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NBA.com’s Summer Report Cards
Posted by: Zach on August 14th, 2012
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.NBA.com’s summer report cards are out. How do they rank our offseason moves? Well, they list 14 teams as having had better summers. These include: Celtics, Mavericks, Pacers, Clippers, Lakers, Grizzlies, Heat, Hornets, Thunder, 76ers, Spurs, Raptors, Wizards. We got a B-, which puts us in a 3-way tie for 15th place. This puts us right in the middle of the pack, a team who had simply an average offseason. Let’s take a look at the roster movement for the teams ranked higher than us. I tried to list players from most important to least important.
-Celtics- ‘B’
Added: Jason Terry, Courtney Lee, Jared Sullinger, Jeff Green(back after year off for heart), Fab Melo, Jason Collins, Dionte Christmas, Kris Joseph, Chris Wilcox
Lost: Ray Allen, Greg Stiemsa, Ryan Hollins, JaJuan Johnson, E’Twaun Moore, Sasha Pavlovic, Sean Williams
-Mavericks- ‘B’
Added: Elton Brand, Darren Collison, Chris Kaman, O.J. Mayo, Jae Crowder, Bernard James, Dahntay Jones
Lost: Jason Terry, Jason Kidd, Ian Mahinmi, Brendan Haywood, Brian Cardinall, Kelenna Azubuike, Yi Jianlian
-Pacers- ‘B+’
Added: D.J. Augustin, Gerald Green, Ian Mahinmi, Miles Plumlee, Orlando Johnson
Lost: Darren Collison, Dahntay Jones, A.J. Price
-Clippers- ‘B’
Added: Lamar Odom, Jamal Crawford, Willie Green, Grant Hill, Ronny Turiaf, Ryan Hollins
Lost: Mo Williams, Nick Young, Randy Foye, Reggie Evans, Ryan Gomes
-Lakers- ‘A’
Added: Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, Antawn Jamison, Chris Duhon, Earl Clark, Jodie Meeks
Lost: Andrew Bynum, Ramon Sessions, Josh McRoberts, Christian Eyenga
-Grizzlies- ‘B’
Added: Tony Wroten, Jerryd Bayless, Wayne Ellington, D.J. Kennedy
Lost: O.J. Mayo, Dante Cunningham, Jeremy Pargo
-Heat- ‘B’
Added: Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis
Lost: Ronny Turiaf
-Hornets- ‘B+’
Added: Anthony Davis, Ryan Anderson, Austin Rivers, Hakim Warrick, Robin Lopez, Roger Mason
Lost: Trevor Ariza, Chris Kaman, Marco Belinelli, Emeka Okafor, Carl Landry, Gustavo Ayon, Carl Landry, Jerome Dyson
-Thunder- ‘A’
Added: Perry Jones, Hasheem Thabeet, Daniel Orton, Hollis Thompson
Lost: Nazr Mohammed, Royal Ivey
-76ers- ‘A’
Added: Andrew Bynum, Jason Richardson, Nick Young, Dorell Wright, Kwame Brown, Arnett Moultrie, Royal Ivey, Maalik Wayns
Lost: Andre Iguodala, Elton Brand, Louis Williams, Jodie Meeks, Nokola Vucevic, Craig Brackins
-Spurs- ‘B’
Added: Nando De Colo
Lost: None
-Raptors- ‘B’
Added: Kyle Lowry, Jonas Valanciunas, Landry Fields, John Lucas, Terrence Ross, Quincy Acy
Lost: Jerryd Bayless, Gary Forbes, James Johnson, Solomon Alabi
-Wizards- ‘B’
Added: Trevor Ariza, Bradley Beal, Emeka Okafor, A.J. Price
Lost: Rashard Lewis, Andray Blatche
-Jazz- ‘B-’
Added: Mo Williams, Marvin Williams, Randy Foye
Lost: Devin Harris, C.J. Miles (good riddance) (addition by subtraction) (finally) (don’t ever come back)
I’ll list the category breakdown for us only:
Frontcourt: B
Backcourt: C+
Defense: C-
Bench: B-
Coaching: B-
You can go and look at this article yourself but here’s basically what they said about us:
- Al and Paul will continue to relegate Favors and Kanter to bench roles
- Hayward could have a breakout season
- Mo Williams is a significant upgrade
- Don’t know if Burks is ready to step into starting role
- Jazz still have to improve a whole lot defensively before they’re any real threat
- Bench and depth aren’t great and hinge on many young players
- We still don’t know how good of a coach Ty is since he still hasn’t had a normal season to coach
I don’t really want Al or Paul starting for much longer and Favors seems to get very little respect or attention from anywhere outside of Utah. I agree about Hayward and Mo. Burks has shown his potential and seems as ready as anybody to turn some heads. Marvin and Mo and the losses of Harris and Miles should improve us a great deal defensively but I guess NBA.com’s Scott Howard-Cooper disagrees. I think we’re a super deep team now with most (if not all) of our players being able to play multiple positions. Get rid of Bell (again) and we are one of the few teams with few to no “garbage” players. The only category on our rating that I think deserves a worse grade is coaching. I agree with those who said we made it to the playoffs despite his coaching, not because of it, with injuries forcing him to play the better players.
I don’t really understand why the Pacers, Grizzlies, Thunder, and Wizards got better grades than we did. The Pacers swapped one average PG for an equally average one and added a decent player who can shoot in Green. The Grizzlies added two good backup PGs and lost Mayo. The Thunder added Perry Jones. Apparently Perry Jones> Mo Williams + Marvin Williams + Randy Foye, and that’s even in his rookie year before we’ve even seen him play in the NBA. The Wizards got a promising SG and an overrated Trevor Ariza. The Spurs did absolutely nothing and somehow got a better offseason grade.
Replies: 35
Views: 1004
35 Responses
Nothing new about the grades. Some teams can turn over a rock and get an A for it and others no matter what they do gets bad grades. I just take everything with a grain of salt. Everything comes out in the playing of the games. We can speculate all we want and it does not mean a thing but playing the games do. But you went to a lot of work to put that post together. Way to go. Go Jazz
Great data, Zach!!
I think OKC gets an A because they got a TON of potential talent for next to nothing. PJ3 with the 27 or 28th pick. Thats a home run, even if he bust, thats a 27th pick. Hollis Thompson, who is one of the best 3pt shooters in NCAA, they got him as undrafted FA, Daniel Ortan is a BIG dude, he never developed cuz he never got minutes behind Howard (this might be Kanter if we resign Al), hes seen as a bust, but with minutes he might play to his potential, got him for next to nothing, ditto for Thabeet, is not worth a top 3 pick, but he is 7ft, and Thunder got him for almost nothing. This why OKC, like the Spurs are never bad, cuz they project into the future. Hopefully, Dennis brings that mind set to the Jazz. Jazz usually do it backwards and sign FA that are vets and past their prime.
The C- defensively, I can only explain that Cooper probably sees Millsap and Al taking all the minutes at PF and C, so Favors really wont have an impact playing 20 minutes a game. And Al is horrible (Cooper is an LA beat isnt he, so hes seen Al play his worst games against Lakers and Clippers).
Worrying about who’s going to start is rather overrated, don’t you think? Sure, it’s a point of pride to “start” but as we all have seen in the past, it’s who’s on the floor at the end of the game that really matters. This is particularly true with competitive games. Who can the Jazz depend on for the last shot? Who will make a great defensive stop that will help with a win.
The one thing that is nice, at least on paper thus far, is the Jazz has some depth and variety of players. I imagine that the players on the floor at the end will be those who have played well and match up well with whomever is the floor for the opposing team.
Hopefully with a few good 3 point shooters who are successful during the game, this will open up the floor down low for the big guys. And the opposite should be true as well. If the bigs dominate down low and the defense begins to collapse, this should open up things for the 3 point shooters.
Jazz have significantly improved our defense and 3 point shooting, which were our biggest weaknesses.
The NBA media has a ridiculously inconcievable Eastern Conference bias in coverage, analysis, and accuracy.
Put simply, NBA analysts who reside in New York are mostly concerned with East Coast markets. For one thing, they’re generally bigger markets.
It has nothing to do with tallent, and everything to do with money.
Remember that last year these same people said that the Jazz would be one of the worst teams in the Western Conference. I do believe the term “bottom-feeders” was used.
Thats a good point Nick, if you look at each player individually that we picked up it doesnt look that incredible. But taking a closer look at the team defense and team three point shot gaps we filled, we got good. We got much better because we already have one of the better and maybe the deepest front court in the NBA. Adding lock down perimeter defense and 3 point shooting just put the whole motor together for the jazz.
I believe the problem is that as the year went on people found out how to attack Al in their offense. They used it whenever they needed to score. The Suns,Magic,Spurs and more used it every play. We did not fix our biggest defensive problem. So our defense is still a problem unless magically in training camp people can fix that. But since he is in his 9th year and I think 5th coach plus a number of assistant coaches he is not going to change.
I don’t know how anyone could give the Mavericks more than a C+ with their offseason. Yeah they added some solid pieces, but I don’t think any of them are a huge upgrade and I don’t see how they can all mesh together. They’re all older players who are set in their ways.
Houston deserves an F, and New York deserves a D-. Horrible offseasons for both of those teams.
Al Jazz made mediocre to good guards look like All Stars: OJ Mayo looked like DWade, Ridnour look like Nash, and Nelson look like DWill. This season teams will have time to prepare and watch tape, so as long as Al is getting 34 minutes, I dont see the Jazz better than a C+ on defense.
Not every thread on here has to revolve around Al. We already have a few of those that went on long enough.
I would say that’s a fair overall grade for the Jazz. With such a young team it’s REALLY difficult to say they did much better than that. I see our biggest improvement being from the perimeter, which I HOPE will make Favors look even better on offense. I just hope that Foye, Williams, and Williams don’t suddenly suck at 3’s. I think they should get a decent number of open shots thanks to Al, Millsap and Favors handling the paint. It will be fun to watch.
Hahaha Kevin, sorry but Al took the 9th most shots in the whole NBA and gets paid 15M (highest paid player on the team and lead team in minutes at 34 per), so Al is the franchise player of the jazz, so until that changes Al will be in most threads analyzing the Jazz.
There’s still other players on the team. Just because he makes a lot of money doesn’t mean we (you) can’t discuss other aspects of the team. If what you say is logical, then you should despise the Jazz since you despise Al. According to your logic, you hate the team.
Hahaha! If your talking logic, your argument is a straw man fallacy, which is illogical, among other fallacies.
Everyone born in Salt Lake City was born in Utah: T
Everyone born in Utah was born in Salt Lake City: F
But back to Al:
He is the franchise player for the Jazz. When Lakers fans are talking about grades for the team, do they dismiss Kobe?
OKC: Durant
No, if we are grading the team you HAVE to look at the franchise player.
Brand>Haywood, Mayo>Terry, Collison>Kidd. Plus Kaman who is good as well. They are better then last year.
As for why this got to Al is because he asked why our defense was graded so low. That is why that is what we are stating. Our defense was fine except for when Al was on the floor. Hence the low grade.
@Omar – Based on Jersey sales we could say Millsap is the franchise player.
Jazz grade is about rightm from an emotional position(we didn’t do anything major).
On a positional basis we improved a good deal, Mo isn’t a huge upgrade but he is a better shooter and will get to the free throw line more than Devin. Williams is an upgrade from Miles and Howard. Randy Foye is an upgrade over Raja or Miles as well.
If we look at those additions and realize that we slipped in the playoffs last year our outlook is better this season.
It is better Browncoat but giving Burks those minutes that Foye is going to get is kinda stupid. He was an upgrade over those players last year. I fear this is the same garbage Sloan pulled where if you are in the dog house you never play no matter how much we need you or could help the team.
On the court, Al is unquestionably the franchise player:
17.2 FG attempts (ranks 9th in league). Aldridge, Dirk, Griffin, Lee, CP3, Pierce are all players that took LESS shots than Al but scored MORE points. The 8 players that took more shots: Bryant, Durrant, Love, Westbrook, LBJ, Melo, DWill, Ellis. Al had more FG attempts than Dirk?! Al had more FG attempts than Griffin and CP3, the Clippers franchise players. More than Aldridge (an All Star and center piece of Blazers). Al took more shots than Joe Johnson 19M and Josh Smith. Al is not necessary the “the face” of the franchise, but Xs and Os, on the court, Al is the franchise player. Led the team in minutes and in salary. And he took the 9th most FGs.
Millsap ranked 30 in the league, 21 spots lower than Al and about 6.5M less than Al, and 2 minutes less per game.
The bigger issue is that for the Jazz, their franchise player is their worse defender, has never made an All Star game, and has never won a playoff series. Hopefully Corbin and Dennis realize ths and install an offense that team oriented and not iso Al centric. And a defense that isnt created to hide the player that plays the most minutes on the team.
Durant took .5 more shots than Al and scored 9 more points per game. Durant played 4 more minutes per game, and… gets paid 1.6M more than Al….yes, 1.6M more, thats it! Al is at the same level as Durant, yet talent-wise, Al isnt even on the planet as KD.
*Durant took 2.5 more shots per.
I think omar has the concept of franchise player wrong. It’s not who shoots more or who gets paid more. It’s who you can build the franchise around. At this point we don’t really have one but expect favors or hayward to emerge as one during this next season.
Yeah John, Omar has no idea what he’s talking about when it comes to Al, because he gets so emotional about it. He hates Al on the Jazz, but yet he can’t stop thinking about him. He can’t spend 30 seconds typing a response to a thread without trying to make it all about Al. Then he turns and compares Al to Kobe and Durant. I think someone actually is a HUGE Al Jefferson fan, and is trying to overcompensate by bashing him like he does.
Omar, and Dallan follow each other around backing one anothers posts no matter how ridiculous they start to sound. Then they throw in stats that back up what they are saying, the problem is, they use the stats that only show what they are trying to prove and not a counterpoint which would add validity to their OPINIONS.
These two are currently ruining this site because the rest of us fans cannot talk about anything except what the two of them want to discuss.
Also Dallan, I do not think OJ Mayo is greater than Jason Terry on the Mavs. Sometimes it’s about chemistry and how their playstyle FITS with a particular team instead of overall career averages. I think Kidd was a better fit than Collison, and I am not convinced that Brand is going to be all that good either. Probably better than Haywood, but Brand hasn’t been great for a few years now. So just because you can do the little ‘>’ sign, doesn’t automatically prove your point.
Holy get over AL! Just cause someone takes the most shots on the team and gets the most minutes doesn’t mean that they are the franchise player! At this point trying to build a team around rookies there had to be a guy to step in a take those shots and get those minutes. Al was never meant to be the go to guy, it was supposed to be Deron, which would have opened up the floor a lot more for Al as the second option, which would have boosted his fg% a ton! But when we traded deron, and that put us in a bind where we had to have someone taking shots until our rookies got to a place they could step in and take 30+ minutes a game. I will say that I think that Favors should have hands down had more of Al’s minutes by the end of the last season and even Kanter got some too. But when things went to pot the way they did beggers cant be choosers and with our outside shooters not being able to make a 3 to save their lives you live with an inside game, even with Al taking the shots and getting the minutes we made the playoffs and our young guys got awesome playoff experience.
Yeah Zach, but you are using what some people call “logic”. Which might confuse a couple of people. Don’t you know that KOC could have just picked up the phone and traded Al in a 4 team deal for Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant, Deron Williams, and LeBron James? So realistically, we weren’t beggers. KOC just didn’t take the time or put forth the effort to make the trade.
Seriously though, I guess Omar and Dallan forgot that we had Raja and Miles who were supposed to stretch the floor with the occasional three and they could not do it. So like you said, Al had to shoot more than I think the Jazz would have liked him to shoot. Also, NO ONE on the team played passionate defense except Favors, Carroll, and Burks and they all got the stiff on minutes.
Al is in his last year of his contract, this is the most money he will make. The offseason grade could be true because where the Jazz will improve a lot is by the progression of the four young guys. Favors will be on the court and the ratings by this guy from NBA.com are crazy
David Locke was predicting how good Derrick Favors and said he could be close to a 20 and 10 guy but then said that it could not happen because they where going to run through Jefferson on the offense so much that he would prabably be more like a 14 and 10 player. I think if the rest of the Jazz are ready to step up which I think they are Jefferson is not really needed. Mostly because Jazz needed Al to score and if there are other people that can take his possesions and score and play better defense than Jazz don’t need him. I do think that it’s going to take 10 to 15 games to figure out if Jazz don’t need him and then they will trade him.
HAHAHAH!!!! @Kevin…. “logic”……you obviously do not know anything about LOGIC, except how to completely butcher it, maybe.
Fallacies of Relevance; Argument Ad Populum; Straw Man (like I said earlier, one of your favorites); Argument Ad Hominem (your new favorite); Ignoratio Elench; Argument Ad Ignorantiam; False Cause; Hasty Generalization; Id even say Accent to a certain degree.
You completely distort was is being said, then you attack the distortion by disconnecting the premise from the conclusion (among other things), without looking at any numerical data, which allows you to generalize and draw false conclusions based on you ignoring the data that is available to all; and once you highlight your false conclusion, you appeal to the mass of Jazznation (like a politician) to enforce your conclusion, however falsely you came to it, with no data mind you but only with generalizations, then you attack the person making the initial argument, completely ignoring the point by attacking the person. And to a certain degree you distort the meaning of words like “franchise” in order to NOT argue against how the term was being used to begin with, in this case, the term “franchise.”
For your homework, pretend I was a anonymous contributor, how would you attack the numerical data I presented??? What numerical data would you use to counter the numerical data I presented???
If I used your fallacious logic, I could say, using pop or pseudo-psychology, “Geez, Kevin, why are you always thinking and writing about me and Dallan!! Geez, can’t you go through one thread without talking about what me and Dallan are saying!! You must be overcompensating, because you are really are a fan of me and Dallan!! In fact, you must be a HUGE fan. Right everybody??? Kevin just follows me and Dallan around so that he can comment on our comments! Does everybody else see it, right everyone??”
@Kevin, in your 25 lines following my last comment, in your 3 separate comment post, you gave me ZERO stats….just personal attacks and an avoidance of the conclusion I had drawn. Maybe you could have found players who led their teams in minutes, FG attempts, AND salary that were NOT franchise players.
Did it ever occur to you, that maybe the reason me and Dallan agree is because we tend to use the most data?? Its not a coincidence that me and Dallan draw the same conclusion from the numbers that are available to all of us. I found out that 2 + 2 = 4 and Dallan found out 1 + 3 = 4. Maybe Dallan noticed that the lowest grade the Jazz got was a C- on Defense. SO, it is not just crazy Dallan and Omar who actually read and interpret the data, the person who actually writes for the NBA agreed with me and Dallan. What is common in all of your findings….numerical support!! So rather than attack the person, attack the argument. Thats why I like @JRN, cuz he always countered with data. Where are you @JRN??? You actually make me work on gather data to support my claims.
@John, I agree with you to a certain point, it is who the team can build around that is the franchise player and it will be Favors and Hayward, which is why I am so keen on turning the page and FULLY transitioning away from Al. If we keep him, our team will no doubt be built around him for this year. He can only play in one type of offense where he dominates the ball in isolation, and with him getting 34 minutes per game he will dictate the offense. And because he is the weakest defender, he will dictate the defensive scheme. Plus, by him playing 34 minutes, Millsap with be forced to play the 3 for half of his minutes, and Millsap will not be getting 30 minutes a game. Millsap was one of the top 5 steals leaders because he utilized his quickness at the PF position to steal the ball from slower PF. Playing him only 12-15 minutes at PF takes that advantage away. And with teams playing smaller ball, that really is minimizing Millsaps value. SO, even if Al may not seem like the franchise player in the mold of Durant or Kobe, he actually dictates the offense and defense and minutes distribution, all while getting paid the most. So no he is not deserving of the “franchise” tag, but if when keep revolving rotations, offensive plays, and defensive schemes around Al, then he is the de facto franchise player for the Jazz. Boston turned the page, TWolves turned the page, the Jazz need to turn the page.
@Zach Kapp, that may have been true about last year, but the DWill aftermath is no longer an excuse, not for the franchise, not for the team, and not for Corbin either. We all know who are the better players, and Corbin has a whole training camp to install a new offense regardless of Al. So its not a lack of time, or being stuck with a certain roster, that is what the off-season is for. If this is a transition from DWill, then lets fully transition. Last year year may have been harder to do so, but this offseason, not so much, yet the Jazz roster still has holdovers from the DWill era, Bell, Watson, and Al(??? thats close to 21M), and only because CJ’s contract expired did he leave. I wouldn’t doubt CJ not being traded if he had one more year, hed still be with the Jazz. Jazz made it to the playoffs for several reason, not because of Al. Injuries to Howard, CJ, Bell, Watson, and Lowry are the main reasons the Jazz made the playoffs. The Rockets were 21-19 and the Jazz were 19-19 when Lowry was injured (Lowry was averaging 30+ minutes). Lowry missed 17 of the remaining 26 games, and in the games he played, he averaged 20 minutes per game, he was never the same after injury. Rockets went 13 and 13 in those 26 games.
April 11, 2012:
Jazz 31-28 @ Rockets 32-26 (despite Lowry’s injury, Rockets had a 1 1/2 game lead with 8 games left)
Players hurt going into the game: Howard, CJ, Watson, Bell (FACT!!!). These four players would not play the rest of the regular season. Jazz went 6-2. Rockets went 2-6 the rest of the way. Jazz finish 2 games ahead of Houston. So, thanks to the injuries of Howard, CJ, Watson, Bell, and Lowry that the Jazz made the playoffs, not because Al took 17.2 shots or because Corbin is a good coach.
“Omar, and Dallan follow each other around backing one anothers posts no matter how ridiculous they start to sound. Then they throw in stats that back up what they are saying, the problem is, they use the stats that only show what they are trying to prove and not a counterpoint which would add validity to their OPINIONS.” –KEVIN
@KEVIN
So we use numerical data to validate “opinions”…..so 2 + 2 = 4 is an opinion????? So, it is my opinion that Al lead the team in FG attempts, minutes, and salary????
So what do you call the ramblings of someone who DOES NOT use numerical data AT ALL??? So WHAT exactly are you contributing……
I’m not defending Al, he is the dominant player on the team, as he will be again this year, if he’s not moved. What I’m noticing though is all contracts are up after this year besides the core four.
I don’t know what the Jazz plan on doing this year, but they will have alot of money to build around next year.
@Omar Okay wait, are we talking about this year or last year?? Cause I firmly believe that until at least the last 1/4 of the season jefferson deserved the minutes he was getting. I will say that I think that toward the end of the season favors for sure and also kanter deserved more. But what’s done is done. I think favors deservers at least 35 min a game this year and kanter about 20. Now if Kanter explodes with his 20 per game and proves he has had an amazing off season and now deserves 30 then I think we re-assess everything! And I have nothing against your stats omar, they are very impressive and you spend infinitely more time looking up numbers than I ever will. And they do contribute to a valid argument, however it should also be noted that with the roller coaster year they had last year there were other winning streaks the jazz had like that. Look I’m not saying that Al is an all star, but I’m just saying that we can’t blame all the issues we had last year on jefferson either. We had weak outside shooting, we didn’t have a guy who was gonna drop 25 every single night, we didn’t have that lock down defender who you could throw on the best guy the other team had, Corbin is new and I didn’t agree with a lot of the things he did either; I’m just saying our issues went a lot deeper than al’s shot count and fg%. And at the end of the day I hope sooooooooo bad that favors and kanter become the players we all know they can be and get to the point that they dominate the paint and we can trade one of our bigs (hopefully al over paul). But for a team that tried to use 4 guys under 21 years old who didn’t have a legit offseason, had a rookie coach, and a fan base who was used to a hall of fame coach and all star guard I think they did pretty good.
Also the Houston Analogy doesn’t work against Al. It only shows that team is better without Howard, CJ, Watson, and Bell.
The stats I referenced were concerning Dallan mostly. Relax Omar.
Also, thank you for proving what I contributed when I said you were overcompensating to hide your fanship of Al Jefferson. Your latest post proves it more so than anything I could have said.
For your homework Omar, go meet some girls and try to experience life. Think to yourself…..”How will my life improve as I strive to live it as opposed to spending an hour typing my response on a Jazz forum”. Then spend 30 seconds repeating the names of Jazz players other than Al Jefferson, and I guarantee your mood will improve. I promise you, talking about other Jazz players will not cause the universe to cave in and implode.
I do not use stats in my posts for 2 major reasons:
1) I am not claiming anything as fact. I state OPINIONS just like you, except I don’t try to pretend that they are fact just because I post some random stats I find online. You say I twist your words? How about when you mentioned that I had said 2+2 does not equal 4? Pretty sure the word twisting is occuring on your keyboard cause I never said that. I hate math, but nice try there.
2) I have a job, a wife, and kid. I do not waste as much time as you do searching through senseless things to try to prove something that cannot be proven. Of course Al shot the number of times you suggested. I am not saying that is incorrect. What I said, is that you and Dallan (Dallan especially) always use “data” that leaves out most aspects except that which you are trying to prove. Which 9 times out of 10 is an opinion. That doesn’t mean it’s only your opinion that Al shot as many times as he did. But try to expand your brain for a second and consider that maybe that stat is the 1 time out of 10 that you WEREN’T stating a silly opinion.
Now that we have the semantics out of the way and the senseless diatribe, lets get back to talking about BASKETBALL and the Jazz.
The Jazz were missing about 5 solid aspects of their game from the last two seasons. I also think you are right Omar, that this season is the first season that the DWill fallout cannot be used as an excuse. However it very much affected our team last year and obviously the year before. Even if you want to say it didn’t affect it last year, we still had the lockout with no training camp.
This season we will get a very good view of what we can be and how we will compete in the near future. I hope that someone steps in with an interest in Al and they have the salary cap to help us out. I would love to see the young guys play more and I disagree with David Locke’s “cookie dipped in milk” theory. Youth need to play in order to learn. Al stands in the way to a degree, but at the same time it’s tough to throw a guy under the bus who was arguably our most consistent offensive threat. EVERYONE on this team is inconsistent and I think Al and Millsap were the most consistent. Favors will be, but he did not receive the playing time necessary to prove it until the end of the season.
@Kevin I have stated over and over and over if someone wants to bring stats to the table and prove the stats I show as wrong then do it. No one does! JRN occasionally tries to bring stuff to the table but he distorts them. Like his post up % and his iso %. Just because your back is to the basket does not mean it is not an Iso. 95% of the time Al has his back to the basket it is an Iso. I have brought stat after stat after stat to the table not just one here and there. I have looked at individual games I have looked at multiple game samples. I have looked at advanced stats I have looked at regular stats. What stats am I not talking about? PER and +/- are the only ones I really do not look at cause they are terribly flawed. I am not the only one that thinks that either.
Also this season will not prove anything if the youth does not get the minutes they deserve. If we continue to suppress everyone else skills for one person on the team. And if we continue to be horrible at defense inside the paint
Dallan I just said the exact same thing in my previous post about youth needing to play. So I am assuming you are agreeing and not trying to argue something that I stated already.
As far as the stats go, you and Omar do a fantastic job of searching the internet to include stats in your posts. I am not saying the stats are wrong, or that you are stupid for using them. I am saying that you put stats into your post that supports what you say, but then you ignore things that do not show up on a stat sheet. Both of you seem to be under the impression, that stats are the only thing you can use when it comes to basketball, or posting thoughts about basketball. Not everyone on this site has to use stats in order to post a thought or opinion. That was not in the terms of use as far as I could tell. So it’s cool you guys use them, but it doesn’t ALWAYS mean that you are right and everyone else is wrong.
For example, Michael Jordan’s, Kobe Bryant’s, and LeBron James’s career stats are wildly inflated due to the fact that a large portion of their ppg are thanks to biased officiating. Yes, they are probably three of the top 5 best players to ever play the game. But wouldn’t it be interesting to see how they played if they didn’t get the superstar calls each game? Yet we will never know and all we have is statistics. My point is this……there’s more to basketball than what shows up in the box score, and I prefer to analyze the game based on what I see and not as much on the box score, even though that definitely has it’s place and time.
@Kevin @Dallan I have to agree with Dallan on this one kevin. You are way off base here! 56.47% of the stats of 82% of the posts of 46.8745% of the fans are right 67.88% of the time. Meaning that because Al has 66% of the shots that 32% of the guards should take compared to 45% of the shots favors takes prove that in 71.45% of the time that this was on jefferson!! Then combining the fact that jeffersons 87.89% of the minutes of 34.78% of the games in 45% of the losses compared to 67% of the wins pretty much sums this argument up!How can you not see that!? Obviously the stats prove EVERYTHING, that’s why professional analysts who have all the stats handed to them are NEVER EVER wrong because the numbers say they aren’t.
LMAO!!! WOW! Just when I think it can not get any funnier!! Dude, this is logic 101, this is the absolute basics of pre-law and rhetoric. I used to have them all memorized, so Im sure you committed more fallacies I just can’t remember. I have done serious research in archives with hard copies, that is HELL. We live in the digital age, man. And I only have a 3G phone, when I upgrade in a few months, I’ll be able to access more data faster. This is pretty simple: you bookmark ESPN Utah Jazz, and it takes about 5 seconds to load the page. Its not rocket science, nor tasking. This is a vacation from really research. Not everything is available digitally. And ESPN is top-notch system, for easy access, so please, please, please, don’t try and make this out to be a task, its not. And if you have good memory, you won’t even need to look-up stats, because youd have them memorized.
LOL!! Go meet girls???!!! Hahaha. I bet you picture me as some over-weight virgin slob, eating chips, with acne, who has never been outside his basement, huh???! You couldn’t be more wrong! I have never lived in a basement! hahaha.
How is it that you @Kevin and @Kory (no offense Kory, your funny and have a sense of humor) are so invested in my love life????!! What does that say about you @Kevin?! I care about the Jazz, and I couldn’t care less who is married, who is single, who has kids, who owns dogs, who votes Republican/Democrat, who is gay, who is straight, who is a girl, who is a boy, who is Mormon, who is Muslim, who is old, etc.
Are we talking Jazz basketball? Then there are stats available that are true, its not opinion, its deduction. Correct me if I’m wrong, but according to your theory, you must think Stephen Hawkings is a complete waste of life’s work; all his theories about space, even though he has never been in a blackhole, use mathematics and deductions drawn from mathematics and theoretical physics to draw conclusions, yes that is using “theoretical” physics he can still drawn conclusions about the universe. Now I am not Stephen Hawkings, but if he can drawn accurate conclusion about the universe using data and theory, I am sure we can draw accurate conclusion about something like basketball (which is not as complex as the universe) using data (data easily available on ESPN website).
Its math, not the boogeyman.
@Kevin, you are still attacking the person not the content. So is there a player that leads his team in FG attempts, minutes, and salary that is not a “franchise player”…..
http://mobile.slcdunk.com/2012/8/14/3242582/utah-jazz-defense-month-the-beginning
Another article that draws the same conclusion using data…wow look at that.