What to Accept when You're Accepting

So the Utah Jazz of 2014-15 were to be a break-out team. Or at least that's what many of us were hoping for. But we were pretty good at tempering our expectations, and I think we are a very accepting fan base this year. We've been very tolerant and patient (usually) with how things have played out, but exactly how much should be accepted before it's too much?

A while ago I wrote a post about whether or not our 2014-15 Utah Jazz are better off than the Tyr-ture we endured last season (found here). Well, after last nights beating of our former head coach and the virtual no-show from any King not named Cousins, I felt like it was time to do an update.

I'm not feeling very verbose right now, so here's the numbers:

This Year So Far

Last Season After 51 Games

Entire Last Season

To put it simply, both our offense and defense are each swinging the average score pendulum in our direction by about 2 points, meaning we are keeping games about 4 points closer than we were last year at this time. This is the difference between losing by more than two 3-pointers and losing by less than one 3-pointer. In perspective of possessions, this season on average we lose by 1 maybe 2 possessions (or one blown call in some games), and last season at this time we lost by 3+ possessions. By the end of the season last year we were losing by 4 possessions. The standard deviations also tell us that our offense is probably more consistent than last year's, while our defense is about as erratic as before game-to-game despite being better overall. Unless you were to compare standard deviations with the entirety of last season, in which case our defense is also ever so slightly more consistent this year. So I think it's safe to say we're making the steps we were hoping for, even if we're not seeing those stack up in the wins column. So keep being accepting.

Another thing definitely worth pointing out?

-Double Digit Losses Last Season (first 51 games): 25

-Double Digit Losses This Season So Far: 16

-Double Digit Wins Last Season (first 51 games): 5

-Double Digit Wins This Season So Far: 9

Which brings me to another thing I wanted to point out. We're clearly playing better and are a better team than we were last season, yet we have the exact same record now as we did then. Last season we were playing nearly .500 ball around this time but were about to fall relatively flat again. I'm of the belief that we will sustain our play much better than we did last season. What say ye?