Early Season Jazz Stats Checkup

The Jazz are 8 games, or 10%, of the way into this season so of course sample size can be an issue in some of these cases.

If anything, I can see some of the team stats improving as the season goes on, since we have started off with somewhat of a more difficult than average schedule thus far.

Anyways, apologies for the words in an article with the word "stats" in the title. Off we go to the numbers!!

(Note: I used ESPN for almost all of the stats here, since they do a good "qualified players filter", that takes out players who've barely played. Win shares were found on basketball-reference).

Team Stats:

Jazz Off Efficiency: 105.5 (9th in the league)

Jazz Def Effiiciency: 109.2 (28th)

Pace: 93.2 (29th)

Points Differential: -4.9 (24th)

3PA: 23.9 (10th)

3P%: 32.9 (21st)

FTA: 23.6 (20th)

FT%: 78.8 (12th)

Rebounding: 41.4 (20th)

Turnovers: 14.3 (20th)

Opposing Team's Turnovers: 10.8 (30th)

Team Stats Summary

So there are some things this team is decent at, and other things that the team is poor at.

Thus far, the Jazz are a fairly efficient team on offense who take a lot of 3 pointers and get a respectable amount of free throws, while making them at a good rate as well.

Jazz are also mediocre at making 3 pointers so far, and rebound and turn it over just about average for the league.

The things that the Jazz are surprisingly bottom of the league still include having one of the slowest paces in the league. This is perhaps not playing to our roster's strengths, but since the offensive efficiency is not an issue, this can slide.

The team's defense thus far has been rather atrocious, beating only the Cavs and Lakers in efficiency. Right now, the team is not applying much pressure at all, if any, on defense, as they are dead last in causing turnovers. This has to be the first sticking point the team needs to look at if they want to improve in 1 of the 3D's in defense this season. Put pressure on the other team, cause some more turnovers, and then these can lead to fastbreak opportunities and more easy buckets.

Individual Advanced Stats:

Jazz players on the top 100 NBA leaderboards for:

PER:

Hayward: 24.67 (10th overall)

Favors: 22.32 (27th)

Gobert: 17.90 (93rd)

Booker: 17.77 (96th)

Win Shares:

Hayward: 1.2 (8th)

Favors: 0.8 (32nd)

Value Added:

Hayward: 60.3 (3rd)

Favors: 40.2 (20th)

Booker: 15.5 (99th)

True Shooting %:

Hayward: 65.2% (T-27th)

Gobert: 64.7% (30th)

Booker: 61.0% (T-52nd)

Favors: 58.4% (T-85th)

Kanter: 57.5% (98th)

Advanced Stats Summary:

Like it or not, Hayward is the true alpha dog on the Jazz this year. Having a year as a first option under his belt has seemed to really boost his confidence this year. He is our top player in all 4 of the advanced metrics I looked at above. Favors is 2nd in all of them besides True Shooting %.

Booker is surprisingly in the NBA's top 100 as well in PER, Value Added,  and True Shooting %. Solid offensive player with some defensive deficiencies which can be overlooked. He came in at 136th in Win Shares due to his negligible effect on defense, emphasis on negligible. I'd much rather have a negligible defender than a negative defender. Good on you Booker, keep up those authoritative slam dunks!

Gobert also makes some appearance as our 3rd best player in PER, and 2nd best in true shooting %.

Individual Basic Stats:

Jazz players on the top 100 NBA leaderboards for:

Points Per Game:

Hayward: 19.4 (25th)

Favors: 15.9 (T-48th)

Burks: 13.4 (T-78th)

Kanter: 12.4 (T-87th)

Rebounds Per Game:

Favors: 8.4 (T-24th)

Hayward: 6.3 (T-58th)

Kanter: 6.1 (T-62nd)

Assists Per Game:

Hayward: 5.1 (T-23rd)

Burke: 4.4 (T-34th)

Burks: 2.9 (T-65th)

Exum: 2.6 (T-82nd)

Steals Per Game:

Burke: 1.25 (T-44th)

Hayward: 0.88 (T-91st)

Blocks Per Game:

Favors: 1.50 (T-21st)

Gobert: 1.25 (T-34th)

Burke: 0.50 (T-88th)

Basic Stats Summary:

Hayward carries this team in scoring and assists, while being 2nd in the team in rebounding and steals. He's just being an all-around solid player in this short season thus far. But enough gushing about Hayward.

It's great to see a so-called limited offensive player in Favors being top 50 in the league in scoring. Also seeing 4 of our players in the top 100 is a solid way to see how balanced our starting lineup is (Hopefully Burke gets out of his shooting slump to get closer to that threshhold as well, he's currently T-151th in the league in scoring per game at 9.1)

It is great to see 4 our players in the top 100 in assists as well. It is a positive sign that a player whose passing is often overlooked in Burks is up there. What is also exciting is a non-starting teenager in Exum being in those leaderboards already! (Exum was 12th in the league in A/TO ratio at 3.5; Hayward 25th at 2.41; Burke T-46th at 2.06; Burks 78th at 1.35....beautiful!)

Like I covered in the team stats section, this team just is bad at forcing turnovers so far this season, and likewise we don't have anyone outstanding in steals, thank goodness we have Burke to hold the fort in steals, or we would have nobody even breaking 1 steal per game... In the words of Charles Barkley: "Turrible"

Our very own 23-and-under twin towers lead our team in Blocks per game. (Gobert was T-16th in blocks per minute) Way to go Favors and Gobert. Quite surprising to see Burke on this list as well, nice work.

And there you have it folks, an update on how the Jazz are doing thus far 10% of the way through this season. Some things to work on for sure, but there are many promising signs that the Jazz are already headed in the right direction!