jordan Farmar	11	vs. NJN	13	10.5	23.8%	Point
Marco Belinelli	27	@ NOR	13	10.5	23.8%	Wing
Dorell Wright	21	@ GSW	13	10.6	22.6%	Wing
Jason Terry	17	@ DAL	18	14.7	22.4%	Wing
David Lee	21	@ GSW	23	19.0	21.1%	Big
Russell Westbrook	25	vs. OKC	28	23.2	20.7%	Point
Paul George	24	@ IND	14	11.9	17.6%	Wing
Rudy Gay	26	@ MEM	22	18.9	16.4%	Wing
Marc Gasol	26	@ MEM	17	15.1	12.6%	Big
LaMarcus Aldridge	19	vs. POR	25	22.5	11.1%	Big
Nicolas Batum	19	vs. POR	15	13.6	10.3%	Wing
Leandro Barbosa	16	vs. TOR	13	11.8	10.2%	Wing
DeMar DeRozan	16	vs. TOR	17	15.5	9.7%	Wing
Kyrie Irving	9	vs. CLE	20	18.3	9.3%	Point
Andrea Bargnani	16	vs. TOR	25	23.5	6.4%	Big
Danilo Gallinari	12	@ DEN	18	17.0	5.9%	Wing
Jamal Crawford	19	vs. POR	14	14.0	0.0%	Wing
Ty Lawson	2	@ DEN	15	15.5	-3.2%	Point
Caron Butler	13	vs. LAC	14	14.9	-6.0%	Wing
Rudy Gay	7	vs. MEM	17	18.9	-10.1%	Wing
Kobe Bryant	1	@ LAL	26	29.0	-10.3%	Wing
Kobe Bryant	22	vs. LAL	26	29.0	-10.3%	Wing
Danny Granger	24	@ IND	16	18.3	-12.6%	Wing
Pau Gasol	10	vs. LAL	14	16.6	-15.7%	Big
Ty Lawson	12	@ DEN	13	15.5	-16.1%	Point
DeMarcus Cousins	18	vs. SAC	14	16.7	-16.2%	Big
Kevin Durant	28	@ OKC	21	27.6	-23.9%	Wing
Deron Williams	11	vs. NJN	16	21.7	-26.3%	Point
Tony Parker	4	@ SAS	14	19.4	-27.8%	Point
Russell Westbrook	28	@ OKC	16	23.2	-31.0%	Point
Kevin Durant	25	vs. OKC	19	27.6	-31.2%	Wing
David Lee	8	@ GSW	13	19.0	-31.6%	Big
Kevin Love	15	vs. MIN	15	25.6	-41.4%	Big

Clearly this is a lot of data to digest, that's why I broke it down into smaller chunks. But there are a few things we can glean from this. Even though the Jazz let some guys go absolutely bonkers on us, the Jazz did hold a number of guys to an outright negative points % diff: Ty Lawson, Caron Butler, Rudy Gay, Kobe twice, Danny Granger, Pau Gasol, and so on. There is a relationship between some guys going crazy and the biggest stars on their teams having an off night. We blew out the Los Angeles Clippers once, and a number of their dudes had poor showing, giving a lot of garbage time for Courtney Fortson to score 13 points, while he normally only scores 4.3 ppg. Another outlier is the Knicks game where Jared Jeffries and Steve Novak got more playing time because of injuries and excused absences to Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire.

Over all, it doesn't quite resolve in a bell-curve shape. It's highly skewed towards the bad (for us) end, of guys having good scoring nights against us, as seen in a big improvement in Points % diff. Here's what it looks like in terms of standard deviations:

	n = 7	n = 39	n = 29	n = 12	n = 4	n = 2
	Between	Between	Between	Between	Between	Above
	-2 and -1 STDEV	-1 and 0 STDEV	0 and +1 STDEV	+1 and +2 STDEV	+2 and +3 STDEV	+3 STDEV
1	Kevin Durant	Arron Afflalo	Manu Ginobili	Lamar Odom	Metta World Peace	Courtney Fortson
2	Deron Williams	Pau Gasol	Tony Allen	Linas Kleiza	Steve Novak	Rodigue Beaubois
3	Tony Parker	Kris Humphries	Drew Gooden	Rodigue Beaubois	Jared Jeffries
4	Russell Westbrook	Antawn Jamison	DeJuan Blair	Wesley Johnson	Chris Kaman
5	Kevin Durant	James Harden	Nene Hilario	Gustavo Ayon
6	David Lee	Andre Iguodala	Chris Paul	Darren Collison
7	Kevin Love	Andrew Bynum	Jarrett Jack	Derrick Williams
8		Mike Conley	Shawn Marion	Kyle Lowry
9		Chris Kaman	Jordan Crawford	Jeremy Lin
10		Al Harrington	Tyreke Evans	Jason Smith
1		Lou Williams	Jason Thompson	Serge Ibaka
2		Roy Hibbert	Jimmer Fredette	Serge Ibaka
3		JaVale McGee	Luis Scola
4		Jordan Farmar	Stephen Curry
5		Marco Belinelli	Isaiah Thomas
6		Dorell Wright	Jrue Holiday
7		Jason Terry	Brandon Rush
8		David Lee	Stephen Jackson
9		Russell Westbrook	Ricky Rubio
20		Paul George	Monta Ellis
1		Rudy Gay	Blake Griffin
2		Marc Gasol	Monta Ellis
3		LaMarcus Aldridge	Pau Gasol
4		Nicolas Batum	Spencer Hawes
5		Leandro Barbosa	John Wall
6		DeMar DeRozan	Mo Williams
7		Kyrie Irving	Marc Gasol
8		Andrea Bargnani	Kobe Bryant
9		Danilo Gallinari	Nene Hilario
30		Jamal Crawford
1		Ty Lawson
2		Caron Butler
3		Rudy Gay
4		Kobe Bryant
5		Kobe Bryant
6		Danny Granger
7		Pau Gasol
8		Ty Lawson
9		DeMarcus Cousins
40

So, over-all, it appears as that we are doing an okay job against the better guys out there (current and former All-Stars are bolded). That is not what that shows, though. The standard deviations are for the percentage difference, which we already established was +34.7%. The average isn't 0.0%. So, in some cases, being between -1 and 0 standard deviations doesn't mean you are scoring less than your normal ppg. Far from it, Manu scores 12.1 ppg this season, and against the Jazz he scored 23 points. That's a +11.0 difference. I hope understanding this is not too tricky.

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The Bigmen (n = 31)

If you isolate just the bigmen then the averages change, and so do the standard deviations. Here the sample size is 31 players, the average ppg for this group is 13.9 ppg; but they scored on average 19.0 points per player against us. That is a class difference of +5.1 points. The average points % diff was +36.8%.

			Points	PPG	%
Player	Gm	Opp	vs. Jazz	'11-12	Increase
Jared Jeffries	23	@ NYK	13	4.8	170.8%
Chris Kaman	27	@ NOR	27	10.9	147.7%
Lamar Odom	17	@ DAL	19	7.8	143.6%
Gustavo Ayon	27	@ NOR	13	5.7	128.1%
Jason Smith	5	vs. NOR	16	8.2	95.1%
Serge Ibaka	28	@ OKC	16	8.3	92.8%
Serge Ibaka	25	vs. OKC	16	8.3	92.8%
Drew Gooden	6	vs. MIL	24	12.7	89.0%
DeJuan Blair	4	@ SAS	17	9.0	88.9%
Nene Hilario	2	@ DEN	25	13.4	86.6%
Jason Thompson	18	vs. SAC	14	7.7	81.8%
Luis Scola	30	@ HOU	26	15.2	71.1%
Blake Griffin	20	vs. LAC	31	21.2	46.2%
Pau Gasol	22	vs. LAL	24	16.6	44.6%
Spencer Hawes	3	vs. PHI	15	10.5	42.9%
Marc Gasol	7	vs. MEM	21	15.1	39.1%
Nene Hilario	12	@ DEN	18	13.4	34.3%
Pau Gasol	1	@ LAL	22	16.6	32.5%
Kris Humphries	11	vs. NJN	18	13.6	32.4%
Andrew Bynum	22	vs. LAL	21	16.3	28.8%
Chris Kaman	5	vs. NOR	14	10.9	28.4%
Roy Hibbert	24	@ IND	17	13.6	25.0%
JaVale McGee	29	vs. WAS	15	12.1	24.0%
David Lee	21	@ GSW	23	19.0	21.1%
Marc Gasol	26	@ MEM	17	15.1	12.6%
LaMarcus Aldridge	19	vs. POR	25	22.5	11.1%
Andrea Bargnani	16	vs. TOR	25	23.5	6.4%
Pau Gasol	10	vs. LAL	14	16.6	-15.7%
DeMarcus Cousins	18	vs. SAC	14	16.7	-16.2%
David Lee	8	@ GSW	13	19.0	-31.6%
Kevin Love	15	vs. MIN	15	25.6	-41.4%

And here are the standard deviations:

Between	Between	Between	Between	Between
-2 and -1 STDEV	-1 and 0 STDEV	0 and +1 STDEV	+1 and +2 STDEV	+2 and +3 STDEV
DeMarcus Cousins	Nene Hilario	DeJuan Blair	Gustavo Ayon	Jared Jeffries
David Lee	Pau Gasol	Nene Hilario	Jason Smith	Chris Kaman
Kevin Love	Kris Humphries	Jason Thompson	Serge Ibaka	Lamar Odom
	Andrew Bynum	Luis Scola	Serge Ibaka
	Chris Kaman	Blake Griffin	Drew Gooden
	Roy Hibbert	Pau Gasol
	JaVale McGee	Spencer Hawes
	David Lee	Marc Gasol
	Marc Gasol
	LaMarcus Aldridge
	Andrea Bargnani
	Pau Gasol

Again, we see that the players with the largest points % diff jumps aren't the guys who are current or former allstars, but non-stars.When you remove the stars from the list, and re-do the maths, you get a season average of 11.2 ppg that goes up to 17.9 ppg against the Jazz. That is an actual points increase of +6.7 points, which is higher than the bigman total of +5.1 points. The points % diff is also bigger, for the full class it's only +36.8%, and here with the scrub bigs it is +59.2%. Wow. In the case of Ibaka, it could be that we're saying "okay, we'll focus our defense on Kevin and Russ, let Serge beat us," and he's been doing just that.

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Wings (n = 35)

If you isolate just the wings then the averages change, and so do the standard deviations. Here the sample size is 35 players, the average ppg for this group is 14.8 ppg; but they scored on average 18.5 points per player against us. That is a class difference of +3.7 points. The average points % diff was +25.3%. So we "did" better against wings. Actually, we did not. Wings just didn't improve as much as bigs did.

			Points	PPG	%
Player	Gm	Opp	vs. Jazz	'11-12	Increase
Metta World Peace	1	@ LAL	14	4.7	197.9%
Steve Novak	23	@ NYK	19	7.0	171.4%
Linas Kleiza	16	vs. TOR	25	10.7	133.6%
Wesley Johnson	15	vs. MIN	13	5.6	132.1%
Derrick Williams	15	vs. MIN	15	7.2	108.3%
Manu Ginobili	4	@ SAS	23	12.1	90.1%
Tony Allen	7	vs. MEM	21	11.1	89.2%
Shawn Marion	14	vs. DAL	22	12.0	83.3%
Jordan Crawford	29	vs. WAS	21	11.5	82.6%
Brandon Rush	8	@ GSW	14	8.7	60.9%
Stephen Jackson	6	vs. MIL	16	10.5	52.4%
Kobe Bryant	10	vs. LAL	40	29.0	37.9%
Shawn Marion	17	@ DAL	16	12.0	33.3%
Arron Afflalo	12	@ DEN	16	12.0	33.3%
Antawn Jamison	9	vs. CLE	22	16.7	31.7%
James Harden	28	@ OKC	22	16.8	31.0%
Andre Iguodala	3	vs. PHI	16	12.4	29.0%
Al Harrington	2	@ DEN	18	14.1	27.7%
Marco Belinelli	27	@ NOR	13	10.5	23.8%
Dorell Wright	21	@ GSW	13	10.6	22.6%
Jason Terry	17	@ DAL	18	14.7	22.4%
Paul George	24	@ IND	14	11.9	17.6%
Rudy Gay	26	@ MEM	22	18.9	16.4%
Nicolas Batum	19	vs. POR	15	13.6	10.3%
Leandro Barbosa	16	vs. TOR	13	11.8	10.2%
DeMar DeRozan	16	vs. TOR	17	15.5	9.7%
Danilo Gallinari	12	@ DEN	18	17.0	5.9%
Jamal Crawford	19	vs. POR	14	14.0	0.0%
Caron Butler	13	vs. LAC	14	14.9	-6.0%
Rudy Gay	7	vs. MEM	17	18.9	-10.1%
Kobe Bryant	1	@ LAL	26	29.0	-10.3%
Kobe Bryant	22	vs. LAL	26	29.0	-10.3%
Danny Granger	24	@ IND	16	18.3	-12.6%
Kevin Durant	28	@ OKC	21	27.6	-23.9%
Kevin Durant	25	vs. OKC	19	27.6	-31.2%

And here are the standard deviations:

Between	Between	Between	Between	Between	Above
-2 and -1 STDEV	-1 and 0 STDEV	0 and +1 STDEV	+1 and +2 STDEV	+2 and +3 STDEV	+3 STDEV
Kevin Durant	Marco Belinelli	Brandon Rush	Linas Kleiza	Steve Novak	Metta World Peace
	Dorell Wright	Stephen Jackson	Wesley Johnson
	Jason Terry	Kobe Bryant	Derrick Williams
	Paul George	Shawn Marion	Manu Ginobili
	Rudy Gay	Arron Afflalo	Tony Allen
	Nicolas Batum	Antawn Jamison	Shawn Marion
	Leandro Barbosa	James Harden	Jordan Crawford
	DeMar DeRozan	Andre Iguodala
	Danilo Gallinari	Al Harrington
	Jamal Crawford
	Caron Butler
	Rudy Gay
	Kobe Bryant
	Kobe Bryant
	Danny Granger
	Kevin Durant

METTA! WORLD! PEACE! (Remember Kevin Harlan's call?) Yeah, the Jazz kept guys like Durant and Dirk low, only to let guys like Ibaka and Marion go off. There appears to be some give and take here. What about just the non-stars? When you remove the stars from the list, and re-do the maths, you get a season average of 11.8 ppg that goes up to 16.9 ppg against the Jazz. That is an actual points increase of +5.1 points, which is higher than the full wing player total of +3.7 points. The points % diff is also bigger, for the full class it's only +25.3%, and here with the scrub wings it is +43.3%. Again, we're getting killed by the non-stars.

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Point Guards (n = 28)

We all have an innate fear of opposing points guards, mainly because of horrible dribble penetration defense. If you isolate just the points then the averages change, and so do the standard deviations. Here the sample size is 28 players, the average ppg for this group is 15.0 ppg; but they scored on average 21.6 points per player against us. That is a class difference of +6.6 points. The average points % diff was +44.3%. So we are getting smoked. Glad we continue to start Devin Harris, his defensive stats on MySynergySports are classified by the UN as a war-crime.

Player	Gm	Opp	vs. Jazz	'11-12	Increase
Courtney Fortson	13	vs. LAC	13	4.3	202.3%
Rodigue Beaubois	17	@ DAL	22	7.3	201.4%
Rodigue Beaubois	14	vs. DAL	17	7.3	132.9%
Darren Collison	24	@ IND	25	11.3	121.2%
Kyle Lowry	30	@ HOU	32	15.4	107.8%
Jeremy Lin	23	@ NYK	28	14.3	95.8%
Chris Paul	20	vs. LAC	34	18.3	85.8%
Jarrett Jack	5	vs. NOR	27	14.7	83.7%
Tyreke Evans	18	vs. SAC	31	17.0	82.4%
Jimmer Fredette	18	vs. SAC	14	8.0	75.0%
Stephen Curry	21	@ GSW	29	17.2	68.6%
Isaiah Thomas	18	vs. SAC	13	7.9	64.6%
Jrue Holiday	3	vs. PHI	22	13.6	61.8%
Ricky Rubio	15	vs. MIN	17	11.3	50.4%
Monta Ellis	21	@ GSW	33	22.0	50.0%
Monta Ellis	8	@ GSW	32	22.0	45.5%
John Wall	29	vs. WAS	24	16.9	42.0%
Mo Williams	20	vs. LAC	19	13.5	40.7%
Mike Conley	26	@ MEM	17	13.2	28.8%
Lou Williams	3	vs. PHI	20	15.9	25.8%
Jordan Farmar	11	vs. NJN	13	10.5	23.8%
Russell Westbrook	25	vs. OKC	28	23.2	20.7%
Kyrie Irving	9	vs. CLE	20	18.3	9.3%
Ty Lawson	2	@ DEN	15	15.5	-3.2%
Ty Lawson	12	@ DEN	13	15.5	-16.1%
Deron Williams	11	vs. NJN	16	21.7	-26.3%
Tony Parker	4	@ SAS	14	19.4	-27.8%
Russell Westbrook	28	@ OKC	16	23.2	-31.0%

And here are the standard deviations:

Between	Between	Between	Between	Between
-2 and -1 STDEV	-1 and 0 STDEV	0 and +1 STDEV	+1 and +2 STDEV	+2 and +3 STDEV
Ty Lawson	John Wall	Jeremy Lin	Rodigue Beaubois	Courtney Fortson
Deron Williams	Mo Williams	Chris Paul	Darren Collison	Rodigue Beaubois
Tony Parker	Mike Conley	Jarrett Jack	Kyle Lowry
Russell Westbrook	Lou Williams	Tyreke Evans
	Jordan Farmar	Jimmer Fredette
	Russell Westbrook	Stephen Curry
	Kyrie Irving	Isaiah Thomas
	Ty Lawson	Jrue Holiday
		Ricky Rubio
		Monta Ellis
		Monta Ellis

Wow, we've somehow kept the better ones from murdering us. You know, besides the +6.6 ppg thing for point guards scoring against the Jazz thing. What about just the non-stars? When you remove the stars from the list, and re-do the maths, you get a season average of 13.6 ppg that goes up to 21.6ppg against the Jazz. That is an actual points increase of +8.0 points, which is higher than the full wing player total of +6.6 points. The points % diff is also bigger, for the full class it's only +44.3%, and here with the scrub wings it is +58.5%.

Seriously, +8.0 points . I know, "Hide yo kids, hide yo wife . . . "

The Breakdown:

All Players:

	Average PPG	Average PPG	Points	Percentage
	(Season Avgs)	(vs. Jazz)	Diff.	Difference
PF, C	13.9	19.0	+5.1	+36.8%
SG, SF	14.8	18.5	+3.7	+25.3%
PG	15.0	21.6	+6.6	+44.3%

Non-Stars:

	Average PPG	Average PPG	Points	Percentage
	(Season Avgs)	(vs. Jazz)	Diff.	Difference
PF, C	11.2	17.9	+6.7	+59.2%
SG, SF	11.8	16.9	+5.1	+43.3%
PG	13.6	21.6	+8.0	+58.5%

Does this mean that the Jazz do a good job on the stars? Not really, guys like Blake, Westbrook, and Kobe all hung 30 (or close to it) on us, and none average 30 a game. Does this mean the Jazz get killed by non-stars? Yes. particularly PGs. The initial worry was that non-star PGs hurt the Jazz. The numbers don't lie. Just like the numbers showing how bloggisists are scooping print publications. Maybe the Jazz should give us some media credentials so we can cover the team better.? Better than our team is covering opposing points at least.