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Past Rankings! Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12, Week 13, Week 14, Week 15, Week 16, Week 17, Week 18, Week 19, Week 20
Another crazy week for the Utah Jazz is in the books. The team beat the Charlotte Hornets, lost to the Washington Wizards, barely beat the Los Angeles Lakers, and then got blasted by the Golden State Warriors. Going 2-2 isn't bad, specially when you are playing against three teams with playoff aspirations. I'm proud of the Jazz, but would have wanted a better effort against the Lakers. And personally, doing poorly against the Cali teams drags the national perception down. Utah has solved the Eastern Conference this season, and as a result of winning games in New York, Chicago, and so on -- have removed much of the East Coast bias. The rankings from Eastern national writers vs. Cali ones seem to agree with my theory.
And what about the rankings? Well . . .
| 1 | Site: | CBS Sports | Record: | 31-38 | As if they don't have enough great young talent, now Rodney Hood is emerging as a versatile threat. Averaging 12.5 points on 49 percent shooting in March. | |
| Author: | Matt Moore | This Week: | 11 | |||
| Date: | 3/23/2015 | Last Week: | 12 | |||
| 2 | Site: | ESPN | Record: | 31-38 | Rating: 102.237 | |
| Author: | Hollinger | This Week: | 10 | |||
| Date: | 3/23/2015 | Last Week: | 11 | |||
| 3 | Site: | ESPN | Record: | 31-38 | Portland, San Antonio and Houston at home, plus Memphis on the road. All four of those playoff-bound teams are among Utah's victims during this 12-4 surge since the All-Star break that so easily could have been 14-2, if not for narrow home losses to the Lakers and, last week, John Wall's Wiz. | |
| Author: | Marc Stein | This Week: | 13 | |||
| Date: | 3/23/2015 | Last Week: | 12 | |||
| 4 | Site: | FiveThirtyEight | Record: | 31-38 | +0.1 OFF RTG, +2.9 DEF RTG, +3.0 TOT RTG -- expected wins 38.7 | |
| Author: | Neil Paine | This Week: | 9 | |||
| Date: | 3/23/2015 | Last Week: | 10 | |||
| 5 | Site: | NBA.com | Record: | 31-38 |
Pace: 92.4 (30) OffRtg: 102.4 (16) DefRtg: 102.6 (14) NetRtg: -0.2 (17)
Rodney Hood is the latest young player for Jazz fans to be excited about. He shot 0-for-6 in L.A. on Thursday, but has still averaged 14.6 points on 50 percent shooting over the last seven games (starting the last six). Players under the age of 25 have accounted for 78 percent of the Jazz's minutes this season, though Gordon Hayward turns 25 on Monday.
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| Author: | John Schuhmann | This Week: | 12 | |||
| Date: | 3/23/2015 | Last Week: | 12 | |||
| 6 | Site: | NBC | Record: | 31-38 | They are 12-4 since the All-Star break with the best defense in the land, and they have a candidate for Most Improved Player in Rudy Gobert (although Jimmy Butler likely wins that one). Quin Snyder has done a fantastic job, the question becomes how the organization builds on this over the summer for next season. | |
| Author: | Kurt Helin | This Week: | 14 | |||
| Date: | 3/23/2015 | Last Week: | 13 | |||
| 7 | Site: | Nylon Calculus | Record: | 31-38 | Not up yet | |
| Author: | Hal Brown | This Week: | ||||
| Date: | -- | Last Week: | 8 | |||
| 8 | Site: | SB Nation | Record: | 31-38 | The Jazz split their games last week, taking a close loss against the Wizards before being targeted by the Warriors' Death Star. Utah still moves up in the power rankings because of their post-deadline play. | |
| Author: | Drew Garrison | This Week: | 17 | |||
| Date: | 3/23/2015 | Last Week: | 19 | |||
| 9 | Site: | Sports Illustrated | Record: | 31-38 | Points are proving hard to come by, but the Jazz are still squeaking out wins. Utah is 8–3 this month despite ranking second-to-last in points per game (90.4). | |
| Author: | Matt Dollinger | This Week: | 16 | |||
| Date: | 3/23/2015 | Last Week: | 15 | |||
| 10 | Site: | Yahoo! Sports | Record: | 31-38 | The Jazz have a talented, young nucleus with playoff potential for next season, but they need a solid veteran point guard. | |
| Author: | Marc J. Spears | This Week: | 16 | |||
| Date: | 3/23/2015 | Last Week: | 19 |
Yeah, so last week the Jazz had an average ranking of 13.10 -- and this week went down to 13.11. The standard deviation is down to 2.85 from 3.60, so there's a more general consensus on the Jazz. The lowest ranks are still from Spears (GS) and Garrison (LA). But they have at least bumped the Jazz up a bit, only about a month behind the rest of the country.
We'll see if Nylon Calculus has anything to add this week.