clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

The Utah Jazz are taking and making more threes than ever before

Good news, everyone!

By AllThatAmar
Steve Dykes-USA TODAY Sports

The Utah Jazz are learning, adapting, and evolving. And it's going to be bad news for the rest of the NBA. This season the Jazz are scoring only 97.7 ppg this season, and that ranks only 25th in the NBA. The major reason for that is their pace of play, only 90.7 possessions per game. That's the slowest (NBA Rank #30) in the league, and contributes to the sneaky good offense the team is running this year. As of right now the Jazz have an Off. RTG of 106.4 points per 100 possessions. That's good enough for 9th best in the NBA. Yeah, that's right. The Utah Jazz have a Top 10 offense this year. And a big reason for it comes from outside the arc. Utah is taking and making more threes than ever before. And it's some really sweet music to our ears.

Per Season Per Game Per 12 Min
Season G MIN 3PTM 3PTA 3PTM 3PTA 3PTM 3PTA 3PT%
1 2005 2006 82 19,880 311 925 3.79 11.28 0.94 2.79 33.62%
2 2006 2007 82 19,805 354 1,056 4.32 12.88 1.07 3.20 33.52%
3 2007 2008 82 19,705 407 1,095 4.96 13.35 1.24 3.33 37.17%
4 2008 2009 82 19,880 392 1,122 4.78 13.68 1.18 3.39 34.94%
5 2009 2010 82 19,755 439 1,207 5.35 14.72 1.33 3.67 36.37%
6 2010 2011 82 19,880 435 1,256 5.30 15.32 1.31 3.79 34.63%
7 2011 2012 66 16,165 273 845 4.14 12.80 1.01 3.14 32.31%
8 2012 2013 82 19,880 507 1,385 6.18 16.89 1.53 4.18 36.61%
9 2013 2014 82 19,780 543 1,577 6.62 19.23 1.65 4.78 34.43%
10 2014 2015 82 19,705 610 1,781 7.44 21.72 1.86 5.42 34.25%
11 2015 2016 46 11,190 393 1,088 8.54 23.65 2.11 5.83 36.12%
2005 2016 850 205,625 4,664 13,337 5.49 15.69 1.36 3.89 34.97%

This is what it looks like from the last decade + this on-going season, 2005-2006 till today. And the data shows some good trends.

2005 2016 Utah Jazz Three Point Shooting Per Game Increase

The most obvious trend is that threes per game is up. It's been up every year except for that Tyrone Corbin lock-out season. That 2010-2011 season really didn't have a lot of good three point shooters on the team though, so you have to adjust your offense to the capabilities of your players. So in a way, that indicates a Jazz failure, but it wasn't coaching -- it was GMing.

When you look at the 3PTA per game and the 3PT% per season you see a relationship that doesn't really exist. The more selective your shots are the better you should be -- but this season's Jazz team (Gold dot) is the 4th best shooting team with the largest sample size.

2005 2016 Utah Jazz Three Point Shooting X Y Graph

This is significant. It's the marriage of the personnel, the Xs and Os, and the mentality of this team. They work for good shots. And except for some of the bigmen who check themselves (before wrecking themselves (?)), the threes fly when open. And they are going in.

Furthermore, this team isn't just relying upon one or two fantastic shooters to get it done. It's a system thing. And the system is working. Here are the players who have finished the season with at least at 35% three point percentage:

That's mostly wing players, however we're seeing some changes with the continued development of Trey Lyles. He is probably never going to be Canadian Memo, but he's doing some amazing things right now. He's shooting 43% from outside this year and he's hoisting up at least one three a game. And he just turned 20 this last November. All of this info is amazing.

And the team three point attack isn't just him. Rodney and Gordon are both taking at least 5 threes a game, and eight guys are taking at least one each time on the floor. The wealth is being spread around and it's making the team more dangerous to defend. The only guy taking regular threes who isn't averaging at least 35% this year is Chris Johnson (28.6%), and the only other guy who occasionally takes threes is Trevor Booker (26.1%).

The point isn't the shame those guys, but to point out that it's just amazing that eight guys on the team are taking between 1 to 5 threes a game this year, and seven of those eight guys are shooting at least 35.5%. That's evolution. That's the type of evolution that makes the Jazz into something that dominates their ecosystem and becomes the apex predator of the Northwest division . . . in time.

And again, this team is 9th best in the NBA in ORTG. THIS TEAM. Be afraid, rest of the NBA.

More From SLC Dunk