The History of former Utah Jazz player revenge games, and the deadly sting of Kosta Koufos' vengeance.

Today is the trade deadline and that's what a lot of NBA fans care about. We Utah Jazz fans know our team isn't going to do anything (again, if they make a big move I will write, produce, and record a rap song about it) -- so we have other things to think about. Mostly, with this season looking like forgettable 'transition year', we tend to look at the past.

Last night the Jazz hosted the Brooklyn Nets who came into our house and beat us. They have two of our former best players in their rotation and, well, that's the whole point. They wanted to win, and they got the job done. But did they prove some greater point? Has any former player? Well, looking at the Jazz teams from 2007-2008 till 2012-2013 we have had 35 players come and go. Let's track them.

First, here's what they did in a Jazz uniform. (Ranked by BARPS highest to lowest; BARPS being the simple metric of BPG + APG + RPG + PPG + SPG).

Please note that there's also a "/ MPG" value next to "BARPS", which is BARPS / MPG. That shows who was the most efficient at doing something on the floor. BARPS isn't perfect, because I didn't calculate an Opp. BARPS to show what the other guys were doing, so there are some people here who have high value BARPS but don't really have good net values. (I think we can assume which ones those were)

Anyway, this is a good slice of recent Utah Jazz history. If you ranked them by PER, or MPG, or G you can slice it up any way that you wish. (Which I can because it's in Excel for me)

Of these 35 guys, 11 never got a chance for revenge: M.Harpring, J.Howard, K.Weaver, J.Tinsley, B.Knight, F.Elson, K.Fesenko, M.Almond, B.Ahearn, M.Cousins, and K.Murphy. A number of them effectively ended their NBA careers with the Jazz. But that means there were 24 players who DID get at least one shot to play the Jazz after being cut, traded, or not picked up in free agency.

For the players who played for the Jazz more than once, I picked their best game. Similarly, I picked the best game from the number of games a player may have played against the Jazz. An example for both would be #Molo who has played for the Jazz twice, and played against the Jazz after no longer being on the team twice; and he has played several games against the Jazz. (That's an awful sentence, better for power point.)

Here they are, highest to lowest, in BARPS. There are two things to notice here though -- the / MPG value, and the "+/-" value which shows the CHANGE from their Jazz career BARPS / MPG value to the value they achieved in their best revenge game.

So, Koof really killed it, huh?

Four players really stepped up in their production per minute against the Jazz, Kosta, Wesley, Kyle, and Sundiata. Shooters can get hot and make threes, which is what Kyle and Wesley did. Sundiata's production was so low that anything looks great by comparison. The real gem here is Koufos' double double with three blocks and two steals. It's very impressive as he got it in 25 minutes even. Sap, Booz, and Big Al all had double doubles too, but that's what you expect from them.

Sidenote? While AK-47 was less efficient per minute, he basically did his "average" against us. His average is 12 / 6 / 3 / 1 / 2/, and managed 12 / 7 / 2 / 0 / 2. And some people think he's inconsistent : )

Also Bell and Molo's best revenge games happened after their FIRST Jazz stint, not their second.

Anyway, who had the best "best" revenge game? (This whole post would look less impressive than it already does if it was just limited to the FIRST game against the Jazz since being off the team. In that case, historically, only Dantley I think did well.)