NBA Preseason Statistics: A quick look at the Utah Jazz and scoring

So far this preseason the Jazz have played games and lost to the Golden State Warriors (stream here), and won against the Oklahoma City Thunder (here), and Los Angeles Lakers (here). That's three games, and there are five more to go. It's pretty much the smallest, barely meaningful sample size ever . . . but hey . . . before I became the boss here I used to just be the stats guy. And I love doing stats.

I'm going to be delegating more in the next few months, but before that happens here's a quick little look at who on the Utah Jazz are scoring well. I've grouped the players by the Core Four (Derrick Favors, Gordon Hayward, Enes Kanter, and Alec Burks) in green; the new guys in yellow (Mo Williams, Marvin Williams, Randy Foye, and Kevin Murphy); and the training camp invites in grey (Darnell Jackson, Trey Gilder, Brian Butch, and the amazing Chris Quinn).

Check it out!

Offensively the most impressive players have been Mo and Marv. Mo-Mar, if you will. They play the most minutes, score the most points, and do so at an efficient enough rate. Both ave been getting to the line and hitting threes. Marvin also gets boards, and Mo gets assists. But hey, I'm not going to get into all of that stuff in this post.

The next big deal, and biggest story of the summer, is Enes "Baby Lets do the Party" Kanter. But he's not doing it on offense at a hyper efficient level. Out of the training camp invites only Chris Quinn (4.0 ppg, 2.0 apg in 9.0 mpg) has shown up to be someone I wouldn't have a problem with playing in an actual NBA game. With point guard going to be a question until Earl Watson returns, and with the continued reinforcement that Randy Foye can't run a team, he seems like a logical dude to sign to a season contract -- you know, even more so if Jamaal Tinsley is playing for a contract himself; but Jamaal has done well enough for my liking (6.5 ppg, 5.5 apg in 21.5 mpg).

It's not all roses though. Randy Foye is shooting 5.9 fg%. That's not a decimal place error. He has made one shot all preseason long (not including free throws). Gordon and Derrick also need to step it up. And well, Big Al (one or two highlights aside) has been shooting like crap as well. Big Al's Big deal is offense. He's playing the third most minutes, and has some pretty damning offensive statistics right now in FG% and PPS. He's better than this. Hopefully as the preseason continues he'll play more minutes, get more touches, and get into a groove.

As it stands, this Jazz team is going no where if our top option is playing poorly. We need him to play better, and he can. I would expect a bigger role in the next two preseason games.