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Clearly you're interested in identifying the problems of this Utah Jazz team. I'm still trying to figure them out for myself as well (but I think we like to point out that a) this is an incomplete roster, and b) our defense and offense both leave a lot to be desired). The fundamental unit of a team, though, happens to be the players that comprise it. So let's look at the players.
So far this season there are five players who have gotten the majority (more than 500 total season minutes) of the minutes. In fact, it's way more than 500, as each of these guys have played in almost every game, and all have played over 700 minutes. I am, of course, talking about:
- Gordon Hayward (27 games, 978 minutes, 36.22 mpg)
- Derrick Favors (25 games, 796 minutes, 31.84 mpg)
- Richard Jefferson (27 games, 734 minutes, 27.19 mpg)
- Alec Burks (27 games, 731 minutes, 27.07 mpg)
- and Enes Kanter (26 games, 717 minutes, 27.58 mpg)
These five players have been doing most of the heavy lifting this season. But a team is not five players alone. The next group are players between 500 minutes and 250 minutes. There's some diversity here because you have some players who play a lot of games but aren't that good, and some players that would be playing more but missed games due to injury. It's no surprise that this group is headlined by Marvin and Trey:
- Marvin Williams (17 games, 447 minutes, 26.29 mpg)
- Trey Burke (15 games, 436 minutes, 29.07 mpg)
- John Lucas III (21 games, 387 minutes, 18.43 mpg)
- Jeremy Evans (14 games, 299 minutes, 21.36 mpg)
- Diante Garrett (18 games, 273 minutes, 15.17 mpg)
It's a testament to how bad and insecure our point guard spot was early on this season that three of our top 10 minute players are point guards. I'm glad Trey is back because we clearly were not treading water under Lucas and Garrett. Marvin has been everything we expected of him in a non-Alfense system, and I don't think anyone is upset at his minutes. A big surprise has been Evans playing, and averaging 20 mpg. It's a good look, because we need to finally take a look at these guys.
The last five players are Mike Harris, Rudy Gobert, Brandon Rush, Ian Clark, and Andris Biedrins. Chances are you're not coming to this site for news on them. Harris has played in 19 games and averages 11.42 mpg. Gobert in 17, and averages 10.71. I'd rather have given Harris none, and most of that to Gobert. But I'm just crazy like that.
SOOOO, we really see that in terms of who gets the largest pieces of the playing time pie, our team is Hayward, Favors, Jefferson, Burks, Kanter, Williams, and Burke. The only other guy who plays at least 20 mpg is Evans, but I think at this period in time it's better to look at his numbers in that second group to better gauge his performance against the replacement players.
So here are their normal, per game averages this season so far:
| NBA Draft | Per Game Stats | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Rnd | # | Year | Player | Pos | Age | G | Mins | MPG | PPG | RPG | AST | TO | A:TO | SPG | BPG | PFPG | ||||||
| 1 | 1 | 9 | 2010 | Gordon Hayward | 2 | 3 | 23.74 | 27 | 978 | 36.22 | 16.85 | 5.30 | 4.56 | 2.85 | 1.60 | 1.30 | 0.44 | 2.22 | ||||
| 2 | 1 | 3 | 2010 | Derrick Favors | 5 | 4 | 22.42 | 25 | 796 | 31.84 | 13.64 | 9.08 | 1.32 | 2.12 | 0.62 | 1.16 | 1.44 | 3.40 | ||||
| 3 | 1 | 9 | 2013 | Trey Burke | 1 | 21.10 | 15 | 436 | 29.07 | 12.40 | 3.33 | 4.93 | 1.33 | 3.70 | 0.67 | 0.07 | 1.80 | |||||
| 4 | 1 | 3 | 2011 | Enes Kanter | 4 | 5 | 21.58 | 26 | 717 | 27.58 | 11.77 | 5.85 | 0.81 | 1.88 | 0.43 | 0.31 | 0.69 | 3.23 | ||||
| 5 | 1 | 13 | 2001 | Richard Jefferson | 3 | 2 | 33.49 | 27 | 734 | 27.19 | 9.93 | 2.85 | 1.67 | 1.59 | 1.05 | 0.63 | 0.26 | 2.07 | ||||
| 6 | 1 | 12 | 2011 | Alec Burks | 2 | 1 | 22.41 | 27 | 731 | 27.07 | 12.85 | 2.81 | 2.59 | 1.74 | 1.49 | 0.85 | 0.22 | 2.30 | ||||
| 7 | 1 | 2 | 2005 | Marvin Williams | 3 | 4 | 27.50 | 17 | 447 | 26.29 | 10.12 | 5.00 | 1.47 | 0.71 | 2.08 | 1.06 | 0.47 | 2.53 | ||||
| 8 | 2 | 55 | 2010 | Jeremy Evans | 4 | 3 | 26.15 | 14 | 299 | 21.36 | 7.79 | 6.29 | 1.14 | 0.86 | 1.33 | 0.71 | 0.93 | 2.93 | ||||
| 9 | 3 | 61 | 2005 | John Lucas III | 1 | 31.07 | 21 | 387 | 18.43 | 5.00 | 1.14 | 1.48 | 0.62 | 2.38 | 0.29 | 0.00 | 1.10 | |||||
| 10 | 3 | 61 | 2011 | Diante Garrett | 1 | 2 | 25.12 | 18 | 273 | 15.17 | 3.61 | 1.11 | 2.72 | 1.39 | 1.96 | 0.83 | 0.00 | 0.61 | ||||
| 11 | 1 | 13 | 2008 | Brandon Rush | 2 | 3 | 28.45 | 8 | 110 | 13.75 | 2.38 | 1.13 | 1.00 | 0.88 | 1.14 | 0.13 | 0.38 | 1.13 | ||||
| 12 | 3 | 61 | 2005 | Mike Harris | 3 | 4 | 30.51 | 19 | 217 | 11.42 | 4.00 | 1.68 | 0.26 | 0.58 | 0.45 | 0.84 | 0.37 | 1.79 | ||||
| 13 | 1 | 27 | 2013 | Rudy Gobert | 5 | 21.48 | 17 | 182 | 10.71 | 2.24 | 4.59 | 0.18 | 1.12 | 0.16 | 0.24 | 0.82 | 1.82 | |||||
| 14 | 3 | 61 | 2013 | Ian Clark | 2 | 1 | 22.78 | 8 | 70 | 8.75 | 2.75 | 0.88 | 0.63 | 0.50 | 1.25 | 0.13 | 0.13 | 1.13 | ||||
| 15 | 1 | 11 | 2004 | Andris Biedrins | 5 | 27.71 | 6 | 45 | 7.50 | 0.50 | 2.83 | 0.00 | 0.33 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1.00 | |||||
There are a lot of things we can choose to focus on here, the first that I always end up noticing is that this team has 9 lotto picks on it. Wow. That's never been the case with Utah Jazz teams before -- no wonder we have to keep making excuses about Tyrone Corbin having it rough. Not enough 2nd rounder on this Jazz squad, not easy like what Jerry Sloan had! Snark aside, what I really enjoy seeing here is the minutes distribution. Everyone, for the most part, gets a chance to play. That's fair, but a little silly because not everyone is going to be back next year. But the 2014-2015 Utah Jazz may not be Ty's team to coach, so I guess he's not going to do THAT coach's job for him and develop that guy's players.
If you can pierce through all of the numbers something should pop out. And that's Trey's assist to turn over ratio. Sure, he's not even averaging 5 apg, but he's doing a great job with the ball in his hands when he's in distributor mode. His shooting stats, well, that's a different story.
Another thing I've noticed is that all of the blocks are gone. I guess that's something to investigate more fully in January after looking at game film. Of course, if we played Rudy more . . . but then how would Mike Harris get in the game? C'Mon Amar, think about Mike Harris for a second!
I did single out Jeremy here because he's clearly dominant over the "rest" (players #8 to #15). In fact, I wouldn't be upset if Evans ate into Jefferson's time a little. But I've beat that drum before.
More detailed analysis coming up in a bit -- but what pops out to you out of these simple per game averages?