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Jazz 10-11 and Effective Height
Posted by: Chris on September 2nd, 2010
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.As quoted from one of Kevin Pelton’s articles on Basketball Prospectus (http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=809) regarding the subject: “Height: For non-fans, it’s the primary thing they associate with the sport of basketball. For players, not having enough can cost millions of dollars and spots in the draft. Yet we rarely discuss the importance of height at the team level. ” The very likely (almost confirmed at this point) upcoming signing of Francisco Elson made me really think about this subject. The Jazz already have a VERY tall team. Assuming this goes through, how tall are we, really? The metric proposed by Pelton to calculate this is EFFECTIVE HEIGHT (EHt): Weighted Sum of Player Minutes x Player Height / Total Minutes. The average last season was just under 79 inches, with Oklahoma City and Sacramento the league’s tallest teams at 79.7.
This projection uses the following number of minutes per game, based on usage in the past few years with an emphasis on last year (note that we may actually be a “taller” team; this projection does not expect Memo to play extensively this year considering the injury history).
D Williams 38 min
R Bell 25
A Kirilenko 30
P Millsap 34
A Jefferson 34
F Elson 14
M Okur 14
C Miles 21
G Hayward 20
R Price 7
S Gaines 3
This results in a projected EHt of 79.5 inches. So, how tall is 79.5 inches really? It’s certainly not tall historically, as there have been years where the AVERAGE was as high as 79.8. However, this isn’t the Center-dominated late 80s and early 90s; we’re in Guard-dominated 2010. 79.5 inches would have been the fourth-tallest team last year, behind the Raptors and the aforementioned Thunder and Kings.
So, what does this mean for Jazz prospects? Look no further than our best friends over in Houston for a year-by-year comparison. With Yao out the majority of last year, their EHt plummeted, to third-lowest in the league, because the rest of their team is SMALL. Again borrowing from KP’s expert analysis, slightly paraphrased to reflect timing of this post compared to the timing of that one:
“… comparison of the 50 tallest teams to the 50 shortest teams shows that in addition to the predictable advantages in getting to the free throw line and offensive rebounding, taller teams also shoot better–though this is slightly offset by their committing more turnovers. Defensively, the relationships are largely as would be expected. The bigger teams force lower shooting percentages and collect more rebounds, but create fewer turnovers. The unexpected result here is that big teams are very effective at keeping opponents off the free throw line.
In that context, Houston’s changes at the defensive end make sense. In 08-09, when Yao helped the Rockets rank second in the league in effective height, their defense succeeded by forcing misses (fourth in effective FG%), collecting rebounds (fifth in def. rebound%) and by not fouling (second in opponent FTA/FGA). Last year, Houston slipped to 23rd, 15th and 14th in those categories, respectively. Yet the Rockets helped make up for those deficiencies to some extent by improving from 27th to seventh in the league in terms of forcing turnovers. The relationships are not always so clean, but it turns out Houston’s defense is a matter of height.”
Putting that all in context, this means we won’t be fouling much, and our defense will be better at contesting shots. The turnover deficiency will be at least partly mitigated by Al Jefferson’s extremely high block rate, and two of the most important things you can do when traveling to Staples to play the Lakers is to commit fewer fouls and collect defensive rebounds; this gives the absurd officiating bias against teams visiting LA fewer opportunities to affect the game.
Putting aside that unfortunate aspect of the game, the shift upwards in our EHt means we’ll likely see a less exciting but more efficient Jazz team on the floor. We can hope that the reality follows the trend and we see an improved defense. For those of us that have been watching the Jazz for years, we’ve seen that Coach Sloan always finds a way to keep us among the league’s top offenses, but sometimes we just lack the strength and size to get the key stop when we need it. This might finally be the year when we don’t have to watch our season get ended by Pau Gasol eviscerating our interior. Here’s hoping!
Replies: 3
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3 Responses
First of all Jazz arent a “VERY tall time” we’re barely taller than the Mavericks.
Second of all I check every site and every place that would have any rumors. I havent seen any “pretty much confirmed” signing of Elson… anywhere? Other than that your theory on Jefferson was great.
The main source for the Elson near-confirmation is http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/38952400/sports/player_news – NBC generally checks their resources before posting so I’m assuming they vetted the HoopsHype.com report. It was originally reported yesterday evening by HoopsHype Editor-In-Chief Jorge Sierra.
And you’re right, we aren’t necessarily a VERY tall team without Elson, but even just the addition of Hayward took us from average to above-average height. DWill, Bell and Kirilenko are above league averages for height at their position, and literally all of our relevant backups other than Price/Gaines at PG are as tall as or taller than the starters. It’s not like adding more minutes for Memo or putting some Fes minutes in there for Elson’s (Fes is 7′1) changes the projection that much.
I’d like to think that our team is still “growing” … vertically that is. While we didn’t land a bunch of big guys, overall, our average height is greater than last year, and that is important.