making friends

today's post inspired by lagwagon.

when i started blogging about the jazz roughly 14 months ago, i wasn't exactly sure what my angle was going to be.  i had tried out for one of the jazzbot positions and made it through the preliminary round of submissions.  when i was interviewed on the phone in the second round, derrick asked me a question:  "what will set you apart from the other jazzbot writers?"  even though it was a pretty simple question (and one that i should have anticipated), i didn't have are ready answer.  i vaguely remember sputtering out something about having a fan perspective from another large-market team's home base and being a second-time-around jazz fan.  i solidly remember not being offered the jazzbot position, and it didn't take me long to figure out why.

this blog has been, for the most part, pretty scattered in its focus.  it's more of a diary of my experiences and unfiltered thoughts on the jazz than any of the publishable-quality posts you see at the premier jazz blogs (namely SLC dunk and salt city hoops, along with the jazzbots and jazznots at utahjazz360).  i don't have much of an end game in mind, and while i've dabbled in some stat work, i'm coming to terms with the facts that (1) i'm not great with math or excel, and (2) my understanding of the game of basketball itself is, shall we say, less than perfect.

fortunately, the experience hasn't been a wash.  somewhere along the lines i figured i could fuse my experiences as an aspiring punk rock musician with my passion for LHM-related basketball, and it's clicked for me today why that parallel seemed so obvious and easy.  while i've been trying to make this blog something people will be willing to read without smashing their monitor in disgust, i've also had the pleasure of being welcomed into the jazz fan community with open arms via twitter.  for those of you who are/were a part of a serious underground/counter-culture movement or scene, you know how rare it is to find community in something that seems, facially, universally accessible and bereft of deeper meaning.  i had that kind of connection through music in high school and college; i'm finding it again through the utah jazz.

it's eerie how similar the larger families of punk rock and jazz basketball are.  effectively, once you know a few of the buzzwords and how to swing the lingo around, you're in.  with punk rock, it was appreciation for bad religion and the descendents that got me past "poser" status when meeting other band kids, even though we were all photocopying green day and nofx song structures.  as i grew older and started meeting people with more sophisticated tastes, referencing the fugazi catalog and understanding the relationships between fat wreck chords artists more or less guaranteed you an inner-circle spot among active SLC punk rock musicians, even if i was more into social distortion-inspired pompadours than circle jerk bondage pants.  ultimately, opening for guttermouth (or whatever other 40-somethings pass through the shittiest dive in salt lake) seals you as a member of the fraternity of serious punk rock fans, and you get that badge forever, even if you take your gauges out, get married, and move to new jersey for law school.

i'm seeing the same pattern happen to me within the jazz fan community; going from a guy who watched deron's first few seasons with something between hope and disinterest, and having that blossom into having things like an autographed millsap jersey on my wall, and actually making new friends.  i've been fortunate enough reconnect with a cousin i hadn't seen in well over a decade, score amazing tickets to some of the year's best (so far) home games, and feel like i'm a part of something that shouldn't matter because it's "just a business."  but that's the fun thing about this jazz team and supporting it--it's not just a business.  it's a team that, despite its early stumbles, is showing willingness to back each other universally and fight hard when it has to.  that kind of camaraderie is something i've missed since leaving my last band almost four years ago.

maybe this jazz team doesn't make the playoffs this year, and maybe they don't win another game on the road for a month.  maybe millsap and CJ, the two longest-tenured jazzmen on the roster, get traded for an old man from boston with an outside shot.  i don't know how things are going to play out.  but, i do have to say, just being a part of it, with a bunch of other people who also simply love being a part of it, has been pretty amazing so far.

cool kids

today's post brought to you by screeching weasel's timeless classic.

 the hubbub on the intarwebs over the last few days regarding which jazz players will go to the all-star game seems to converge on two points.  first, jefferson isn't going to go and millsap is a bit of a longshot.  second, at least one of the jazz rookies/sophomores should be in orlando come the final weekend of february.

but there are questions within that second point, as the annointed youth isn't being discussed as deserving a trip to florida to play in the actual rookie-sophomore game.  rather, jeremy evans has illustrated his dunking prowess time and again, to the point of garnering national attention and inspiring an online campaign furthering his inclusion in the dunk contest titled, fittingly, #LetJeremyDunk.

despite the momentum behind jeremy "elevator" evans (i refuse to acknowledge this "human pogo stick" moniker), some of the jazz faithful have been wondering whether some of the ESA's other underclassmen should be making an appearance in the Rising Stars Challenge on the first night of all-star weekend.  while i think gordon hayward probably should be in that game, i'm not sold on any of the other junior jazzmen as shoe-ins.  but the ongoing conversation did get me thinking about what the can't-rent-a-car-yet jazz players have been doing so far this year.

the stats in the images below represent the basic production numbers from the rookies and sophomores on this year's jazz squad:  gordon hayward, derrick favors, enes kanter, alec burks, and jeremy evans.  the top matrix in the image below shows the total numbers put up by those five per each game, and the second grouping has those numbers averaged out in a few different ways.

my initial idea was just to look at the rookie/sophomore player production from the first half of the existing season against the second half, and those numbers aren't terribly encouraging by themselves.  the only categories to see improvements by the jazz youth are points per game and steals.  fouls committed dropped nearly a whole foul per game, but that could be attributed either to smarter play or softer defense--a determination i'll have to leave to the synergy crowd.  all other basic categories (field goal percentage, rebounds, assists, blocked shots, blocks allowed, and assist-to-turnover ratio) have seen a slight decline from the utah youngsters.  the only stat not to make any change at all as been turnovers, with the rookie/sophs averaging 4.36 on the season and in both the first and second half of games played.

but there are some serious signs of good things from the the youth on the roster.  the youngest jazzmen actually play arguably better offense on the road, with increased points per game despite a lower field goal percentage--a pair of stats that means gordon & co. are driving and picking up fouls while they're out of town.  similarly, the kids up their assist game on the road by 1.5 per game, get more steals, turn the ball over  40% less often, with the resulting road assist-to-TO ratio sitting at an impressive 1.9 versus 0.75 at home.  it seems likely to me that the starters and vets on the team are making the bigger plays at home, whereas the young guys are gritting it out in garbage time on the road.

which, by the way, is fine with me:  if the bulk of away-game playing time our young guys see is in down by 20 in the fourth, and they still come out strong, so much the better.  in april of last year, the only hope we had as jazz fans was that the team would improve and build.  at this point in the season, the youth on the roster remains committed to playing 48 full minutes, even if they're actually only playing 4 late in the game.  the two biggest W's at the ESA (that i saw in person) in terms of lop-sidedness this year were the january 10 cleveland game and the january 17 clippers game.  both of those games showcased a second unit from the visiting team more or less give up somewhere in the fourth.  the jazz's rookie/soph road numbers do not reflect that kind of attitude.

the rest of the numbers require a more in-depth analysis than i have time/talent for.  but for those of you who are keeping tabs on the long-term future of the jazz, these numbers might be a fun start for you.  i'd be happy to email the spreadsheet to anyone who wants to play with the numbers themselves, just leave a note in the comments.

it's not over

today's post inspired by what is possibly the greatest single punk rock song of all time.

so we're a quarter of the way through an NBA season that has seen the jazz go from inspiring thoughts of a season of terror to inspiring dreams/delusions of grandeur.  one thing is for certain:  december 2011 did not show the jazz roster playing to their potential.  with that in mind, i put together the jazz's numbers to compare the season in groups of five games.

(click here for the full-sized image)

the easiest way to break these numbers down is to compare the season in thirds; i'll be referring to the stats from games 1-5 as being from "1T," from games 6-10 as from "2T," and from games 11-15 as from "3T."

the most encouraging numbers, of course, are to look at the the production purely in terms of shooting.  the 1T jazz scored 91.2 points per game on just over 42% shooting; 2T jazz scored 93.4 ppg on 47.3% shooting; and the 3T jazz averaged 104 ppg on 48.4% shooting.  that's a 12.8 ppg bump and a 6.4% increase in efficiency.

less positive are the long-range numbers, at least in some sense.  the jazz started with 15.2 three-point attempts in 1T, dropped to 12.2 three attempts in 2T, and are down to 11 three attempts in 3T.  the plus side here is that the percentage of threes made is improving.  through the first five games, the jazz shot only 26.9% from beyond the arc, dipped a bit moving forward to 26.34% in 2T, and improved to 33.32% in 3T.  while a nice step forward, according to nba.com's sortable team statistics, boston is leading the league with 41.1% 3-point shooting.  on the season, the jazz are shooting just 28.85% from deep, which is good enough for 27th in the nba.  even looking only at the last five games, 33.32% from three is only good enough for 18, still in the bottom of the pack.

as for free throws, it's a mixed bag.  in 1T, the jazz were shooting 73.32% from the charity stripe.  things got worse through the next five games, with FT% dropping to an abysmal 68.04% (in comparison the clippers, at 66% on the season are second to last on the year).  but that has turned around for now, with the jazz shooting 79.22% in 3T, which would put the jazz third in the league against the season averages.  the upside of the free throw numbers is utah's ability to impact those percentage numbers, with the 1T jazz only making it to the line 24.6 times per game, 26.2 attempts in 2T, and 27 attempts per game in 3T.

on the boards, the jazz continue to improve, going from 41.2 rpg in 1T, 42.8 rpg in 2T, to an impressive 45.6 rebounds per game in 3T.  the pacers currently lead the league in glass-cleanery at 45.4 rpg, giving the recent jazz numbers league priority against all other teams' season averages.  the jazz's offensive rebound numbers haven't changed too much, going from 11.6 to 10.4 and finishing with 12.6 per game.  the defensive board numbers are marching steadily highward, with only 29.6 in 1T, 32.4 in 2T, and 33 o-boards per game in 3T.

assists have improved, but seem to be plateauing to some degree.  in the first five games, utah only averaged 14.2 dimes per game.  currently, the kings are dead-last in the league in assists with 15.56 per game, so those first five jazz games look pretty terrible in comparison.  but the 2T jazz made it up to 22.4 assists per game, and 3T showed 22.6 per game.  the season high 5-game assists average for the jazz thus far has been 25 per game in games 8-12.  denver currently leads the league in assists per game with 24.47; the jazz aren't putting up stockton-era assist numbers per game but the last seven or eight games at least have them among the top five or so teams in the league.

fouls committed haven't changed in any appreciable manner, starting with 23.4 in 1T, staying static in 2T, and dropping a hair to 22.6 in 3T for a season average of 23.13.  that season average is the third-highest in the league, by the way.  the lowest fouls committed in a five-game stretch by the jazz was during games 4-8, with 21.6 per game, which only bumps the jazz down in the fouls standings a handful of spots.

i've got a discrepancy in my steals numbers versus what the nba website says; i have the jazz averaging 7.87 per game, while the league's numbers say 8.4.  to eschew the appearance of bias, i'll proceed with my own lower numbers.  the 1T jazz averaged only 7.02 steals per game; the 2T team improved slightly to 7.4 spg,; and the 3T jazz jumped way up to 9.2 takeaways per contest.  9.2 steals per game puts the jazz in seventh in the NBA overall-not bad for a team who was sorely lacking on defense last year.

with block numbers, things aren't moving in a great direction lately.  1T jazz blocked 6.6 shots per game, the 2T jazz blocked 7.6 per game, and the last five games only had the jazz swatting 4.4 shots per contest.  on the season, the jazz sit third in the league with 6.2 blocks per game.  these recent lower-blocking games have come against teams with some pretty efficient big men, including denver, dallas, and minnesota.

finally, the turnover numbers have the jazz settling into the season average.  1T jazz turned the ball over 12.4 times per game; 2T jazz had 14.4 turnovers, and the 3T jazz slipped 13.2 times per game.  on the season, the jazz are allowing 13.33 turnovers between the tip and the buzzer.  which, by the way, is a pretty solid number, with only two teams holding onto the ball better (ATL and PHI).

i suppose the takeaway here is that the jazz are generally improving.  a lot of people are reminding each other (and the national media) on twitter that the first five games are looking more and more like an aberration against the rest of the jazz season.  that's fine, but it's important to remember that since january 1, the jazz schedule (and opposing injuries) has been very beneficial to the utah club.  but, unlike the past few seasons of jazz basketball, the jazz aren't playing down to "inferior" teams and are winning the games they're supposed to win.  february is going to be tougher, and march/april will both be pretty brutal.  but for those of us who only asked the jazz to improve over the season, we're certainly getting our money's worth through this first quarter of the season.

not too shabby.

predators

what's your name?

today's post brought to you, surprisingly, by NUFAN again, with the first cut off 1997's "making friends."  first five seconds of the song NSFW.

been a crazy month, and i don't have a ton of time right meow to do a big update but i wanted to do two quick things.

first, i know it's still early in the season for all the teams, and the jazz have had a bunch of home games, and we haven't had any serious injuries, and there are a million little qualifiers here...but the utah jazz are kicking ass and taking names.  they are doing exactly what they need to do without a go-to finisher or whatever you call the wades and dirks of the league:  playing team ball.  saturday's nets game was a blast (even from row 19 in the upper bowl-next time, opera glasses) and last night's W over denver at The Can (thanks for the insight on that one, cuz) was a thriller.  paul millsap played at Miracle in Miami level and may have earned a new nickname, The Captain, via a silly but on-point string of tweets immediately following the game from some of the intarw3b's big jazz players.

second, and this was the original point of this whole update before i got ellipses and link happy, was to give a quick list of the twitter accounts for the jazz players.  not all of them have one, and not all of those that do update with any regularity.  but the utah media guys all have twitter accounts and they pay attention to what people are saying through the social media website.  so, with that in mind, if you're not already following all the jazz players (and some of the org's personnel) below, get on board.

alec burks:  @AlecBurks10
derrick favors:  @dfavors14

devin harris:  DevinHarris5

gordon hayward:  @gordonhayward

josh howard:  realjoshhoward

enes kanter:  @EnesKanter

c.j. miles:  @CJMiles34

jamaal tinsley:  @jatinsley

earl watson:  @Earl_Watson

a few of the remaining players have "accounts" but aren't verified and don't have many tweets, so i haven't included them here as their authenticity is suspect.  the non-players who are connected with the team include:

greg miller (CEO):  @GregInUtah

david locke (radio play-by-play):  @Lockedonsports

craig bolerjack (TV play-by-play):  @BuckleUpBoler

matt harpring (american visionary/TV color commentary):  @mharpring15

gordon hayward (pre/post-game host):  @AlemaHarrington

thurl bailey (jazz legend, jazz analyst):  @bigTbailey 

jody genessy (deseret news jazz beat writer):  @DJJazzyJody

brian t. smith (salt lake tribune jazz beat writer/jumper to irrational conclusions):  @tribjazz

diana allen ("unofficial" jazz twitter rep):  @dianaallen

clint peterson ("unofficial" jazz twitter rep):  @Clintonite33

david smith ("unofficial" jazz twitter rep):  @davidjsmith1232

official jazz twitter account:  @utahjazz

stomach aches

(this post brought to you by the only band full of people that never made it that finally made it.)

last night, among all the josh howard / andrei kirilenko chatter, prolific jazz tweeter clintonite33 mentioned that J-Ho isn't much of a security blanket if you're talking about injuries as compared to AK.  just last year, howard only played in 57 games while The Russian Back Tattoo played in 68.

jazz fans are, i think, pretty spoiled by their history when it comes to resilient players.  after all, the mailman had ten seasons with the jazz where he didn't miss a single game, and another seven where he missed two or less.  with all the complaining that we hear from SLC about players missing too many games, i thought it would be interesting to see how many games players are actually missing.

to make it more interesting (and to avoid my data being skewed by DNP-CD guys), i only compared the number of games played by each team's top six players.  the top six players were selected by the number of minutes each played throughout the entire 2010-2011 season, and placed within a team based on where the player was under contract at the close of the regular season.  for example, deron williams' numbers are based on his entire season's play, and is listed as a nets player rather than a jazz player.

the relevant information is entered into an excel spreadsheet, which is linked below.  all info was gathered from Basketball Reference.  the categories of data are as follows (auto-calculate equations in parentheses):

• Games Played:  the number of games the player actually played in during the season.
• Games Missed:  the number of games the player did not appear in (82 games minus Games Played).
• Games Started:  the number of games the player started.
• MPG:  the number of active playing time minutes the player averaged per game.

for each team, the top six players have their stats averaged; each category of stat was summed and divided by six.  so, the jazz's top six players averaged just over 73 games played last year, or almost missing 9 games each to injury (AK's missing 14 games--five more than the rest of the best guys--isn't so far removed from the mean here).

further, each team's top-six-players-average stats is has been averaged in with rest of the team's division (each division has its own tab), each division averaged against the rest of the conference, and a league-wide average is available as well.  finally, note that the first tab on the spreadsheet only refers to teams that made the playoffs last year; each conference's playoff teams have been averaged together as well.

the link to the spreadsheet is here.

this is a lot of data, but answering the question as to whether AK is a big wuss compared to the rest of the league is pretty easy.  on the "TOTAL" tab, note that the league-wide average for top players missing games due to injury is 10.383 games missed.  kirilenko is a little softer than the the average, having missed 14 games (but still in a much better spot than josh howard).  compared to the eastern conference only (13.233 games missed per season), AK's not looking too shabby.

while it's nice to know that andrei is a softie in the west but an average miss-16-percent-of-my-games guy in the east, the rest of the numbers here provide some interesting points.

note on the "Playoff Teams" tab that only three teams averaged higher than 10 missed games per season from their top six players.  chicago had a tough season with noah, boozer, and thomas all missing a bunch of games, but the heat and dallas each have a wild outlier in haslem and butler, respectively.  taking haslem out of the heat's equation and only looking at the remaining 5 players, MIA's numbers move to only 5.6 games missed per season.  similarly, if you drop butler from dallas' numbers, the team's average drops to 4.2 games missed per each of the remaining 5 players.  excluding the lakers' freak show of invincible players, that 4.2 number for dallas would easily be good enough for best in the post-season.  it's little wonder, from this perspective, that they were able to put together a championship run, as the best players on the team didn't have to fiddle with alternate line-ups all season.

also interesting to consider that, in what is arguably the last year of the recent era of the west having generally better teams than the east, the western conference has a slight advantage in top-six players being available per game, 73.044 to 68.767.  and, within the western conference, the division with the best star-availability sent the most teams to the playoffs: the southwest division's top-six players missed an average of only 7.533 games all year, easily the lowest in the league, and sent four teams (DAL, NOH, MEM, SAS) to the post season.

something that i found strange was that, excluding CHI, MIA, and DAL's above-ten-games departure from the other playoff teams, having a healthy core that missed under 10 games a year didn't necessarily translate to making the playoffs (or even being on the cusp of making them).  the jazz, for example, averaged only 8.333 missed games per player, the same number as portland, yet finished 11th in the west.  detroit's squad averaged a missed 9.167 games and didn't make it out of the regular season.  golden state's guys missed 7.333 games each, and phoenix--old as balls, nash/hill/carter phoenix--led the league in available talent at only 4.167 games missed yet neither of the pacific division teams earned a playoff berth.

on the other side of the coin, missing a bunch of games from your core was pretty much a guarantee that your team was going to enjoy a lengthy summer break.  toronto, whose dismal record was bested only by sad, sad cleveland, missed an average of 30.333 games per each of the squad's heaviest hitters.  the closest western conference number to approach the raptors part-time team was the clippers, with 18 games missed by each of the team's best (impressive, considering that blake griffen played all 82 games), which was enough to earn them dead last in the pacific division, and ahead of only SAC and MIN in the west.

the last thing that struck me up front is most apparent on the "Playoff Teams" tab.  dallas, while en route to their championship, leaned heavier on its bench for minutes than any other playoff team.  this is apparent from the "games started" column; dallas's top six (by minutes played) guys only started 48.833 games each during the regular season, the lowest average number of games started by any playoff squad.  the number is also good enough for second most bench-reliant starpower in the west, behind only sacramento.  whether or not this is something actually worth noting is beyond my limited analytics skillset, but it does seem interesting.

stern, cp3, and the united states

(today's entry fueled by badger legion)

during my final semester of law school at the illustrious seton hall university, i took a class called "advanced topics in sports law."  our adjunct professor was this big-time sports attorney in manhattan; the dude knew everything there is to know about the NBA from a technical standpoint (and from a fan perspective, also) but wasn't the most effective educator.

anyhow, for those of you familiar with ABA requirements of law schools, this class satisfied an "advanced writing requirement;" in other words, what would be a journal note or a publishable-quality article on a legal topic.  about five weeks before the semester began, the NBA bought the new orleans hornets, which piqued my legal curiosity.  four months later, i had a zillion endnotes and a few thousand words on the razor's edge the NBA owners are walking between collusion and "investing" with their ownership of the hornets.

this is the article i wrote.  for those of you in the legal field, you'll note that there are no hard conclusions other than that what the league is doing with NOH has a high potential for illegality.  stern's citation of "basketball reasons" when blocking the initial CP3 trade to LAL goes, i think, to my point.  if you're not into legal stuff, the piece is going to be pretty boring--even if you are, it's still pretty dry.  but i think it might be a point worth considering.  enjoy.