SBNation.com User Blog: andylarsen

The Downbeat #1041 - Stats, Draft Workout Results, and Game Operations Changes

andylarsen — Mon, 13 May 2013 06:32:14 -0000

The Jazz brought in 6 players this Saturday for an extremely early pre-draft workout. This is actually a pretty creative move, as I can't remember another team starting workouts this early, before the Chicago Draft Combine. There's not a database of team workouts through history, but I can conclusively say that this is the first workout in the NBA this season.

There's been some great coverage on the workout around the internet. First is this super convenient table by Amar, in his Downbeat on Saturday. He's obviously excited by the fact that Myck Kabongo was here.

							Pre-Draft Ranking								2012-2013 Season Averages
	Name	Pos	Ht	Age	Exp	College	Avg	CBS	DX	ESPN	HH	NBADI	NBADN	SI	G	MPG	PPG	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	FG%	3PT%	FT%	PER
1	Myck Kabongo	PG	6'1	21.5	SO	Texas	35.2	27	38	33		43	35		11	37.3	14.6	5.0	5.5	2.0	0.0	41.8%	29.6%	79.2%	20.2
2	Nate Wolters	PG	6'4		SR	South Dakota St.	50.0	79	37	55		47	32		33	38.1	22.3	5.6	5.8	1.7	0.1	48.5%	37.9%	81.3%	32.0
3	Mike Snaer	SG	6'4	23.0	SR	Florida State	55.5	67	45	62			48		33	32.7	14.8	4.5	2.5	1.0	0.5	42.5%	38.4%	81.7%	18.6
4	James Ennis	SG/SF	6'7		SR	Long Beach State	60.7		49	70			63		33	33.1	16.5	6.7	2.1	1.8	1.3	49.1%	35.7%	83.4%	25.3
5	Colton Iverson	C	6'11		SR	Colorado St	65.5		65	68		44	85		35	29.5	14.2	9.8	1.3	0.6	0.7	59.6%	N/A	59.0%	27.4
6	Jamelle Hagins	PF	6'9		SR	Delaware	78.5		67	90					33	33.1	11.6	10.7	1.1	0.9	2.4	54.6%	0.0%	74.4%	22.8

Others:

The Deseret News' Jody Genessy writes that the prospects know about the Jazz' PG conundrum.
Jarom Moore's article on KSL contains more quotes and video of the workout, along with highlights of the prospects.
Spencer Hall's article on Salt City Hoops links to the DraftExpress pages, ESPN Insider profiles, and Youtube highlights of each player, including Wolters 53 point game.
Finally, Steve Luhm filled in for Bill Oram, getting quotes from the PGs involved.

One note on the draft workout that I (and others) weren't a big fan of:

That the Jazz are giving less access to player, staff, and coaches hurts the fan experience significantly. Jazz fans are famous around the league for their passion about their team, and that includes relative minutia like NBA draft workouts. It would have been interesting to hear from the staff about how these workouts were ran, and some veiled opinions of the players, but unfortunately the PR team for the Jazz chose to not allow those standard interviews.

As Jody notes, this is part of a disturbing trend. The Jazz also decided to prevent, for the most part, any one-on-one interviews with the players last season, those have instead been replaced with wildly-less-interesting scrums in which all of the media stands around one player at a time. Media, and therefore fans, get to know the players less. Fewer and less interesting questions are asked due to the constraints. The same problem applies for last season's ban on interviews with assistant coaching staff members.

The other result: a sense of distrust of the organization from fans, who infer from these decisions that the Jazz "have something to hide." We've seen the result of this distrust on Twitter, national websites (like ESPN's Grantland), blogs (especially this one), and even some would say in the box office, where attendance numbers were down greatly this year.

As a fan, these restrictions seem silly and counterproductive. However, I fully recognize that there's likely another side to the story. The point of this beat, then, is to hopefully elicit a response. For example, I'd love to hear from Randy Rigby on this issue in his weekly interview, or from Jonathan Rinehart (Jazz PR director) on the reasons for the trend.

With the season over, and very little in Jazzland to talk about, I've been working on a new project that should bring more informative stats and analysis to you all. You see, perhaps the hardest part of any statistical study is the data acquisition step: getting, then formatting the data you wish to perform experiments on turns out to be really time-consuming and difficult. Indeed, I lamented this problem over on the APBRmetrics forums a few weeks ago. Not helping is the trend of those publishing their statistics getting hired by NBA teams, who then make the data private.

But, there is a lot of good data out there, especially unformatted data. Both ESPN and NBA.com record a play-by-play of every single game in the league and keep it on their websites for approximately forever. User kpascual, at the aforementioned APBRmetrics forums, has developed and maintained a web scraper tool to actually download these statistics and put it into a database. This allows us to track events on a play-by-play basis, rather than on a game-by-game basis like with most boxscore-based analysis. Even better, it's open source. If you're nerdy like me and want to play along, check out the files and associated README file.

So, what kind of questions can we answer with this database?

Some player interactions. Things like "Who assisted Randy Foye on threes the most?" We can't, however, answer "Who defended Lebron James most effectively?"
Most player shot questions. Things like "Who has the most effective hook shot in the league?", or "Who's the new Gilbert Arenas?"
Adjusted +/-. With the database, calculating and updating adjusted plus/minus numbers should be relatively easy. This has been a big hole in the NBA sphere of stats since Aaron Barzilai of basketballvalue.com was hired.
And much more!

So let's do an example. I chose this, essentially, because it was the easiest to calculate. The question: Who shot the most 22 foot jumpers in the league? 22 feet is right inside the arc, about the longest 2-point shot you can take. Analysts usually decry long twos as being woefully inefficient. The list:

Row Labels	22-foot shots
Damian Lillard	46
Stephen Curry	37
Gordon Hayward	34
J.R. Smith	31
Michael Beasley	30
Danilo Gallinari	30
Jerryd Bayless	30
O.J. Mayo	29
Josh Smith	27
Kobe Bryant	26
Luol Deng	26
Ryan Anderson	26
Marvin Williams	24
E'Twaun Moore	24
Jared Dudley	23
Bradley Beal	23
Kevin Durant	22
Randy Foye	21
Jamal Crawford	21

Of all players, Damian Lillard took the most of these shots, taking 46. Steph Curry was second, but then Jazz player Gordon Hayward comes in third, taking 34 of these shots during the season. Below the top 3 are some excellent shooters and some infamous chuckers, as well as Jazz players Marvin Williams and Randy Foye. The Jazz actually have more players in the top 20 than any other team. The Jazz weren't ridiculously unsuccessful on these 79 tries (going 31-79), but a step back behind the three-point line would have likely given the Jazz a few more points over the course of the season.

While it may just be an issue of sample size (22 feet is unnecessarily restrictive), this one list may give us a few lessons. That Gordon Hayward is so high on the list, ahead of people like Beasley and Bryant, indicates that he probably needs to tone down his shooting from this range in favor of higher percentage shots. Secondly, given Foye and Williams' place on the list, the Jazz offense could probably be slightly more efficient by instructing its players to take a step back. It's not a huge thing, but is a possible item of improvement.

Grant Harrison, the Jazz' game operations/promotions manager, has retired this offseason, as we discovered Saturday in this cool article by the DNews' Brad Rock. In short, he was the man who made The Bear: discovered him, hired him, and gave him the freedom to do his crazy-Bear antics. Thank you so much, Grant, for your contributions to Jazz fandom.

My question to the world: now that we'll have a new game operations manager, what would you like to see out of the timeout and in-game entertainment staff? Any great ideas for making Jazz games more fun? Anything you've seen at other sporting events or the like that you think the Jazz could do as well? Let us know in the comments, the Jazz are listening.

Report: Utah Jazz VP of Basketball Operations Kevin O'Connor Moving Into Consulting Role

andylarsen — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:52:51 -0000

We've got some conflicting reports, but David James is an excellent reporter, and KUTV news is the #1 news team in Utah, so... I tend to think it's worth considering enough to post. The tweets tell the story:

Change in Jazz leadership coming up on 2 News at 10 and KMYU Talkin Sports.
— David James (@DavidDJJames) May 1, 2013

@peter_j_novak Still consulting. Millers like and respect him, but Dennis Lindsey will responsible/ accountable going forward
— David James (@DavidDJJames) May 1, 2013

Just asked Kevin O'Connor about KUTV report that he is stepping down: "Not true and I have no comment."
— Bill Oram (@tribjazz) May 1, 2013

Update: Story has been posted on the KUTV website. Some choice quotes:

Insiders say the decision is driven by Kevin’s intensity. In August of 2009, his wife, Linda, told the Salt Lake Tribune, "When Kevin is watching an away game the dog gets a little scared sometimes. She runs upstairs and hides … For Kevin, it’s pretty much basketball all the time."

Kevin and his wife Linda sold their Utah home April 17th and sources close to them say they are preparing to relocate to the Carolina’s—where Kevin went to college and where they have been vacationing each summer.

Under this arrangement, Dennis Lindsey (pictured) becomes the head decision maker for the Utah Jazz.

Update 2: This morning, the Jazz are denying this report. Greg Miller tweeted this:

Sources very close to the Utah Jazz (me) verify that Kevin O'Connor is not stepping down as EVP of Basketball Operations.
— Greg Miller (@GregInUtah) May 1, 2013

and Jazz President Randy Rigby released a statement:

Media reports of Kevin O’Connor’s departure are inaccurate and he is not stepping down. He is fully engaged in Jazz preparations for draft season. The working relationship between Kevin and Dennis Lindsey is unchanged as both individuals provide valuable expertise, knowledge and perspective toward building a championship-caliber team. Kevin will be a member of the Jazz family for a long time. No further comment is needed.

David James and KUTV have yet to comment, so it will be interesting to see if they stick by the story or backpedal. The Jazz have a history of wanting to release news on their terms, so this could be a "bad-timing" denial:

The Jazz refute everything at first. When @slcdunk reported a few years back that games would no longer be on KJZZ, they denied at first.
— Kris (@5kl) May 1, 2013

Or it could be an inaccurate report, making David James into the new Lionel Bienvenu. That would be a bummer.

Update 3: Thanks to @Clintonite33, who relayed this on to me. The Jazz are sticking with the story that the "working relationship remains unchanged", however, David James is sticking with his side of the story as well, albeit with new verbiage. KUTV News has changed their post to indicated that Kevin O'Connor is "transitioning into a consulting role", but still lead with

Jazz’s vice president of basketball operations, Kevin O’ Connor, has been the primary voice and architect of jazz personnel moves for 14 years, but this summer he will give all those responsibilities to General Manager Dennis Lindsey.

In short, we're still in the dark as to who the decision maker is. The Jazz say KOC is the "working relationship is unchanged", but KUTV News says that he will no longer be the "primary voice and architect" with a timeframe of "this summer". I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Update 4: Okay! 1280 The Zone, the radio station owned by the Utah Jazz, had a chance to interview David James on the radio this afternoon, which played about 4 PM and was just uploaded to the 1280 site. It's about a 15 minute interview, and is extremely informative. Here's the link.

In particular, David James stands by 100% of his story, even after the Jazz denial.

He does, however, object to the use of the phrase "stepping down", which is the phrase I used to title this post. However, I did not invent this verbiage, "stepping down" was used as the title of the original KUTV article breaking the news. The term was also used in the original David James report on television. But, given that this term is apparently causing problems, I've changed the title of this post to reflect the fact that we're starting to get a better idea of what's going on.

*As a side note, though, I don't think "stepping down" is incredibly different than "decided to transition into a consulting role and move away". That being said, to be fair to the parties involved, I have changed the title to better reflect the situation.

NBA Free Agent Buy or Sell - Clark and Andy Show on SLCDunk Radio

andylarsen — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:40:58 -0000

The offseason is upon the Utah Jazz, and some tough decisions need to be made regarding the free agent market. Should the Jazz make a run at Jose Calderon? Jeff Teague? Nate Robinson? Carl Landry? Dwight Howard? Josh Smith? Should Kyle Korver make a comeback as the member of the Jazz? Also, how much should the Jazz pay for each of these players? Find out on this edition of the Clark and Andy Show!

We also ask for your feedback in the podcasts, we'd love to hear how we can make these shows better or more interesting. Feel free to tweet Clark or I, or leave your thoughts in the comments.

Listen to us using the nifty widget below, or as always, listen to us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The mp3 link is also below the widget, if you need to listen using that.

NBA Free Agent Buy or Sell - Clark and Andy Show

Clark and Andy Show Post-season Recap

andylarsen — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:59:52 -0000

Andy is sad after the events of this week, in which the Jazz did not make the playoffs. Clark acts as therapist, trying to talk through the Jazz's season. What have we learned about the team, and do we finally have enough of a sample size on the core? Do we keep Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, and if not... who is the third big? Has this season a total failure, and where should expectations be next year? Do we need an intangible leader on this team? All that and more on this week's Clark and Andy Show!

Listen to us using the nifty widget below, or as always, listen to us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The mp3 link is also below the widget, if you need to listen using that.

Clark and Andy Show Postseason Recap

Comparing the Jazz and Nuggets - Clark and Andy Show on SLCDunk Radio

andylarsen — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 07:03:52 -0000

In this edition, Clark and Andy invite Jon Midget (perhaps better known as Yucca) to the program to talk about his article comparing the fates of the Utah Jazz and the Denver Nuggets since trading their franchise players over two seasons ago. Why has Denver flourished without their superstar, while the Jazz have struggled? Have the Jazz taken the wrong approach, and what steps need to be taken to get the Jazz to Denver's level? Do Kevin O'Connor and Dennis Lindsey deserve credit or blame for the Jazz's overall performance? All those questions, and more, are discussed on this week's podcast.

Listen to us using the nifty widget below, or as always, listen to us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The mp3 link is also below the widget, if you need to listen using that.

Comparing the Jazz and the Nuggets - Clark and Andy Show on SLCDunk Radio

Utah Jazz WIN 97-90 over Golden State Warriors

andylarsen — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 02:34:00 -0000

Via Salt Lake Tribune Jazz reporter Bill Oram, Earl Watson said this about tonight's game:

Earl Watson told me before the game that this was "the big one" when looking at Jazz's remaining schedule. Hard to argue.
— Bill Oram (@tribjazz) April 8, 2013

The Jazz answered the call. In the biggest game of the season, Jazz players up and down the roster stepped up. Responding to a 9 point deficit in the second quarter, recalling a road script Jazz fans have seen numerous time, the Jazz went on a 27-7(!!) run to take the lead going into halftime. Throughout the game, the Warriors faught back, using their incredible array of offensive talent, but the Jazz answered with large buckets every time, preventing the Warriors from ever again taking the lead in the second half.

It was completely unexpected from a team that hasn't won a road game against a team that was above .500 at the time the game was played all season.

Mo Williams somehow outplayed Steph Curry, who had 17 by the middle of the second quarter before cooling off in the second half of the game. Mo finished with 25 points on 8-17 shooting, with 4 rebounds and 5 assists. Curry also garnered 4 rebounds and 5 assists, but finished with 22 points, going 8-19 in a ridiculous 45 minutes, a full quarter more than Mo Williams. Mo also hit the dagger 3, extending the Jazz lead to 6 with just seconds left in the game.

Derrick Favors had a very impactful performance in every facet of the game, scoring 12 points on 5-9 shooting, gathering 16 rebounds (6 of them offensive), and getting three blocks, including 1 on the Warriors final meaningful possession to get the ball back to the Jazz. Props to Jazz coach Ty Corbin for getting Favors back in on D on that play.

Coach Corbin went to DeMarre Carroll instead of Marvin Williams in the second half, and was rewarded by some game-changing hustle plays, including one where he stooped a Warrior fast break before dishing an interior pass to Jefferson for a three point play. While he scored no points, Carroll was huge.

The whole team continued their impressive ball-sharing by getting 29 assists in the game. Again, the Jazz showed a willingness to make the extra pass, as evidenced by the high assist totals by Millsap (4 assists), Jefferson (5 assists), and (Gordon Hayward (6 assists).

The Jazz only shot 7 free throws tonight, making 6 of them. This is the 3rd lowest total ever for the Jazz in Basketball Reference's database. Given this low number of free throws, it's completely remarkable that the Jazz got to 97 points.

As a result of the today's win, as well as the Lakers' loss against the Clippers, the Jazz now control their own destiny to make the playoffs. Any combination of 4 Jazz wins or Lakers losses would guarantee a Jazz playoff berth, their 26th in the last 30 years. We're such lucky fans.

JAZZ WIN!!

Shan Foster, the most heartbreaking Jazz "player", makes more music.

andylarsen — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 06:37:46 -0000

I have a Google Alert set up for Shan Foster. You would too, if your favorite team traded for a player who will never make the NBA, just because they wanted to make you happy (note: this was probably not the Jazz's rationale). It tells me on a weekly basis if there is any Shan Foster news. Most weeks, this email never arrives, because there is no Shan Foster news. This is because Shan Foster is pretty terrible (evidence: he shoots under 40% in the D-League).

This week though, there was Shan Foster news, and it came in the form of a song. This was an exciting piece of news for me, as the reason I loved Shan Foster in the first place was his brilliant turn as a singer-songwriter in his "NBA Draft Song" (more detail here). This work, however, comes in the form of a collaboration between himself and former Vanderbilt teammate Mario Moore. Warning: it is not as good. More detailed warning: it is probably NSFW, for reasons of lyrics.

So, that exists. In order to get back to the reasons why we loved Shan Foster in the first place, and why we really, really hope he discovers how to be good at basketball again, here's the NBA Draft song. If you haven't heard this before, I highly recommend it. Remember that he is a Jazz player, and to love him as much he loves basketball.

And then cry (like Homestar), once you realize he's never achieved his dream. Life is so unfair.

The Downbeat #1005: Scheduling, Playoff Odds, and Important Games Coming Up

andylarsen — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 06:13:52 -0000

Since the last Downbeat, the Jazz won over the Nets by a score of 116-107, propelled by Randy Foye's fairly ridiculous performance: 26 points on 8-9 three point shooting. The Jazz won both ends of a back-to-back in an important time of the season.

More impressive to me, though, was the performance of the entire starting lineup. Utah's starting backcourt, which has been fairly criticized this season put up 46 points, as Mo Williams accrued 20 points as well. Al Jefferson showed signs of his revitalization, scoring 20 as well. Those who did not score, assisted. Hayward's 42% three point stroke was off for the night, leaving him only 3-12 with 8 points, and Millsap finished just 2-10. But Hayward got 6 assists, and Millsap finished with 9.

The ball movement on offense is improving, and assists from non-PGs is a good sign that things are flowing more on offense. A 58% shooting night from 3 will lead to some luck-infused high scoring totals (Foye can't go 8-9 every night), but the assists show an operational offense. The Jazz have gone 18-6 in games with 25 or more assists, and have scored an average of 107 points in those games. Move the ball around, and good things happen.

One aspect of the back-to-back that intrigued me was how Ty's played the Kanter injury. Instead of going to Evans, or playing Marvin Williams at PF, he's simply gone to a strictly three-man rotation of Jefferson, Millsap, and Favors. Check out the Popcorn Machine Game Flows for both games for an idea of how Ty's structured his rotation to achieve this (for all but 2:36).

This is the right move, and you have to give some credit to Ty, showing an ability to manage a rotation to make this happen. It means sometimes having to play Favors 15 minutes in a row, or Millsap 16, or starting Favors in the 2nd half, but it puts the best players on the floor more often. On a related note, Ty is once again playing Hayward nearly 40 MPG as he approaches the stretch run, something he did last season as well. Again, given Hayward's talents, this is the right move.

So where do the 4 consecutive victories put the Jazz in the West? In 8th, tied with the evil Lakers, who won their game this weekend against Sacramento on a series of terrible calls (Evans hacked on a fast break no call, Kobe jumpshot miss bailed out by late foul call, Cousins three shooting foul not called... though I might be biased). Dallas still lingers, just out a game and a half. Utah and Los Angeles have just 8 games to play, while Dallas has 9. What are the chances to make the playoffs?

Hollinger's playoff odds on ESPN once again favor the Jazz, indicating that they have a 48.5% chance of making the playoffs, while the Lakers have a 45.7% chance, and Dallas has a 7.6% chance.

Let's see how the schedules come out between the two likely teams. The Lakers have this schedule remaining:

Tue, Apr 2	vs Dallas
Fri, Apr 5	vs Memphis
Sun, Apr 7	@ Los Angeles
Tue, Apr 9	vs New Orleans
Wed, Apr 10	@ Portland
Fri, Apr 12	vs Golden State
Sun, Apr 14	vs San Antonio
Wed, Apr 17	vs Houston

and Utah's schedule looks like this:

Mon, Apr 1	vs Portland
Wed, Apr 3	vs Denver
Fri, Apr 5	vs New Orleans
Sun, Apr 7	@ Golden State
Tue, Apr 9	vs Oklahoma City
Fri, Apr 12	vs Minnesota
Mon, Apr 15	@ Minnesota
Wed, Apr 17	@ Memphis

The Lakers have 6 games remaining at home, 7 if you count their "away game" against LAC, but have some really difficult teams coming into their building. On the other hand, the Jazz have just 5 home games, but have Minnesota twice, Portland, and New Orleans to compete with. In sum, the Lakers opponents have won an average of 56% of their games, but the Jazz's opponents have won 53%. The Lakers also have to face a back-to-back, whereas the Jazz do not. That may be just enough to cancel out the 1 game home deficit.

As a side note, it's kind of awesome that we're in a dogfight for the 8th seed in the playoffs with the vaunted Lakers. Let's again read the predictions for the Lakers season.

The first game of the rest of the season is tonight, again vs. Portland, who will again not have LaMarcus Aldridge. Having a game against a recent opponent allows you, ideally, to focus on what worked and what did not while making the game plan. So what should the Jazz focus on in tonight's game?

What worked: The Jazz completed 11 cut plays around the basket, going 10-11 on said plays. They also garnered 13 offensive rebounds, leading to a lot of second chance points. On defense, the Jazz guarded the pick and roll significantly better than usual, only allowing the Blazers to go for 0.82 PPP on PnRs, while forcing a turnover 28% of the time.

What didn't work: The spot-up game was off for the Jazz on Friday, going only 4-19 and 1-10 from 3 off spot-up shots. That almost has to improve in tonight's game, if only by luck. The Jazz also were really careless in transition: in 12 transition opportunities, the team only ended up with 10 points, going 4-10 with 2 turnovers. Allowing Lillard 14 free throw attempts and Hickson to go 8-11 is probably not a recipe for success either.

Given the home atmosphere, it's probably reasonable to expect an improvement in transition and from beyond the 3 point line. Should the offense keep the ball moving, a Jazz win via a really productive offense should be the result. We can only hope. And cheer exceedingly loudly.

Poll Time: How do the Jazz do in their remaining 8 games?

Poll

How will the Jazz do in their remaining 8 games?

8-0

9 votes

7-1

1 votes

6-2

39 votes

5-3

115 votes

4-4

75 votes

3-5

10 votes

2-6

1 votes

1-7

1 votes

0-8

4 votes

255 votes | Poll has closed

How Long Should We Expect Enes Kanter Out?

andylarsen — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 05:58:37 -0000

Enes Kanter's dislocated shoulder is a gigantic bummer, as the 20-year-old big man was having an excellent second season after a tepid rookie year. While his turnovers have hurt, his remarkable FG% has meant he's been a relatively efficient offensive threat, and he provides better defense than starters Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson. Enes will be missed. But for how long? Let's take a look at other recent players with dislocated shoulders in the NBA and see how long they took to recover.

Channing Frye, March 2011

After being slated to miss 2-3 weeks with his dislocated shoulder, Frye came back in just 14 days, scoring 17 points in 31 minutes in his return.

Rudy Gay, February 2011

Gay "partially dislocated" his shoulder on February 15th, 2011 and rehabbed for about a month before a second look determined he would have to have surgery and miss 3-6 months. He missed the rest of the season and the Grizzlies 1st round upset over the #1 seeded Spurs.

Avery Bradley, May 2012

Avery Bradley dislocated his left shoulder in game 3 of the Celtics' playoff series against the Hawks, saying he normally pops his shoulder back in place "like a Lego", but couldn't do it on this instance. He did come back for the rest of that series, and then played well until game 2 of the series against the 76ers. There, he took another shot to the shoulder, but came back to finish the game. Then, he played game 3 and 4, before being ruled out for game 5 due to the injury. Finally, the Celtics had Bradley undergo surgery after Game 6. He did not return until 7 months later, January 3rd.

Chuck Hayes, January 2012

Chuck Hayes dislocated his shoulder on January 5th, 2012. After the game, he told Kings beat writer James Ham he would be out 2-3 weeks. The next day, the Kings announced Hayes would be out 3-4 weeks. He returned in a game on January 29th against the Jazz, when his shoulder momentarily "popped out" again during the game, but the team was able to get the shoulder back in place. He continued to play in subsequent games.

Therefore, with just 20 days remaining in the regular season, odds look long for Kanter to return to play. Depending on the severity of the injury, he may be able to come back for a playoff series, though I would take a deliberately cautious approach if I made the decision: it probably doesn't make sense to rush him back for an ultimately noncompetitive playoff series.

How does this injury affect the Jazz? The biggest change is probably defensively: you can make a statistical case that Kanter is Utah's best defender. He leads the team by allowing 8 points per 100 possessions less when he's on the floor compared to when he's off of it (though this may just be the Al Jefferson effect) , and his 12.8 opposing PER is impressive as well. If it turns out to be Favors who takes most of Kanter's 15 MPG, the team may not be significantly hurt defensively, but more time for Jefferson and Millsap is likely to hurt when the other team has the ball.

More interesting, and less conclusive, is what happens if Jeremy Evans or a dark horse candidate like DeMarre Carroll or Marvin Williams slides over to take up some of the minutes given by Kanter's vacancy. Jeremy Evans is tricky: he only has played about 200 minutes this season, but his advanced numbers are once again fantastic. We may be approaching significant sample sizes for Evans' career, making it more and more likely that he's an incredibly unique and fairly effective player, especially if one believes in the Millsap Doctrine.

We have limited amounts of data on Marvin Williams as a PF, as he played about 35% of his minutes there for the Atlanta Hawks last season. The numbers confirm what my eyes have seen in his shorter times at PF with the Jazz (just 2% of his minutes): he's more effective offensively closer to the basket, but struggles against larger post players defensively. Last season with the Hawks, Marvin garnered a 18.6 PER offensively at PF, while allowing a worse 20.0 PER. The benefit of this approach may be opening up the backup SF slot for DeMarre Carroll, who has been fantastic this season, and quite frankly does not deserve to sit on the bench. While Williams may hurt you at PF, having Carroll at SF may make this configuration a net positive for the Jazz.

With Kanter only playing 15 MPG before the injury, and with just 10 games left to play, it's pretty doubtful that this injury has much of an impact on the Jazz' win-loss record this season. Kanter's a tremendous talent, but Millsap, Jefferson, and Favors have been the big man stars for this season anyway. The injury also may provide Evans with a legitimate chance to improve his reputation in the eyes of the coaching staff, and show that his game is not just a garbage time fluke. Should that not occur, expect a Carroll-Williams 3-4 tandem to be a part of the Jazz' bench unit, a talented enough combination that shouldn't lead to too much of a dropoff from Kanter's prodigious talents.

Playing GM: What would we pay the free agents? - Clark and Andy Show

andylarsen — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 06:41:34 -0000

This time, we talk about the lessons of this season: if the Jazz miss the playoffs, what has the team learned that they can use going forward? Then, using that info, we making estimations of each of Utah's free agent's market worth. What would Clark and Andy pay to retain Paul Millsap, Al Jefferson, and the rest of Utah's free agents? Is there anyone who we wouldn't sign at any price?

This version goes shorter, as Clark and Andy atone for last episode's length by making a <30 minute podcast.

Listen to us using the nifty widget below, or as always, listen to us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The mp3 link is also below the widget, if you need to listen using that.

Playing GM: What Have We Learned, and How Much Would We Pay? - Clark and Andy Show on SLCDunk Radio

Al Jefferson or Ty Corbin: Who Should Stay? - The Clark and Andy Show on SLCDunk Radio

andylarsen — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 05:16:01 -0000

Clark and Andy look back to Zach Lowe's article on the Jazz and discuss: who's responsible for the Jazz' woes: is it Ty Corbin, Al Jefferson, or others on the team? What should the roster look like next year, and should we expect the Jazz to be good, or dreadful? Oh, and this year: what are the Jazz' chances of making the playoffs, and does this team deserve to make it to the postseason? Then, completely inexplicably, Clark tries the Gallon Challenge throughout the course of the episode: can he drink an entire gallon of milk in an hour? Are his maneuvers doing so legal? All that, and more on this week's podcast!

(Yes, for those who watch every post at SLCDunk, this is the same audio as yesterday's post game video. Well, almost. We edited out the part where Clark is gone and replaced it with 30 seconds of Jeopardy music. But other than that, it's the same. Click on the play button below so that our listener stats go up anyway? Thanks!)

Listen to us using the nifty widget below, or as always, listen to us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The mp3 link is also below the widget, if you need to listen using that.

Al Jefferson or Ty Corbin: Who Should Stay? - Clark and Andy Show on SLCDunk Radio

Utah Jazz at Houston Rockets Post Game Video

andylarsen — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 04:37:45 -0000

Will Clark succeed at his mission? Does Utah's comeback against Houston mean anything? Is Zach Lowe the best sportswriter, period, right now? Is it Al Jefferson or Ty Corbin's fault? Should Ty Corbin be coach next year? What do we not know about this team that would make us understand the decisions? Can Andy run a show by himself when Clark's computer fails? Is San Antonio a must win? Is the Jazz defensive system good? Who leads the Jazz all time in FG%? Is the big lineup good? Is going to the bathroom cheating during a Gallon Challenge? Will the Jazz make the playoffs?

All of those questions will be answered in tonight's post game video! It's only... really long. You can watch it below.

Utah Jazz vs. Houston Rockets 3/20/13 Postgame Video (via Andy Larsen)

In defense of Ty: What if it's all Al's fault?

andylarsen — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 06:20:35 -0000

In the article that's already become the defining piece of writing for the 2012-2013 season, Zach Lowe took a deep look at the present and future issues regarding the Jazz in a way that only the NBA's best writer could. In particular, the Jazz' defensive issues are discussed: why is it the Jazz are such a bad defensive team? In the end, Lowe blames both Al Jefferson and Ty Corbin. About Jefferson, he writes:

We have almost a decade of evidence now that Jefferson's failings on defense outweigh his very real value on offense. His teams have generally been worse with him on the floor than with him on the bench, and that's been true on the defensive end in almost every season in which he's played meaningful minutes, per NBA.com and 82games.com.

And about Corbin, he writes:

There's also the fact that Utah's defense plays with a weird lack of discipline and unclear, unproductive rules. That's partly on Corbin. ....the Jazz's general lack of coherence is alarming and raises questions about Corbin's future after next season, when his contract is up.

But there's another view, one that David Locke interestingly brought up in his Tip Off podcast on Wednesday. Locke asserted that it's unfair to blame the Jazz defensive system (designed by Corbin), but show nearly exclusively examples of Jefferson's failings. That's probably true.

Let's figure it out. If we were to run a scientific experiment in a lab in order to tease out what was causing the Jazz' defensive struggles this season between Al Jefferson and Ty Corbin's system, we'd want to set up 3 different test groups:

the Jazz with Corbin and Jefferson,
the Jazz with Jefferson and no Corbin,
and the Jazz with Corbin and no Jefferson.

Then, we'd see which of the latter two groups displayed the most improvement from the first. Amazingly, we've actually had a chance to test out all three groups with the Utah Jazz! Let's actually do this study, then, and take a look at our results.

The Jazz with Corbin and Jefferson

This setup has gotten the majority of the minutes of the last 2 years, and there's a lot of evidence saying the Jazz are a bad defensive team. In 2011-12, the Jazz ranked 19th in the league by defensive rating, and this season, they've gotten even worse, to be ranked 22nd. In 2011-12, the Jazz gave up a 104.4 defensive rating when Al Jefferson was in the game, and again, this season is worse: the Jazz give up a 108.3 defensive rating with Jefferson on the floor.

That's really bad. A 108.3 defensive rating would put the Jazz as the 3rd worst defensive team in the NBA this year, only ahead of the Bobcats and Kings. So, how do we improve? Let's look at the other groups.

The Jazz with Jefferson and no Corbin

The Al Jefferson and Ty Corbin era didn't start simultaneously. There were a few months in which Jerry Sloan coached a team with Al Jefferson, though he wasn't the first option like he is on the current Jazz. Still, on defense, Jefferson played about the same number of minutes as he does now.

Using NBA.com's stat tool, I can actually apply the splits to look at only the portion of the 2010-2011 season Jerry Sloan coached. In those 54 games before the fateful day of Sloan's resignation, when Al Jefferson was on the floor, the defensive rating for the Jazz was 107.9. Again, that's a really high number, and even in Jerry Sloan's defensive system, the Jazz really struggled with Al: that 107.9 defensive rating would be the 5th worst of any team in that 2010-11 season. In short, it doesn't look like there's a significant difference in results defensively between the two coaches when Al Jefferson is on the floor.

The Jazz with Corbin and no Jefferson

This test group, however, shows a different story. The Jazz actually have quite a good defense in the last two seasons when Al Jefferson sits. In the 2011-12 season with Jefferson on the bench, the Jazz have a 102.2 defensive rating. In this 2012-13 season, the Jazz have become even better without Jefferson on the floor, giving up just 98.0 points per 100 possessions. In a imaginary team without Al, the Jazz would actually rank as the 3rd best defensive team in the league, behind only Memphis and Indiana!

That's actually incredibly impressive, especially given Zach Lowe's point that "young players are notoriously slow to grasp the rules of complex NBA defense". Maybe there's nothing wrong with Ty's mix-and-match defensive system at all, it's just the influence of Big Al completely destroying any defensive scheme he happens to be in.

Now, before we irresponsibly use this as our conclusion, there are some important objections to this that will undoubtedly be brought up. Let's talk about these briefly:

1. The Jazz tend to have other bad defensive players on the floor at the same time as Al.

This is probably true, in particular, Devin Harris and Mo Williams have shown themselves to be pretty bad defensively, and Randy Foye and CJ Miles aren't good either. Paul Millsap, Jefferson's most consistent frontcourt partner, also isn't a good defender, though I tend to rate him as about average overall.

However, going back through the rest of his career, we see a similar trend: as Lowe explained above, Jefferson has made his teams worse defensively while he was on the floor nearly every season. Indeed, that first year of Jefferson's tenure with the Jazz should have actually been a pretty good defensive lineup: Williams/Bell/Kirilenko/Millsap/Jefferson featured two players known for their defensive stopper abilities, and Williams and Millsap were probably about average. Nevertheless, lineups with Jefferson still failed.

2. What's up with the defensive system, then? Why did Lowe describe it as incoherent?

It may just be that Corbin's struggling to find any defensive system in which we can hide Al Jefferson, unfortunately, one may not exist. It may also be an attempted adjustment against different teams: for example, the Jazz hedged the Rockets' pick and roll much harder in their first matchup of the season than they normally would, that would make sense given the Rocket's PnR threats. Unfortunately, the same did not apply in the 45 point blowout later in the season. I'm not sure here.

But given that the system apparently works really well (remember, 3rd best in the NBA) when Al is out, the evidence seems to point to a functioning defense with broken pieces. I'm willing to give the system the benefit of the doubt.

3. Well, Corbin controls the minutes, so why is he playing Jefferson so much? Isn't this Corbin's fault, ultimately?

Jefferson legitimately helps the team score. When Al is on the floor, the Jazz get about 1.5 more points per 100 possessions this season, and last year, the difference was gigantic: the Jazz were 10.7 points better per 100 possessions. You understand why Corbin played Al so much, especially when he was more heavily weighing the 2011-12 data.

I do think this is overstated. Indeed, without Al Jefferson, the Jazz have managed a 102.2 offensive rating this season, which would land them in the 16th slot in the NBA. That would be an impressive performance for a team with no offensive stars, outranking teams with bigger player names like Memphis, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, and Minnesota. It might also be legitimate evidence that the Jazz' system is still able to make decent performers out of average-to-poor offensive talent. The famous 2003-04 Carlos Arroyo year with Jerry Sloan at the helm ended up ranked 19th in the league in offensive rating, this team would likely be better. A team with a 16th ranked offense and a 3rd ranked defense would probably perform fairly well overall, to be maybe about the 10th best team in the NBA.

My hypothesis on this is twofold. First of all, the numbers last season would have recommended to play Al large numbers because his offense was so excellently efficient, Corbin surely took his experience last season into account when deciding to play Al big minutes at the beginning of the season. He hasn't really adjusted, though, to be fair to the critics, as Al's numbers have slid.

Secondly, though, is that Corbin may have a standard offense-over-defense bias. Basketball watchers of all professions have been doing this for years: they take into account a player's offensive contribution significantly more than their defensive impact. You would hope coaches, of all people, wouldn't be susceptible to this, but they clearly are: explain Kobe Bryant's continued appearances in the All-NBA defensive team. It's probably not a conscious bias, but it wouldn't be terribly surprising given the minute distribution of the Jazz.

To rectify this, there are probably a couple of options: one would be lineup and minute advice sent from the front office, likely informed by statistics. While playing time should be a coach's ultimate decision, presenting Corbin with the evidence like the above may lead to better decision making, when presented in the right way (I would not, for example, print out this post and show it to Ty). The second conceivable option would be better communication within the coaching staff itself: Sidney Lowe, for example, seems to be pretty lineup savvy during his last-minute lineup substitutions. Perhaps more input from Lowe and others could provide a minute distribution that works more effectively.

Still, though, I think the evidence is pretty clear here: the defense is not Ty's fault, it's actually mostly Al Jefferson's. Given this, it probably makes sense to give Corbin at least a season without Big Al to discover his defensive system without being hamstrung by such a poor defensive player. Firing him until them would simply be rash, and possibly wasteful of Corbin's potential to be a good defensive coach, a big asset in today's NBA.

TIL: The Jazz are significantly worse than the Thunder. (Thunder 110 - Jazz 87)

andylarsen — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 01:54:13 -0000

This was an important game for the Jazz. Sure, given Oklahoma's City's only allowed 4 losses at home, it would be foolish to expect to win, but it was a good opportunity for the Jazz to perhaps fight for a win to make up a game on the hated Lakers as the end of the season approaches.

Instead, the Jazz struggled severely, especially in a 21-9 2nd quarter in which the Jazz didn't score in the final 7:49. For emphasis, there was a long stretch of this game in which the Jazz simply scored no points at all. Indeed, the Jazz finished 3-24 (12.5%) in the 2nd quarter, not exactly stellar execution. Indeed, the Jazz simply seemed out of their offensive rhythm all night, being able to execute neither the post-up focused primary offense, or the secondary flex offense.

While the Thunder should be credited for good defense, Utah simply seemed off their game nearly all night: Hayward airballed two shots (though finished with 20 points), Al Jefferson was only 4/13, Millsap finished 1-5 (albeit went 5-8 from the free throw line), Mo Williams shot 2-7 and had 4 turnovers. The Thunder also deserve some credit for fighting through the early offensive struggles by Kevin Durant, who had 6 TOs by the end of the half.

Once the game got out of hand, it got chippy. DeMarre Carroll had a hard foul on Kevin Durant on a fast break, provoking a response, and a technical, from Russell Westbrook. Later, Hasheem Thabeet had a flagrant against Hayward, leading to some pushing and technicals for Marvin Williams, Enes Kanter, and Thabeet.

A 4th quarter lineup of Watson/Hayward/Marvin/Favors/Kanter brought a 32 point Jazz deficit back down to just 16 at one point, but the Jazz came back no further. The +/- numbers from this game as a result are interesting: only Earl Watson finished with a positive +4, while the rest of the team was all negative: Al Jefferson finished with a -24, Mo Williams with a -18, Burks with a -16, and Millsap finished with a respectable -8. Favors finished with a -7, and Kanter a -3.

The larger picture is pretty unclear: while the Jazz have a significantly harder schedule than the Lakers for the rest of the year, Kobe Bryant finished injured in LAL's loss to Atlanta tonight and is out indefinitely. That injury may provide an opening to the Jazz to make the playoffs for the second straight year.

How much should we read into this loss? Is it indicative that the Jazz are truly bad, or simply the logical result of playing one of the best teams in the league on the road? Luckily, comment sections exist for responses to these very sort of questions.

Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Review - Clark and Andy Show

andylarsen — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 08:03:51 -0000

On this week's show, Clark plays interviewer to Andy, who spent last week at the 2013 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. What did he learn about the NBA, player development, offensive rebounding, and more (all from some of the NBA's top minds: R.C. Buford, Kevin Pritchard, Stan Van Gundy, and others). Then, how does this apply to the Jazz? Can the Jazz benefit from some of the wisdom gained at SSAC? All this and more in this week's podcast!

Listen to us using the nifty widget below, or as always, listen to us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The mp3 link is also below the widget, if you need to listen using that.

Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Review - Clark and Andy Show

Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Day 2 Bullets

andylarsen — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 06:32:06 -0000

While there was a ton to be learned in Day 1 of the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, it actually built to Day 2, the day in which the Basketball Analytics, Ownership, and Sports Gambling panels were presented. Like Day 1, a lot of interesting research was presented as well. Here are the bullet points of what I learned in Day 2.

Adam "Sexy" Silver

Adam Silver, the NBA's current deputy commissioner and soon to be actual commissioner, appeared on the first panel of the day regarding ownership in sports. What impressed me most about Silver was the extent to which he dominated the conversation: he acted like a man fit to be commissioner, albeit probably not in the same way as David Stern. It was a big change from the sheepish grins he gives as he announces round 2 of the NBA draft when the crowd chants his nickname.
That being said, there wasn't anything new or revealing about what Silver said, he was very much speaking from a ownership point of view. He called the last CBA negotiations "a draw", when most observers called it a win for the owners, and insisted on the need for year-to-year profitability for NBA franchises, even as franchise values skyrocket.
Silver explained the NBA's current revenue sharing system as a "federalist" system, in which teams have an incentive to make huge money, but still put a percentage of those revenues into a league pool to help out the smaller market teams.

Measuring Team Chemistry through Heart Rate Synchronization

This presentation, at first glance, is really out there: you're telling me that we can measure team chemistry (previously an intangible) through how well players' heart rates sync up? But by the end of the talk, it sounded less crazy.
Basically, people who are in close proximity to each other for a long time end up displaying synced heart rates; when my friend's heart beats, mine probably will at the same time. Scientists aren't sure why this happens, but it's a real phenomenon. In the lab, people with synced heart rates turn out to perform better at all sorts of teamwork-oriented tasks.
The study's authors, Daniel McCaffrey and Kevin Bickart, placed heart rate monitors on a Division 1 women's soccer team, and a Division 1 men's basketball team. They then created network graphs of the team's collective heart rate; basically, visual representations of how synced any two players' heart rates were.
Then, they showed us video of two in-game situations. I'll use the basketball one: two players working together in a give and go. Those players, as the give and go unfolded, had their heart rates become more and more in sync, even as they did completely different tasks (one player cutting, one player passing from the post).
Of course, is an anecdotal instance of this happening statistical evidence that this happens all of the time? No. But it's at least interesting to imagine what we previously considered unmeasurable as surprisingly so. More on this topic can be found at two posts on Hardwood Paroxysm: here and here.

Luck

The next presentation was by Michael Mauboussin, author of the book "The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing". By now, this shouldn't surprise anyone, but there's a lot of luck involved in sports. Whether or not a ball hits the rim and goes in, time runs out a split-second before leaving a player's hand, and injuries are all example of the impact of luck.
However, humans have a tendency to ignore the role of luck in their endeavors, instead looking back and fitting an explanation that fits the outcome. Very often, we have outcome bias in sports: we celebrate Al Jefferson when he makes a game-winning three, but criticize him when he misses. Instead, we need to look more at the process, and whether or not the right actions were taken to maximize the chance of success.
One final note: according to Mauboussin's studies, basketball is actually the least luck dependent of the big 5 team sports. Football has a short season and 1-game elimination playoffs, baseball has relatively low scores and a huge luck factor with hitting, and hockey and soccer both have extremely low scores, in which one score often makes the difference.

Sports Betting

This was easily the most entertaining panel of the conference, largely due to the conflict between Haralabos Voulgaris, everyone's favorite NBA sports bettor, and Matthew Holt, Director of Sports data for Cantor Gaming.
Voulgaris was upset at Holt for a comment he made in last year's conference, in which he asserted that any player could place a $100,000 to $1 Million bet with his company. Unfortunately, they've limited Voulgaris to $5,000 since, and there was a ton of conflict. Some quotes:

Voulgaris on inefficiencies: "Back when I started, bookmakers were even more clueless than they are now." #SSAC13
— Gill Alexander (@beatingthebook) March 2, 2013

Voulgaris: "In reality, lines are created offshore. Bettors (then) are making the line. Bookmakers (here) aren't." #SSAC13
— Gill Alexander (@beatingthebook) March 2, 2013

Voulgaris: "In reality, bookmaking is pretty easy. Some of the dumbest people I know are bookmakers. Not you, Matthew." #SSAC13
— Gill Alexander (@beatingthebook) March 2, 2013

Voulgaris: "How much will you take, Matthew? Let's go to Vegas right now." Holt: " I understand you're not having a great NBA season."
— Gill Alexander (@beatingthebook) March 2, 2013

Voulgaris: "Bookmaking is a parasitic business. The least they can do is take a minimum of $5000 from every person." #SSAC13
— Gill Alexander (@beatingthebook) March 2, 2013

Voulgaris on challenging Holt on validity of statements last year on Cantor taking all bets: "This is the only reason I came here." #SSAC13
— Gill Alexander (@beatingthebook) March 2, 2013

Voulgaris: "I was so excited when I heard that Cantor was gonna take $100,000 on NBA bets only to find out they wouldn't take $5000" #SSAC13
— Gill Alexander (@beatingthebook) March 2, 2013

Millman to Voulgaris: "If it's so hard to get $$ down, why do it?" Voulgaris: "What else am I gonna do. Be a professional tweeter?" #SSAC13
— Gill Alexander (@beatingthebook) March 2, 2013

Voulgaris to Holt: "I think when u first started out, u had this idea u were going to take on sharps. Then u realized how difficult that is"
— Gill Alexander (@beatingthebook) March 2, 2013

Holt: "I don't want to tell people how to build a model." Voulgaris: " You dont know how to build a model."
— Gill Alexander (@beatingthebook) March 2, 2013
In short, the panel was awesome. That being said, Voulgaris specifically declined to reveal any inefficiencies he had found, so that he could continue to "put food on my table".

Stan Van Gundy

The Basketball Analytics panel had some big names: Kevin Pritchard (GM of the Pacers), Zach Lowe (Grantland), Mike Zarren (assistant GM of the Celtics), and R.C. Buford (GM of the Spurs). However, no one was more talkative or interesting than Stan Van Gundy, the former Magic and Heat head coach.
Van Gundy was generally in favor of analytics, but had plenty of examples in which the use of analytics could actually hurt a team. For example, he says he was once presented with a 5-man lineup that had done extremely well together, but in only 39 minutes. While he didn't actually use the word sample size, he was unwilling to trust data with a lineup that had been together for only that long. The rest of the panel complimented him on his statistical intuition.
Van Gundy also took on the idea of 2 for 1s: while they certainly make sense analytically, Van Gundy decried that they chipped away at a system. In short, if you say "you shouldn't force up bad shots... unless there is between 30 and 35 seconds left on the clock", you start to introduce uncertainty into the system. Now, Van Gundy says, a player sees that exception, and tries to widen it by taking bad shots afterwards.
Most importantly for the Jazz, Van Gundy took exception to the idea that young guys should get more playing time to better their development. If a player is just given playing time, Van Gundy argued, there's no teaching mechanism in place, and no incentive for a player to play smart basketball. He used the example of the Washington Wizards, and in particular, Andray Blatche and Javale McGee: two players who were immediately given playing time, but as a result, haven't bettered themselves to be intelligent players. Without the ability to change playing time, the players don't do as their coach instructs.
On the other hand, when a coach can use playing time to his advantage, a system can be run as designed. Van Gundy used the example of J.J. Redick, who started out as a poor defensive matchup player, owing to his size and speed. However, he implemented the defensive system so well (Van Gundy asserted that Redick never missed a rotation) that the team's defensive rating was excellent. Zarren and others agreed that defensive stats are impossible to measure well without a knowledge of the system that the individual team is using.
This obviously has a whole load of implications for the player development for the young guys on the Jazz, I'll put up a more thorough post on my thoughts on this subject later in the week.

That panel concluded the 2013 SSAC. The conference organizers will have video of the other panels and presentations I was unable to attend put up on their website soon, when that comes, I'll cherry pick the best ones and bring more info to you. Since this is a Utah Jazz blog, I'll also be going more in-depth on some of the ideas presented at the conference that apply to the Jazz, topics like player development, offensive rebounding, three point shooting, and perhaps even ticket sales. Keep an eye out for those posts.

In the bigger picture, this is an exciting time for sports stats. With the conference bigger than ever before, it's clear that the amount of analysis, as well as the appetite for thoughtful usage of said analysis, is booming. With new data sources and tools being used to analyze the game, we can get closer and closer to true understanding.

Jazz Defense Punishes Bobcats, Jazz Win 98-68

andylarsen — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 06:22:26 -0000

Authors Note: Amar is out tonight, saving the lives of Detroit's citizens with his talent and wizardry. Thus, I'm doing the game recap. Because I like the idea, and this game fits really well, I'm going to try an experiment proposed by Truehoop's Henry Abbott three years ago: what if we had a game recap that didn't mention scoring at all? Plus, Kanter says scoring doesn't matter, and what he says, goes.

The Jazz had a record-setting defensive night against the hapless Charlotte Bobcats Friday night, winning 98-68 at home despite the absence of their two traditional stars, Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap.

In their stead, young Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter got the starts for the game, and immediately showed that their excellent defensive statistics off the bench translated to the starting role as well. Favors and Kanter's impressive paint defense, along with some swarming perimeter defense from the wings, limited Charlotte to just 9 points in the 1st quarter and 24 for the half. Despite just average offense, the Jazz were able to ride this early 1st half performance to a 23 point lead at halftime, which they never came close to relinquishing.

On the other hand, Charlotte's bigs disappointed hugely defensively. While they were certainly initially relieved to hear of Al Jefferson's sitting out of the game due to a sprained ankle given Jefferson's history of production against the young 'Cats, starting Kanter and Favors turned out to be no favor to Charlotte. Biyombo, Mullens, and McRoberts combined to allow 23 points and 22 rebounds for Enes Kanter, both career highs for the 20-year-old Turk. Jeremy Evans was also allowed to set or match new career highs by the woeful Charlotte bigs.

Amazingly, the rebounding totals were even more lopsided than the final score. The Jazz outrebounded the Bobcats by a margin of more than 2 to 1, 62-24. While certainly the Bobcats missed more shots, the Jazz even outrebounded the Bobcats on their own defensive glass: the Jazz generated 20 offensive rebounds for the night, while they allowed just 16 defensive rebounds. Despite not fighting for offensive rebounds, only generating 8 on the night, the Bobcats allowed the Jazz to accrue 30 fast break points on the night, on the other hand, the Bobcats' 16 defensive rebounds only led to 1 fast break finish.

In the end, the Jazz stifling defense under a new-look lineup turned league-average offense into a blowout victory with a 30-point margin. With an uncertain status for Millsap and Jefferson moving forward, the Jazz will look to build on this performance on the road against the Milwaukee Bucks this Monday.

Some Quick Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Day 1 Thoughts

andylarsen — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 04:38:49 -0000

I always look forward to SSAC, mostly because it's the only time when I really meet people who work and think the way I do: super analytically about the sports. As a result, it's a whirlwind day, where I try to attend every event I can in order to learn as much as possible. After all, it only comes once a year. Here are my initial quick thoughts, and I'll do some longer, more detailed posts on these as necessary throughout the upcoming week.

Conference Format

The conference is bigger than ever, with about 2,700 attendees this year. While it's easy to pine for the "good old days" of two years ago when the conference was half that size, restricting attendance too much probably isn't fair to all of those interested in this growing field. The size does, however, make it much more spread out and impersonal. It's about the size of my alma mater, Westminster, but without the 4 years of making friends first.
Perhaps the biggest change that I saw was how much of a corporate feel this gave the conference. Sponsors "presented" a good portion of the panels, which tended to be much more stiff and formal than their unsponsored counterparts.
Likewise, the companies with booths at the conference seemed to be larger ones (like HP, SAP, ESPN) than when I attended last. They also seemed to be selling largely business-to-business solutions: not much for the average consumer. It made that part of the conference a little bit less enjoyable.
About 1,000 of the attendees were students, most of whom seemed immediately concerned about making a positive impression on important people. You would never have guessed the number of suits being worn (probably 50% of the crowd), and there were many business cards exchanged. I sort of hate that, and I imagine the important people do as well, but you can't blame all of the MBA/business major types for trying, I guess.
They fed us lunch and had a cocktail party with delicious refreshments, both of which I am extremely grateful for.

Utah Jazz at the Conference

The Utah Jazz sent their 1st attendee ever to the conference. Adam Grow's job title is "Project Manager with the Utah Jazz" according to his LinkedIn page. He's been working with the Jazz for about 6 months.
We (Benjamin Gaines of Salt City Hoops and I) had a chance to talk with Adam for about 10 minutes. He explained to us that he's on the business end of the Utah Jazz, not the basketball side.

Daryl Morey

I had a brief chance to talk with Daryl Morey, GM of the Rockets, before he had to leave to make a call (perhaps to confirm signing Aaron Brooks?). I asked him about the Jazz' non-move of Jefferson and Millsap. He said, basically, that it would have made some sense to get some assets back for those expiring contracts, he doesn't know what the Jazz were offered.
He does, however, feel that the Jazz are in very good hands with Dennis Lindsey. Remember, Lindsey worked for the Rockets organization before transferring over to be the Spurs assistant GM.
In the first panel of the day, Morey talked about the difficulty of coaching a young team. In general, he said, they tend to miss pick and roll assignments more often than their veteran counterparts. The same is true for defensive rotations, young guys miss them more often than veterans.
The good news, though, is that they're much more likely to get steals and offensive rebounds, plays which actually have much more importance than a missed rotation.
Morey explained that coaches often struggle with young players because of this: they see the frequency of their mistakes, without realizing that it's being made up for in larger chunks.

3 Point Allocation

In theory, it makes a lot of sense to choose wisely when you go for 2, and when you go for 3. This is actually pretty intuitive: when you're losing, you should take more 3s than normal to get back into the game, but if you're winning, a steady diet of 2s should be enough to see you through.
What Goldman and Rao found in their study, though, is that NBA teams do one half of this, but not the other. When a team is losing by a lot, they do indeed take more threes as they're theoretically supposed to.
However, when they're winning by a lot, a team will actually take more threes than normal, which doesn't really make sense. Perhaps they feel more free to take those shots? Whatever the reason, they're hurting their team's likelihood of winning, albeit by marginal amounts.

Comebacks

Perhaps the more interesting part of Goldman and Rao's study was the effect that being behind has on a team's performance. When losing, teams actually gain a .10 point per possession efficiency gain, even adjusted for the players on the floor. That's a really big deal in a league where .10 PPP separates the top and the average NBA teams.
This is made up by two factors: a .07 PPP increase due to increased shooting efficiency, and a .03 PPP increase by continuing a possession on the offensive glass.
Why is this happening? Well, the authors don't explain it, but I would guess it's due to one of two causes. One, perhaps the inefficiencies above account for the gap in shooting. 3s are usually higher efficiency, and remember, teams trailing do indeed take more 3s, as they should. Or two, what I call the "Dick Bavetta NBA Refereeing Fairness doctrine". Basically, refs are more kind to the trailing team, leading to more FTs, and fewer loose-ball foul calls on the losing team. There is some, but pretty limited, evidence for this conclusion.
Since trailing teams come back so often, it's actually true that the 4th quarter is more important than those which come before it. Likewise, the Jazz deficits in the 1st probably matter less than they otherwise would.

Crashing the Glass

I want to do a longer post on this one, but this was a very interesting post using the SportVu XY camera data. Basically the study's authors, Jenna Wiens, Guha Balakrishnan, Joel Brooks, and John Guttag, looked at whether or not teams should crash the offensive glass after taking a jump shot, or if they should instead get back on defense.
The decision is not an easy one: teams who send 3 players to crash the glass get the offensive rebound 40% of the time and only 5% when they retreat 4 players back on defense.
On the other hand, sending at least 2 players to retreat means that you're 4 times less likely to give up a transition bucket on the other end.
In the end, though, the study found that crashing the glass was more effective: sending just 1 additional rebounder to crash gave the team a 0.17 point advantage per opportunity, totaling to just over 4 points per game. That's a big deal.
I suspect, somehow, that this study doesn't consider everything, mostly because that difference just seems too important. More on that in the full post.

Darren Rovell

I didn't actually interact with Rovell today, or even hear him speak, but I still don't like him.
I did see him, though, I'm sure he spent hours on his hair.

Paint Defenders

Kirk Goldsberry (the CourtVision guy who writes for Grantland) and Eric Weiss continued their use of their SportVu data to study effective post defenders. Essentially, they looked at what happens when a post player is in the restricted area: how often does a paint field goal actually get shot when a particular big man is down low, and if it is taken, how often does it go in?
Dwight Howard and Larry Sanders turn out to be excellent paint defenders. They do this in different ways though; Howard dissuades the opposition from taking shots in the paint at all, while Sanders simply lowers the percentages of the shots that come from in the paint.
On the other hand, David Lee and Anderson Varejao look pretty bad by this metric: they allow both a higher FG% and more shots in the paint than usual.
Al Jefferson, the only Jazz player with enough of a sample size, was in the middle of the group. He ranked 31st out of 52 players in terms of paint allowed FG%.

XY Data

Almost universally considered the next big evolution in sports stats, XY data from STATS, SportVision, and other companies use cameras and video recognition to track each player's, referee's and ball's location 30 times per second.
In basketball, the system is STATS, Inc.'s SportVU, which installs cameras up in a stadium's rafters to track the objects on the court and their movements. STATS sells the systems to NBA teams for $70,000 to $100,000. 15 NBA teams currently have the cameras, the Jazz are not one of them.
In the panel discussing this data, a VP from STATS, Brian Kopp, explained that the reason this data wasn't universally available (to both public and team analysts) was because (not a direct quote) "We can't just break into the stadiums and install the cameras, we need to work with the teams in order to be able to do so."
Let's be honest, that's absurd corporate PR. Teams would be happy for you to enter their stadiums and install the cameras, unfortunately, you charge tens of thousands of dollars to do that. It's not universal in order to protect your income stream in what is an incredibly limited market of 30 NBA teams.
That's a bummer for analysts, for reasons best explained in this Slate article.

Overall, there's no better place to be than in Boston for this conference, at least, if you're as nerdy as I am and like discussing sports analytics for hours on end. If you're geeky too, you can actually watch streaming and archived versions of the conference's presentations and panels on the website, SloanSportsConference.com.

Questions before Answers: A quick note on the use of statistics before SSAC

andylarsen — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 06:35:44 -0000

As I type this, I'm sitting in seat 5E on a plane headed to Boston, home of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Before I arrive, though, and begin an event with a panel entitled "Revenge of the Nerds", I want to say a little bit about the role of stats in our modern sports world.

Clearly, the penetration of stats in sports is higher than ever in 2013: mainstream sports outlets are using statistics more than ever in their broadcasts, they're incredibly ubiquitous in sports arguments, and teams are even now using advanced stats in their own press releases, justifying why a trade was made.

Still, though, I suspect we're using stats incorrectly in sports fairly often, and furthermore, I believe doing so is dangerous: not only to the "Moneyball" movement, but to our understandings when we do so. To be sure, stats have their place, indeed, the entire SSAC conference with thousands of attendees is dedicated to them, but we also need to consider how they apply to reality. The alternative, stats without context, is still interesting but somewhat meaningless (basically, it's pure mathematics: it's a fascinating exercise, but esoteric regardless).

Fans especially, but also occasionally writers and analysts (including myself), are prone to making arguments like this: "Gordon Hayward has a higher PER than Marvin Williams, and therefore deserves to start." These arguments mean well, and this sort of thinking is really tempting: it uses advanced statistics, so it can appeal to some higher authority of expertise, making it more likely that it's right. Heck, the argument probably is right.

The problem is that the assertion is right about the wrong thing. We've managed to get the answer to one sort of question ("Does Hayward have a higher PER than Williams?") and not to the question we actually want to answer ("Who should be starting?"). This sort of thing happens all of the time: we look at evidence and then make a conclusion, rather than really concerning ourselves with the question we're asking. Who has a higher PER, as used in this example, has no real relevance to the question asked.

Instead, we need to put questions first. Remember the scientific method: forming a hypothesis comes first, then evidence gathering, then making a conclusion. By focusing on asking the questions first, we can help ourselves in two ways:

It means that we're forced to figure out what questions, exactly, we want to answer. This leads us to think logically about the problems we encounter and what a solution would look like.
It brings context to the statistic. Gordon Hayward's PER is a telling statistic, sure, but it certainly doesn't take into account the context around Hayward himself.

At the 2011 SSAC, Mark Cuban explained that he gets hundreds of emails from job-hunters, interested in plying their statistical tools for the Dallas Mavericks. Most, he said, contained a "statistical resume" of some sort: i.e., "look at this work, see how brilliant I am?" The problem, though, is that by-and-large these all contained new statistics or ranking systems, designed to answer the question of which players were truly better than others. These systems and statistics all answer questions that never actually come up when making decisions for an NBA team. These are questions like:

Who's a better player between player X and player Y?
Which player should win the MVP award?
Which player is better defensively?
Is team X better than team Y?

They're fun questions, and ones we can make a lot of progress on, but are simplistic: they ignore the other variables of the real world. Instead, teams ask themselves contextual questions, such as:

Is this player a good fit with the players we currently have?
What player skills, if acquired, would make this team better? Which players have those skills, and would they help more than the cost of acquiring them?
Is player X a good investment for Y dollars? Does there exist a player Z who would be a better use of those funds?
Which is more likely to help our team, player X or draft pick Y? Does draft pick Y's higher potential make it worthwhile to take a risk, even though player X is more likely to be better?

You'll notice that the second category were more likely to contain followup questions. That's because these questions recognize that there's a context outside the question worth exploring, namely, real life.

The statistical revolution, along with the rise of big data, means that it's incredibly easy to pull up tables of stats and compose a story based off of them. I'm certainly guilty of this. To be fair, these stats may lead us to ask informative and contextual questions (Zach Lowe's work is a great example of this). But taking a stat and composing a storyline around it says more about the statistic and the storyteller than it does the subject.

Indeed, a conference like Sloan means that we're going to be assaulted with stats galore; I'm incredibly excited for this bombardment. But it'll be best if we evaluate our evaluations based on the questions they answer, not only how they relate to sports statistics land. This weekend, when you're presented with a new stat, ranking, or way of thinking, consider "What kind of question does this answer?" before jumping to conclusions.

Clark and Andy Show Trade Deadline Extravaganza

andylarsen — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 06:09:30 -0000

On this week's podcast, the team of Clark and Andy try something they haven't before: a live broadcast. Starting an hour before the deadline, listen as the team breaks and reacts to each incoming trade story, involving all of the biggest players in the NBA - like Hamed Haddadi and Dexter Pittman. Then, as you probably know, the Jazz didn't make any trades... what does that mean for the Jazz going forward? All that and more on this week's Clark and Andy Show!

Listen to us using the nifty widget below, or as always, listen to us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The mp3 link is also below the widget, if you need to listen using that.

Clark and Andy Show Trade Deadline Extravaganza

The Offbeat: A Look at the Bledsoe/Millsap Deal

andylarsen — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 06:24:04 -0000

While it's been rumored for many days, the Eric Bledsoe for Paul Millsap trade is still out there on the minds of Jazz and NBA fans alike. That is because the trade makes a lot of sense on the face of it: the Jazz give up an expiring talent to the Clippers for a long-term PG, an established position of need. The Clippers, on the other hand, get a talent upgrade as they fight to establish true contender status.

That being said, questions remain on the Jazz side, questions the Jazz front office will need to have sure answers to in order to make the move. Let's dive into those questions to discover: should the Jazz make the trade?

1. How good can Eric Bledsoe be?

Bledsoe is putting up a good season, no doubt. His 18.9 PER is third on a fantastic Clippers team, and he's led their bench unit to the top performance in the league. In under 22 MPG, he averages 9.6 PPG, and shoots over 42% from three. Also impressive is his defense: he holds opponents to just a 13.6 PER, and averages 1.6 steals and 0.9 blocks per game. This impressive performance comes in his third season, at just age 23.

How did other players turn out who had similar early success? Let's take a search through Basketball Reference. I did a search for other guards who had a PER within 1 point of Bledsoe before the age of 23, it turns out there are 47such players (with over 500 minutes) in NBA history. Here's the full list:

				Totals									Shooting			Advanced
Player	Season	Age	Tm	G	GS	MP	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PTS	FG%	3P%	FT%	PER	WS
Sidney Moncrief	1980-81	23	MIL	80		2417	406	264	90	37	145	1122	.541	.222	.804	18.0	9.9
Rajon Rondo	2008-09	22	BOS	80	80	2642	416	659	149	11	209	953	.505	.313	.642	18.8	9.9
Norm Nixon	1978-79	23	LAL	82		3145	231	737	201	17	231	1404	.542		.775	18.2	9.6
Rajon Rondo	2009-10	23	BOS	81	81	2963	360	794	189	11	246	1110	.508	.213	.621	19.1	9.6
Phil Smith	1975-76	23	GSW	82		2793	376	362	108	18		1641	.477		.788	18.4	9.4
Earl Monroe*	1967-68	23	BAL	82		3012	465	349				1991	.453		.781	19.3	9.3
Reggie Theus	1980-81	23	CHI	82		2820	287	426	122	20	259	1549	.495	.200	.809	18.4	9.2
Monta Ellis	2007-08	22	GSW	81	72	3071	404	315	124	27	173	1636	.531	.231	.767	19.0	9.0
Otis Birdsong	1978-79	23	KCK	82		2839	354	281	125	17	200	1778	.509		.725	18.4	8.8
Ben Gordon	2006-07	23	CHI	82	51	2704	258	296	64	17	249	1753	.455	.413	.864	18.2	8.6
Alvin Robertson	1985-86	23	SAS	82	82	2878	516	448	301	40	256	1392	.514	.276	.795	19.5	8.6
Calvin Murphy*	1971-72	23	HOU	82		2538	258	393				1491	.455		.890	18.1	8.3
Baron Davis	2001-02	22	CHH	82	82	3318	349	698	172	47	246	1484	.417	.356	.580	18.2	8.2
Calvin Murphy*	1970-71	22	SDR	82		2020	245	329				1298	.458		.820	19.4	8.0
Brandon Roy	2007-08	23	POR	74	74	2792	348	430	79	16	136	1416	.454	.340	.753	19.4	8.0
Damon Stoudamire	1996-97	23	TOR	81	81	3311	330	709	123	13	288	1634	.401	.355	.823	18.1	7.6
Kenny Anderson	1993-94	23	NJN	82	82	3135	322	784	158	15	266	1538	.417	.303	.818	18.2	7.5
Isiah Thomas*	1982-83	21	DET	81	81	3093	328	634	199	29	326	1854	.472	.288	.710	18.9	7.4
Mark Jackson	1988-89	23	NYK	72	72	2477	341	619	139	7	226	1219	.467	.338	.698	18.3	7.2
Stephen Curry	2010-11	22	GSW	74	74	2489	286	432	109	20	226	1373	.480	.442	.934	19.4	6.6
Player	Season	Age	Tm	G	GS	MP	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PTS	FG%	3P%	FT%	PER	WS
Gilbert Arenas	2002-03	21	GSW	82	82	2866	386	514	124	17	290	1497	.431	.348	.791	18.6	6.5
Steve Francis	1999-00	22	HOU	77	77	2776	409	507	118	29	306	1388	.445	.345	.786	18.4	6.4
Kobe Bryant	1997-98	19	LAL	79	1	2056	242	199	74	40	157	1220	.428	.341	.794	18.5	6.3
Doc Rivers	1984-85	23	ATL	69	58	2126	214	410	163	53	176	974	.476	.417	.770	18.1	6.3
Derrick Rose	2009-10	21	CHI	78	78	2871	293	469	57	27	217	1619	.489	.267	.766	18.6	6.0
Brandon Jennings	2011-12	22	MIL	66	66	2331	226	365	104	22	146	1260	.418	.332	.808	18.4	5.5
Tyreke Evans	2009-10	20	SAC	72	72	2677	380	414	109	26	216	1450	.458	.255	.748	18.2	5.4
Eric Gordon	2010-11	22	LAC	56	56	2112	164	244	71	18	151	1247	.450	.364	.825	18.5	5.3
Ray Allen	1998-99	23	MIL	50	50	1719	212	178	53	7	122	856	.450	.356	.903	18.9	5.2
Kobe Bryant	1998-99	20	LAL	50	50	1896	264	190	72	50	157	996	.465	.267	.839	18.9	5.2
Louis Williams	2009-10	23	PHI	64	38	1912	187	268	80	15	106	898	.470	.340	.824	18.2	5.2
Jameer Nelson	2005-06	23	ORL	62	33	1784	180	302	70	9	148	905	.483	.424	.779	19.5	4.9
Brandon Roy	2006-07	22	POR	57	55	2015	250	230	67	10	116	955	.456	.377	.838	18.0	4.8
Michael Redd	2001-02	22	MIL	67	8	1417	224	91	42	7	57	767	.483	.444	.791	20.0	4.6
T.J. Ford	2006-07	23	TOR	75	71	2243	236	595	101	8	231	1047	.436	.304	.819	18.2	4.3
Allen Iverson	1996-97	21	PHI	76	74	3045	312	567	157	24	337	1787	.416	.341	.702	18.0	4.1
J.R. Smith	2007-08	22	DEN	74	0	1421	152	128	62	12	112	907	.461	.403	.719	18.1	3.7
Spud Webb	1985-86	22	ATL	79	8	1229	123	337	82	5	159	616	.483	.182	.785	18.5	3.5
Eric Bledsoe	2012-13	23	LAC	56	12	1219	175	185	90	48	110	537	.453	.429	.798	18.9	3.4
Kemba Walker	2012-13	22	CHA	53	53	1830	182	299	100	21	120	916	.428	.345	.791	18.9	3.4
Player	Season	Age	Tm	G	GS	MP	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PTS	FG%	3P%	FT%	PER	WS
Jrue Holiday	2012-13	22	PHI	47	47	1802	197	418	69	20	188	894	.452	.353	.775	18.2	2.9
Jeremy Lin	2011-12	23	NYK	35	25	940	107	216	55	9	126	512	.446	.320	.798	19.9	2.7
Dana Barros	1990-91	23	SEA	66	0	750	71	111	23	1	54	418	.495	.395	.918	18.8	2.5
Tyreke Evans	2012-13	23	SAC	39	35	1212	186	121	55	17	82	600	.477	.328	.762	18.2	2.4
Rodrigue Beaubois	2009-10	21	DAL	56	16	700	78	74	29	12	54	397	.518	.409	.808	18.5	2.0
Dick Groat	1952-53	22	FTW	26		663	86	69				309	.368		.790	18.2	2.0
Robert Hawkins	1976-77	22	NYN	52		1481	154	93	77	26		1006	.447		.688	18.2	1.9

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/21/2013.

There's a wide variety of players here, and I invite you to draw your own conclusions. My feeling is that his closest comp is Jameer Nelson, who also put up a good season at similar percentages at age 23 in a mostly bench role. The best players on this list, Kobe Bryant, Isiah Thomas, and Derrick Rose, all had their success at an earlier age. On the other hand, a T.J. Ford-esque outcome is possible, but doesn't look particularly likely: that the majority of players on this list are still active is telling.

2. Can Eric Bledsoe be the PG of the future for the Utah Jazz?

The prototype Jazz PG has always been pass-first in style, causing Jazz fans some cognitive dissonance in recent years when Devin Harris and Mo Williams have taken the reigns. To be clear, Bledsoe is very much in the Harris/Williams side of the equation. He averages just 3.3 assists per game, just 5.5 per 36 minutes. Mo Williams career AP36 average is 5.8, Devin Harris' is 6.3. If Jazz fans want to to see a pass-first point guard, the team is trending in the wrong direction.

The more open question is whether or not a pass-first point guard is necessary in an efficient Jazz offense. My feeling is that the abandonment of the pass-first PG is more of a detriment to aesthetics than production; players like Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose have shown the ability to lead top-5 offenses with an emphasis on PG scoring. Even those players, though, are better passers than Eric Bledsoe is.

3. Who makes up the salary gap in the trade?

Of course, a one-for-one Paul Millsap for Eric Bledsoe trade doesn't work under the CBA, as such, the Clippers will need to add significant salary ballast to make the deal work. Jamal Crawford's probably too good to be just a throw in. Lamar Odom is an expiring contract as well, but is terrible, would bring his own unique form of drama to Utah, and comes at a position of relative surplus: even after the trade, Marvin Williams, like Odom is a SF who can play PF if needed. While Odom could give a few minutes per game to the Jazz at PF... they're not likely to be good ones.

The other alternative is Caron Butler, who also has been struggling, albeit not as badly. He's a below-average starter, and quite honestly, would probably simply take minutes that DeMarre Carroll is more qualified to use. Furthermore, his 8 million dollar salary next year would eat into the Jazz capspace planned for that summer, and would mean that the Jazz would likely have 2 completely average SFs locked in for $16 million next year for no particular reason. It wouldn't be pretty.

4. How do the salaries work for the Utah Jazz long-term?

This also becomes a little bit interesting: acquiring Bledsoe would mean three young starting-quality players (Favors, Hayward, and Bledsoe) to go on the restricted free agent market together during the same summer. While the Jazz would likely have the ability to resign all three without going over the luxury tax line (contingent on what they do with Al Jefferson), it's then more unclear if Kanter and Burks could be resigned the following summer. Of course, this is largely dependent on each player's individual development. This, though, may be the proverbial "good problem to have"; even if the Jazz had to lose one of those players for luxury tax reasons (a la the Oklahoma City Thunder), they could make a trade for some significant assets for the latter half of this decade.

5. Will Paul Millsap resign with the Utah Jazz?

This is the hardest question, and the one Jazz fans have the least information about. Paul Millsap is an incredibly good player, I think he's significantly underrated. His +/- numbers are fantastic, his standard numbers show great efficiency, and his steals and rebounding provide extra possessions for the Jazz. Naturally, keeping a player like Millsap would make the Jazz more likely to win games in the future.

The uncertainty, though, comes in when considering what Millsap is likely to make in this open market, when many teams have cap space to use; would Millsap be worth the money he'd be given? To me, he's such a good player, and still underrated, that it's hard to believe he wouldn't be. In this post, I argued that he'd be worth at least a $10 million per year deal, I think he'd likely get more.

And then: does Millsap want to stay in Utah? Signs point in both directions: there's some indication that he might not love a shared role with Derrick Favors down the road, but he currently seems to enjoy playing with Jefferson, and has played in Utah his entire career. He's recently started a Twitter account and done an impressively thorough Jazz gear giveaway. Perhaps he's trying to raise his value to the Jazz organization?

Whatever the reason, this is the most important question to answer for the Jazz. If there's a 70% chance of keeping Millsap, I don't think it makes sense to do this deal: Bledsoe is too questionable a long-term fit to make it worth that risk. On the other hand, if there's only a 30% chance of keeping Millsap, it probably makes sense to acquire some long-term value before it's too late. By Tuesday's end, we'll know a lot more about the Jazz' estimation of the likelihood of Millsap's departure.

The Offbeat: What do the Jazz do Differently in Wins?

andylarsen — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 05:32:26 -0000

Jazz fans have just experienced a week in which the Jazz have beaten the NBA's 2nd best team, the Oklahoma City Thunder by a substantial margin, and then watched them get blown out to the West's 2nd worst team, the Sacramento Kings. How does this happen? Well, clearly the Jazz' play is variable on any given night, but what do the Jazz do better in wins than they do in losses? With this knowledge, perhaps the always elusive "winning formula" for the Utah Jazz can finally be found. All of this data, by the way, is courtesy of NBA.com's stats. (Note: you may have to scroll horizontally at the bottom of the post in order to see all of the stats. Sorry.)

	GP	MIN	FGM	FGA	FG%	3PM	3PA	3PT%	FTM	FTA	FT%	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	TO	STL	BLK	PF	PFD	PTS	+/-
Wins	30	48.8	38.3	82	0.467	5.8	15.5	0.375	19.7	25.8	76.40%	12.3	31.6	43.9	24.2	14.3	8.7	6.7	21.7	22.2	102.1	8.8
Losses	24	48	35.2	81.5	0.432	6.3	18.1	0.349	16.8	21.8	76.90%	12.2	27.5	39.7	21.1	15.5	8	6	21.7	18.9	93.5	-11.8

In wins, the Jazz shoot just .5 shots more than in losses, but with a full 3.5% better percentage. This is despite a win against Oklahoma City that was primarily driven by having 19 more field goal attempts than their opposition. By the way, this is not influenced by pace: the Jazz actually play slower (93.49 possessions per game) in wins than in losses (94.30). For the most part, Jazz wins come down to who shoots better, not more.

Offensive rebounds happen at about the same rate in both categories, though the Jazz do make 1.2 turnovers less per game and get .7 more steals per game in their wins. These additional trips given by turnovers and steals aren't represented by field goal attempts, but rather free throws: the Jazz shoot 4 more free throws per game (perhaps due to the home crowd's influence). Relatedly, note the number of fouls the Jazz draw in their wins: they draw 3 more fouls per game in wins than in losses, whereas the number of fouls committed stays the same.

Interestingly, the Jazz actually attempt more threes per game in their losses, somewhat surprising given the efficiency of the three. However, in their wins, the 3 point shot is, again, converted at a higher percentage. It all results in approximately a 9 point offensive differential in the Jazz' offense when they win, compared to when they lose. But how do the Jazz do on defense?

	GP	MIN	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	Opp	+/-
	GP	MIN	FGM	FGA	FG%	3PM	3PA	3PT%	FTM	FTA	FT%	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	TO	STL	BLK	PF	PFD	PTS	+/-
Wins	30	1465	34.3	79.6	0.431	6.3	18.8	0.333	16.9	23.1	73.20%	11.6	28.4	40	18.9	15.1	7.3	6	21.8	21.3	91.7	8.8
Losses	24	1152	39.7	80.5	0.493	7.4	17.1	0.431	18.6	24.6	75.50%	11	30.8	41.8	22.9	13.9	8.7	6	18.9	21.7	105.3	-11.8

Again, the difference for the Jazz turns out not to be the number of shots taken by the opposition, but the rates at which they convert those shots. In Jazz wins, the other team takes about 1 fewer shots, but makes fully 5.4 fewer, good for a 6% decrease in FG%. (This is probably responsible for the Jazz gathering about 4 more defensive rebounds per game in our first table). The Jazz do an even better job of locking down the three point line in wins, with a fully 10% difference in opposition 3 point percentage between wins and losses. The opponents just 1.2 fewer free throws in wins (remember, the Jazz shot an average of 4 more free throws). Remarkably, the Jazz' differential is even greater on defense than it is on offense: in Jazz wins, the Jazz give up almost 14 points fewer than in Jazz losses!

This means that the average Jazz win is by a score of 102-92, while the average Jazz loss is 94-105.

Let's dig a little bit deeper: we know now the basic stats reflected in Jazz wins, but how are they coming about? These are your "broadcaster stats", so called (perhaps only by me) because broadcasters use them a ton, but they don't seem to appear in your everyday boxscore, stats website, or team analyses.

	GP	MIN	PTSOffTO	2ndPTS	FBPs	PITP	OppPTSOffTO	Opp2ndPTS	OppFBPs	OppPITP
Wins	30	1465	17.8	14.8	16.4	45.1	15.3	12.5	12	39.7
Losses	24	1152	16.6	13.5	13	39.9	18.5	14.9	15.8	48

A few notes here:

The Jazz give up 3.8 more PPG on the fast break in losses, compared to only 1.2 more turnovers per game. That would seem to indicate that the Jazz' transition defense is poor in losses, perhaps a sign of being tired. The same, however, is true for the Jazz' opponents, who give up 3.4 more points on the break.
Here's perhaps another sign of fatigue: while the Jazz get only .1 more offensive rebounds per game in their wins, they're able to get 1.3 more 2nd chance points. Perhaps the Jazz are more easily able to finish putbacks when their legs are rested, as during many wins? The same might be true of their opponents: when they are well rested, they can easily finish over the Jazz on those putback opportunities?
The biggest difference here, as you can see, is points in the paint, especially defensively. While commentary often focuses on forcing the ball inside as a route to getting the Jazz going, it seems that keeping the other team out of the paint is significantly more important to the Jazz' chances of winning a game.

How about shot location? Last time, we took a look at how the Jazz performed from different areas of the floor. How does that differ in Jazz wins and losses?

In Jazz wins:

	FGM	FGA	FG%	3PM	3PA	3PT%	eFG%	FGM (%AST)	FGM (%UAST)
Less Than 5 ft.	17.9	28.7	0.624	0	0		0.624	57.10%	42.90%
5-9 ft.	3.7	10.1	0.37	0	0		0.37	48.20%	51.80%
10-14 ft.	2.5	6.1	0.407	0	0		0.407	52.70%	47.30%
15-19 ft.	5.3	13.5	0.395	0	0		0.395	68.80%	31.30%
20-24 ft.	5.7	14.5	0.395	2.7	6.4	0.422	0.489	79.70%	20.30%
25-29 ft.	3.0	8.6	0.353	3.0	8.6	0.353	0.529	84.60%	15.40%
30-34 ft.	0.1	0.2	0.333	0.1	0.2	0.333	0.5	100.00%	0.00%
35-39 ft.	0.0	0.1	0	0	0.1	0	0
40+ ft.	0.0	0.2	0	0	0.2	0	0

In Jazz losses:

	FGM	FGA	FG%	3PM	3PA	3PT%	eFG%	FGM (%AST)	FGM (%UAST)
Less Than 5 ft.	15.3	26.9	0.567	0	0		0.567	51.10%	48.90%
5-9 ft.	3.9	10.6	0.37	0	0		0.37	39.40%	60.60%
10-14 ft.	2.3	5.9	0.383	0	0		0.383	53.70%	46.30%
15-19 ft.	5.1	13.5	0.377	0	0		0.377	64.80%	35.20%
20-24 ft.	4.5	12.2	0.365	2.1	5.7	0.365	0.451	80.40%	19.60%
25-29 ft.	4.3	12.0	0.354	4.3	12.0	0.354	0.531	87.30%	12.70%
30-34 ft.	0.0	0.0	0	0.0	0.0	0	0
35-39 ft.	0.0	0.1	0	0.0	0.1	0	0
40+ ft.	0.0	0.3	0	0.0	0.3	0	0

Now we start to see why the Jazz shoot more threes in losses: they're from further out! Note how in the losses, the Jazz take 12 shots per game from 25-29 feet, eschewing the corner three and the ones close to the line, whereas in wins, they take just 8.6 of them. The convert at nearly exactly the same percentage (35.3% to 35.4%), it's just a shot location issue. On those threes that do come from closer in, the Jazz shoot a much higher percentage in their wins (42%) compared to in their losses (36%).

The Jazz shoot more close shots from within 5 feet in their wins, they also shoot a better percentage on them, perhaps due to fresh legs, or perhaps because more of them are coming from assists. One strange quirk that I'm not sure I have an explanation for: the Jazz assist more often on the threes in the losses than in the wins.

This kind of analysis is somewhat dangerous, because you're not really sure in which direction the cause and effect goes: do the Jazz shoot a higher percentage in wins because they're playing differently, or do the Jazz win because they happen to be hitting more of their shots? Still, I think there are some things that we can learn from this analysis:

Offensive rebounding, at least in total, is not a significant reason the Jazz win or lose. The team gets the same number of offensive rebounds in wins and in losses, and the difference in defensive rebounds seems to be entirely due to the increased number of missed shots that the Jazz force in their wins. Any increase in the number of shots the Jazz receive doesn't seem to make the Jazz more likely to win overall.
Playing faster doesn't mean playing better: the Jazz actually play at a slower pace in their wins than in their losses.
The Jazz must dominate the paint, especially defensively: the Jazz are more than 8 points worse per game defensively in the paint in losses, 5 points worse offensively. If the Jazz are losing the paint battle, they struggle to keep a stronghold. The big lineup may help to force this issue.
On the other hand, if the Jazz are going outside too much, they're out of their game plan. A huge number of three point shots taken, while being somewhat efficient, is an indicator that the Jazz offense is out of sync.
Fatigue matters: when the Jazz struggle in transition offense or defense, or struggle with offensive or defensive putbacks, it's a sign that the Jazz may not have the legs to compete with the other team.

This sort of analysis can help us be more intelligent fans: instead of calling for the team to fight more for offensive rebounds, we might understand when the team drops in defense instead; or we may stop short of calling for faster overall play. May we even be blessed with more useful "Keys to the Game" from our broadcast crews in the future.

The Offbeat: Where does an efficient Utah Jazz shot come from?

andylarsen — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 07:01:09 -0000

The goal of any offense is to get good shots for its team. Hopefully, that much we can agree on, but how a team accomplishes that goal, and what we mean by good shot, is debated. Some teams, like the San Antonio Spurs, find the corner 3 the most efficient shot in basketball, and run an offense that always has the corner three as an option. On the other hand, teams such as the Jazz seek to get open shots as close to the basket as possible, both for the bigmen and cutting wings (For more information on this, see Yucca's excellent Flex post). Layups and open mid-range shots count as successes in the flex.

It's then informative to see how the individual Jazz players rank to see if the Jazz are accomplishing these goals effectively or not. Let's take a zone-by-zone approach. These stats are all thanks to NBA.com's stat database. When looking at these numbers, compare to the team's average 45% FG percentage.

Restricted Area

Player	FGM	FGA	FG%
Paul Millsap	172	267	64.40%
Al Jefferson	147	232	63.40%
Derrick Favors	114	186	61.30%
Gordon Hayward	78	149	52.30%
Enes Kanter	85	148	57.40%
Marvin Williams	55	88	62.50%
DeMarre Carroll	52	74	70.30%
Randy Foye	28	58	48.30%
Alec Burks	27	58	46.60%
Mo Williams	34	56	60.70%
Jamaal Tinsley	18	34	52.90%
Earl Watson	13	30	43.30%
Jeremy Evans	7	14	50.00%
Kevin Murphy	3	3	100.00%

Thanks to his isolation skills and off the ball cuts, Paul Millsap's number of restricted-area makes and attempts lead the team, and put him 26^th in the league. Millsap makes 64% of those shots, which is 2^nd on the team, only Carroll's career-year at the rim is surpassing Millsap's. This 64% is good, but not great. It ranks about 106^th in the NBA, and represents a downturn from last year, when he shot a few percentage points higher. We've noticed a loss of athleticism from Millsap this season, and while the differences aren't huge, they do exist.

Meanwhile, Al Jefferson and Derrick Favors also convert at high levels in fewer attempt; these represent good opportunities for them and the team. Hayward, disappointingly, doesn't look good in this analysis: it's still better than the 45%, but you'd hope for better from a player with as many transition attempts as Hayward gets. Maybe he's trying to do too much. Worse, Burks and Foye convert at 20^th percentile levels, suggesting that they're trying not finishing like they should (though perhaps Burks should get a free pass here, his free throws drawn don't count in these statistics). For a player who nearly exclusively dunks, you'd hope better than 50/50 from Evans, though it's in a low number of attempts.

The Jazz 3 headed PG "attack" comes up disappointingly at the bottom of attempts made, indeed, no other team gets as few shots from the restricted area from their point guards. Mo Williams can perhaps be excused, as his shooting prowess means it may make more sense for him to stay outside, but... it's not a pretty picture. When they do venture inside, only Mo puts up good finishing numbers, the other two can't seem to buy a basket even from the closest region of the court.

Non-Restricted Area Paint

Player	FGM	FGA	FG%
Al Jefferson	83	185	44.90%
Paul Millsap	43	114	37.70%
Derrick Favors	18	65	27.70%
Gordon Hayward	16	43	37.20%
Enes Kanter	20	33	60.60%
Mo Williams	13	33	39.40%
Randy Foye	8	29	27.60%
DeMarre Carroll	8	28	28.60%
Jamaal Tinsley	12	28	42.90%
Marvin Williams	10	25	40.00%
Alec Burks	6	22	27.30%
Earl Watson	3	12	25.00%
Jeremy Evans	1	2	50.00%
Kevin Murphy	1	1	100.00%

This range can get players in trouble: the basket still seems tantalizingly close, but it gets significantly harder to make shots from just the other parts of the paint. Note that Enes Kanter is the only player who shoots over the team's FG% average from this area, he leads the entire NBA in this category (minimum 20 attempts).

Al Jefferson is 2^nd in the NBA (behind David West) in the number of attempts from this range, luckily he's pretty good at them: he manages to approximate the team's offensive production when most other bigs wouldn't. In particular, note how much Millsap and especially Favors struggle here: If I coached the team, I might point these stats out to Favors, and ask him to really cut down on these low-efficiency attempts. The same advice would apply to Foye, Carroll, and Burks, though they shoot these kinds of shots in much lower volumes.

Kevin Murphy can't miss from the paint!

Mid-Range

Player	FGM	FGA	FG%
Al Jefferson	128	325	39.40%
Paul Millsap	50	165	30.30%
Gordon Hayward	51	136	37.50%
Randy Foye	46	123	37.40%
Mo Williams	40	96	41.70%
Marvin Williams	31	83	37.30%
DeMarre Carroll	30	73	41.10%
Derrick Favors	24	70	34.30%
Enes Kanter	21	51	41.20%
Alec Burks	17	48	35.40%
Jamaal Tinsley	10	31	32.30%
Earl Watson	3	15	20.00%
Kevin Murphy	1	8	12.50%
Jeremy Evans	1	2	50.00%

This rather large area covers everything outside the paint, but inside the three-point line. The Jazz really struggle here: the best performer, Mo Williams, is still only 120^th in the league from this category. Al Jefferson ranks 5^th in the league in attempts from this zone, but doesn't convert them at a great rate. Again, it may help to point these stats out to Jefferson, in the hopes that he considers those moves that take him into the paint, rather than those that don't.

Paul Millsap's very low percentage here also deserves to be chided: He ranks 317^th in the NBA in this category; the only player lower than him with more attempts is Josh Smith, a particularly famous bad-shot taker. Again, given his effectiveness when he can drive to the hoop, he's probably much better served going in for an isolation layup, or passing the ball off when he can't get that shot.

When these shots are taken by Mo, DeMarre, Kanter, or Jefferson at the end of the shot clock, they're below-average efficiency, but still probably livable. It's when players take these shots quickly, when other (any other) location would serve the team much better.

Corner 3

Player	FGM	FGA	FG%
Randy Foye	22	56	39.30%
Marvin Williams	17	55	30.90%
Gordon Hayward	13	32	40.60%
Mo Williams	3	12	25.00%
DeMarre Carroll	6	12	50.00%
Alec Burks	3	10	30.00%
Paul Millsap	6	9	66.70%
Jamaal Tinsley	2	7	28.60%
Al Jefferson	0	4	0.00%
Earl Watson	1	3	33.30%
Derrick Favors	0	1	0.00%
Enes Kanter	0	0
Kevin Murphy	0	0
Jeremy Evans	0	0

The Jazz are not big practitioners of the corner three, but top 50 shooters Randy Foye and Marvin Williams give the Jazz some looks here. When these threes are taken by Randy Foye or Gordon Hayward, they're reflective of a good possession: I'd rather have a G-Time or Foye corner three than a typical Hayward or Foye layup. Marvin Williams has clearly been struggling, but even that results in an above-averagely good possession for the Jazz.

In small sample size theatre, Paul Millsap is awesome at these, Al Jefferson can't buy a bucket, and Kanter really needs to start taking these, if only for what I assume would be an excellent three-point celebration when he makes one.

Above the Break 3

Player	FGM	FGA	FG%
Randy Foye	94	211	44.50%
Gordon Hayward	38	98	38.80%
Jamaal Tinsley	26	85	30.60%
Mo Williams	29	73	39.70%
Marvin Williams	21	59	35.60%
Alec Burks	10	29	34.50%
DeMarre Carroll	5	22	22.70%
Paul Millsap	6	21	28.60%
Earl Watson	4	19	21.10%
Al Jefferson	2	6	33.30%
Kevin Murphy	1	3	33.30%
Derrick Favors	0	1	0.00%
Jeremy Evans	0	1	0.00%
Enes Kanter	0	0

Randy Foye ranks 12^th in these attempts in the league, in terms of percentage, he's 5^th (minimum 20 attempts). That brings huge value to the Jazz offense: in fact, there's no shot you'd rather see on the floor than a Randy Foye three, with the lone exception of a DeMarre Carroll layup. In fact, everybody here is above the team average of 45% FG percentage once adjusted for points except for Paul and Carroll, who average less than one of these shots between them. Yes, even Tinsley's slow, often from several feet behind the line, at the end of the shot clock threes convert at a higher rate than the Jazz average.

This kind of data can help a coach give his players informed instructions. Let's say there's 5 seconds left on the shot clock, and Paul Millsap has the ball on the block. For Paul, there should be no question: his midrange game has been bad enough that he should go to the basket in all of these situations, where he can either finish inside the restricted area or pass it out to a three-point shooter, hopefully one who was helping on Millsap's action. While an effective mid-range game might keep an opponent guessing, one as poor as Millsap's simply can't make up for the efficiency he loses by not going to the hoop. Even passing out to Tinsley for a deep, last second three turns out to be a better decision.

On the other hand, a player like Randy Foye must realize the sheer value he brings to the table through his three point shooting, and recognize what he takes off of said table when shooting anything else but a layup. That sort of player should stay outside the three-point line, unless he is involved in opening up better opportunities for other players early in the shot clock (for example, screening for a DeMarre Carroll layup). Anything else is a waste of his talent and probably underperforming the team's potential.

That being said, these stats also reflect the value of the Jazz' inside-out approach: more shots on the inside where they're most efficiently taken. It's the mid-range shots, especially those when there are other options still available, that ideally would be passed over in favor of some reasoned patience.

Midseason Review and 2nd Half Predictions - The Clark and Andy Show

andylarsen — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 04:15:53 -0000

In this podcast, Clark and Andy take a look at their preseason predictions... were they crazy? Which players on the Utah Jazz have had surprising years, and which players have had disappointing seasons overall? How many wins will the Jazz get this season... and where does that total put them in the West? Finally, the team takes a look at Gordon Hayward's future: can he be a first option on offense? All of these myriad questions answered on this week's podcast!

Listen to us using the nifty widget below, or as always, listen to us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The mp3 link is also below the widget, if you need to listen using that.

Midseason Review and 2nd Half Predictions - The Clark and Andy Show

The Offbeat: Some Fun Technical and Flagrant Foul Facts

andylarsen — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 05:18:19 -0000

Because Amar is brilliant, and spent much time on his statistical analysis piece today regarding 1st option scorers, I wanted to use my Offbeat today as a fun sidenote, and of course, what is more fun than NBA players behaving badly? Probably many things, but the stats are available, and so we today take a look at the NBA's official stats regarding technical and flagrant fouls. Here, from the NBA site itself, are the two documents with the league-wide totals for each category:

Technical Foul Tracker PDF

Flagrant Foul Tracker PDF

And, for those who simply want a Jazz-centric summary, are your promised fun facts:

Ty Corbin is currently 3rd in the league in technical fouls for head coaches, with 4. His total is surpassed by Knicks' coach Mike Woodson, with 6, and by fired Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry, with 5. Frank Vogel of the Pacers also has four.
Millsap leads the Jazz with 4 technical fouls, followed by Derrick Favors, Al Jefferson, Jamaal Tinsley, and Mo Williams with 2 a piece. DeMarre Carroll and Enes Kanter only have one.
DeMarcus Cousins' two technicals in Utah vaulted him to the top of the leaderboard with 11 total; before Monday, he was tied with Carmelo Anthony, Matt Barnes, Blake Griffin, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Durant. Given the star power of that list, there doesn't seem to be any favorable refereeing in terms of technicals given to the NBA's more popular players.
Once a player reaches his 16th technical foul, he is automatically suspended for the following game. This happens every other technical for the rest of the season. In the playoffs, the counter is reset, and the new threshold is 7 technical fouls.
After Monday's game, Jamaal Tinsley now leads the Jazz with 2 flagrant fouls. Derrick Favors has the only other one for Utah.
Mo Williams was called for one against San Antonio on November 3rd, but it was rescinded by the league. Here is that play:
Dwight Howard leads the NBA with 3 flagrant-one fouls, and 1 flagrant-two fouls. This may end up hurting the Lakers in their playoff hunt against the Jazz, for the reasons below:
The NBA has a point system for flagrant fouls: flagrant-ones are worth 1 point, and flagrant-twos are worth 2. Once a player reaches 5 points, he is automatically suspended for his next game. On the next flagrant foul Dwight Howard commits, he will be suspended. In the playoffs, the point cutoff is 3 points.
Beyond 7 flagrant points, any flagrant foul is an automatic 2 game suspension. This cutoff is 5 flagrant points for the playoffs.

In conclusion, the Jazz are good citizens, the Lakers are not, and in a only-barely-conceivable playoff race between the two teams, an ill-timed suspension for the bad guys may make all the difference.

The Offbeat: A Quick Note on Individual Defensive Ratings

andylarsen — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:17:51 -0000

This is somewhat of a non-sequitur post, but the explanation of this is far too long to explain on Twitter, and I see the mistake often enough that I think it needs addressing, at the very least so I can link to it later.

The issue is Defensive Rating. Very often, in a discussion about a player's relative strengths and weaknesses, one wants to make a point about a defender's impact on the game, either in a positive or negative light. Naturally, stats are useful for this, as they tend to show that you're serious about what you're talking about. Furthermore, you might even have evidence for your assertions and are not just making stuff up as you go along. Clearly, the next logical step, is to use a defensive statistic to prove your point, and Defensive Rating is just sitting there on BasketballReference.com, calling you to it like Odysseus' Sirens.

Unfortunately, like those sirens, DRTG wants you to shipwreck. Here's is BasketballReference's glossary definition of the statistic:

Defensive Rating (available since the 1977-78 season in the NBA); for players and teams it is points allowed per 100 posessions. This rating was developed by Dean Oliver, author of Basketball on Paper. I will point you to Dean's book for complete details.

Okay, let's go to Oliver's book! Luckily, he has an entire appendix on how he calculates his DRTG, perfect for this explanation. His idea is sound:

The basic theory behind individual defensive ratings is that a player's defense impacts each possession to a limited degree, providing a base defensive rating, but that a player is more prominent in those possessions where he directly allows a score or contributes a stop, providing a modification to the base defensive rating. The formula reflecting this theory is:

DRtg = TMDRtg + %TMDPoss * [100 x DPtsPerScPoss * (1- Stop%) - TMDRTG]

Ack, a formula! Let's understand each of the individual terms. DRtg is the individual defensive rating that we're looking at. TMDRtg is the number of points the team allows per 100 possessions. %TMDPoss is a statistic of Oliver's creation: it reflects the percentage of defensive possessions on which the player is the primary defender. Stop% is the percentage of times the primary defensive player successfully forces a missed shot or a turnover, while DPtsPerScPoss is how many points, on average, the player allows when the shot is made (or a foul is committed).

In short, the formula takes the team's defensive points allowed, and makes an adjustment to it based on how often a player makes an impact, and how positive that impact is. In many ways, it's like a mix of team defensive ratings and Synergy's individual Points Per Possession allowed. This is looking good.

The problem, unfortunately, is that BasketballReference's DRTG uses only box score stats. That means we don't know %TMDPoss, DPtsPerScPoss, or Stop%, because NBA scorers don't track those things. We know, essentially, team DRTG, and that's it. So, significant estimations need to be made.

First, Oliver chooses to estimate that each player uses an equal amount of his team's possessions, i.e., 1/5 or 20%. Without any other data to go on, this is the best he can do.

Second, DPtsPerScPoss is simply set equal to be the team's defensive points divided by the scoring possessions, rather than being set on an individual level. This means that, for example, guards that give up a lot of three-pointers are not-adequately punished for their failed stops.

Third, Stop% must must be estimated. The main part of this estimation is given by the formula

Stops = STL + BLK + FMwt * (1 - 1.07 * DOR%) + DREB * (1 - FMwt)

Which basically totals the player's steals, blocks, and defensive rebounds, and discounts the defensive rebounds by the percentage of times a missed shot happens (about 55% of the time) divided by the percentage of defensive rebounds gathered (about 70% of the time). Yes, DRTG gives players defensive credit for defensive rebounds. In fact, the system gives them about 80% of the credit as it gives normal blocks or steals. That means that for most players, DRTG is heavily, even primarily, impacted by the number of defensive rebounds gathered.

Let's look at an example: the 2006-07 Jazz. Here are the Basketball Reference DRTG's of every player on that team:

Rk	Player	DRtg ▴
1	Paul Millsap	102
2	Andrei Kirilenko	103
3	Carlos Boozer	104
4	Rafael Araujo	106
5	Dee Brown	107
6	Ronnie Brewer	107
7	Matt Harpring	108
8	Mehmet Okur	108
9	C.J. Miles	109
10	Derek Fisher	109
11	Jarron Collins	110
12	Gordan Giricek	110
13	Deron Williams	110
14	Roger Powell	115
15	Louis Amundson	116

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table

The Jazz TMDRtg was 107 this season. Look who's at the top: Paul Millsap, Andrei Kirilenko, and then Carlos Boozer. Millsap finished 2nd on the team in defensive rebounds per 36 minutes, and added a pretty good number of steals and blocks to get the #1 title. Andrei Kirilenko contributed his usual assortment of pretty good rebounding, plus team-highs in blocks and steals. Carlos Boozer? He just defensive rebounded. That's it, but that contribution alone takes him to 3rd on the list. DRTG sees him as an above average defender, but most observers would probably agree that he was not.

On the other hand, this calculus hurts players like Ronnie Brewer, who played very good defense, but had only an above-average number of steals to show for it. While steals, blocks, and defensive rebounds are important indicative stats for a defender, having them (especially defensive rebounds) doesn't necessarily mean a positive defensive impact. BR's DRTG largely asks two questions: how good was your team overall on defense, and did how many steals, blocks, or rebounds did you get?

This isn't to say that all Defensive Rating statistics are bad: for example NBA.com's DefRtg simply keeps track of how many points per 100 possessions the player's team allows while they're on the floor. While that too is obviously skewed by lineups and other factors, it offers a very different picture than Basketball Reference's stats.

It's just something to keep in mind: while statistical analysis does provide a fantastic and objective way forward in analyzing the beautiful game, there are some potential pitfalls that can lead one to making some questionable conclusions.

The Offbeat: 5 Sanity Checks for Every Jazz Fan

andylarsen — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:40:04 -0000

Naturally, after a record-setting loss to the Rockets, questions are going to be asked. However, in their zeal to right the wrongs of this Utah Jazz team, it can be easy to go off-track into the fringes of irrationality. Here are 5 quick signs that, if you believe them, could be signs you've gone too far.

1. Al Jefferson hurts the Jazz on offense.

I think it's fair to question whether or not Al Jefferson's defensive deficiencies are made up for by his offensive talents. However, one thing is clear: Al Jefferson helps the Jazz on offense. The Jazz are 5.7 possessions better with Al on the floor on the offensive end. His league average scoring helps the Jazz' otherwise inefficient offense, as his FG% (47.5% vs. 44.8%) and PPP (0.96 vs. 0.91) are higher than the team's as a whole. The team, overall, shoots a higher percentage, scores more points, and even gets more assists than when he sits on the bench.

There's a section in Basketball on Paper that asserts that having an average-efficiency, high-usage player actually helps the rest of your offense by a point or two per 100 possessions, the idea being that such a player attracts defensive attention, allowing the other players to get free. We see that reflected in Big Al's numbers while he's on the court, as well as in little things like Randy Foye's career high 3 point percentage. It's not a big effect, but when you add it on to his pretty good offensive numbers, and the team's complete struggle to score points without Al, and it's pretty clear that he helps the team on offense.

#2: #freerajabell

#freerajabell #freerajabell
— Bruce Harris /// (@starkadidas) January 29, 2013

Yeesh. Bruce Harris, by the way, is Devin Harris' brother, and I do like Devin Harris. However... Raja Bell should not be freed. He should be kept under wraps to avoid harming the basketball world any more. By #freerajabell, Bruce here means one of two things, either:

A) Bell should get playing time for the Utah Jazz

This, of course, is ludicrous. Raja Bell is a terrible player. Bell, you're remember, put up a 8.3 PER last year, and an 8.2 PER the year before, in significant playing time. He's now 36. Only 7 players(and only 3 non-Knicks) who have played more than 10 games this season would be older than Raja Bell, and all of them, save for Jerry Stackhouse, have the distinction of still being good. He wasn't a positive +/- guy either season. He's no longer a good defender, as evidenced by the Jazz' worse defensive rating with him on the floor, as well as poor PPP numbers. Oh, and he's spent his break this season getting his degree, living in Miami, and appearing on ESPN shows with Skip Bayless. Really, the more degrees you can stay away from Skip Bayless, the better.

B) Bell should be waived.

This is more reasonable, and requires a more nuanced approach to answer. That answer is "Why?" Why should the Jazz waive him? According to all reports, he's refusing to take a contract hit upon being waived, which means that the Jazz still have to pay him if they choose to waive him. Seeing as he might make a trade work financially, he makes sense to hold onto has a token expiring contract. Again, according to those same 100% of reports, the Jazz would have waived him had they been able to get that salary savings, but unfortunately, Bell couldn't find an NBA team to sign him to any guaranteed contract whatsoever, and so he's choosing the Jazz' guaranteed money over not being paid. Which is a reasonable choice, but removes any room for Raja "supporters" to demand to free Raja Bell.

3. Burks is having a good season.

This was an understandable position to have at the beginning of the season: after all, Burks had a relatively nice (albeit still below-average in most respects) last season in limited minutes, is a young player, and figured to improve. Unfortunately, he's dramatically declined, and is now hurting the Jazz when he comes on the floor. His +/- stats are now negative (-.6), which is somewhat remarkable given that he's played with a largely positive bench unit for most of his minutes.

The biggest problem is the shooting: he's shooting 36% from the field, making only 22% of his threes, and 67% from the free throw line. You simply can't have those numbers from a shooting guard, at any level. The number of free throws he draws helps, but the 66% conversion rate (2nd lowest on the team, above Evans) means that it's not really that efficient. Indeed, his 9 PER and his 339th rank in PPP tell the story here. His high USG% at those numbers indicate that he might be pressing, but unfortunately it's a detriment to the team.

He doesn't really help in other ways either. His passing isn't great (Paul Millsap averages more assists per 36 minutes despite Alec playing a fair amount of time at PG), and his rebounding is better than the other wings on the team, but still isn't above-average league-wide. And his defense is sub-par: he allows his bench opposition 17.5 PER and 1.14 PPP, good for 393rd in the NBA.

Look, it's a significant shame that this is the case: I really, really like Alec Burks. But he's been very bad this year, and given DeMarre Carroll's positive contributions, it's impossible to really justify more playing time than as a third stringer if the franchise cares at all about winning games this year.

4. Millsap is having a bad season.

This myth is understandable too: Millsap had a bad beginning to the season. However, the games in the middle of the season matter as much as the ones at the beginning do, despite our tendency to remember those numbers more; of course, in November, all we have is November numbers, but by January, we have 3 months to evaluate.

I think it's fair, at this point, to call this Millsap's 2nd-best season of his career. The dropoffs he's had from last year are all pretty minimal: he's less than 1 point per 36 minutes, less than 1 rebound, and less than 2% from the field worse than last season. His PER is still at 20.2, and he's actually started passing more, getting more blocks and fewer fouls, though again, only slightly. He scored 0.96 PPP last year, and is at 0.95 PPP this year. Last year, he allowed 0.82 PPP on defense, and this year, he's allowing 0.84 PPP, though is putting up an improved 15.6 OPER to boot.

It's all largely the same story as before, though his per game numbers are somewhat hurt by averaging about 2.5 fewer MPG. His adjusted +/- has rebounded to slightly positive territory after a terrible start. To me, it's pretty clear: if you liked Paul Millsap last year, you should still like him now.

5. The team is underperforming compared to expectations.

The Jazz currently stand in 7th in the Western Conference, with a tiny percentage lead over the basically-tied 8th place Rockets. I can't find a big-name source that had them higher than 7th. Hollinger predicted the Jazz to be 7th. 3 of the 7 Sports Illustrated writers said the Jazz would be left out of the playoffs altogether. Even Matt Harpring predicted the Jazz would finish 8th.

This position, remember, is despite playing 5 fewer games at the usually-reliable-except-for-during-45-point-losses-to-the-Rockets Energy Solutions Arena, and the team is yet to play a relatively kind schedule in February and March. Given that the Jazz also lost their good PG, and now are actually starting Jamaal Tinsley at the point and playing him heavy minutes, you could say that the Jazz are better than could reasonably be expected. Frustration makes sense after the biggest loss in home history, but a look at the bigger picture says that the Jazz aren't doing as poorly as some seem to believe.

The All-Star Podcast - The Clark and Andy Show on SLCDunk Radio

andylarsen — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:53:37 -0000

On this week's podcast, Clark and Andy look at the candidates for the All-Star Game in both the Eastern and Western Conference. Do any Jazzmen make the cut? (Hint: for one of us, yes.) Do the fan-selected starters stack up? Plus, a look at the candidates for All-Star Saturday. Who would the best candidates be for the Dunk Contest, 3 Point Shootout, and more? All that and more on this week's Clark and Andy Show!

Listen to us using the nifty widget below, or as always, listen to us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The mp3 link is also below the widget, if you need to listen using that.

The All-Star Podcast - The Clark and Andy Show on SLCDunk Radio

The Offbeat: The Utah Jazz' NBA-Best Home Court Advantage

andylarsen — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 20:02:27 -0000

APBRmetrics, the group of fans who study basketball statistically with the Association of Professional Basketball Research, have an awesome forum that displays some of the foremost advances in statistical basketball analysis at work. Today, in particular, I wanted to look at one ABPRmetrics user's (Eternal) research, and what it means for the Jazz. If you'd like to follow along with the thread at the APBRmetrics forum, it is here.

Home court advantage has long been a topic of discussion for basketball analysts, mainly because it makes no sense whatsoever. The game is played on the same 94 feet by 50 feet, the rims and balls and backboards are all league mandated to be exactly the same, and the players practice their shots literally tens of thousands of times so that their form is more-or-less identical every time, no matter if the shot is at home or on the road.

In a talk, at the 2011 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, economist Tobias J. Moskowitz took a look at why home court advantage actually happens.

In the video above, Moskowitz explains the largest reason behind home court advantage: unintentional referee bias. In short, if you isolate all of the things referees don't have an effect on whatsoever, they're exactly equal for the home and road team. For example, whether or not a player makes a free throw is not at all influenced by a referee, but might be influenced by the screaming crowd with thundersticks. However, there's just no difference: the home team and the away team make the same percentage of their free throws. The subjective referee calls, though, like traveling, charge/block calls, etc. are called significantly more for the home team, especially if that team has a large crowd: traveling, for example, is called 25% more for the home team in soldout NBA games than their sparsely attended equivalents.

With that in mind, let's take a look at Eternal's data from the APBRmetrics forum. The following is a ranking of the teams with home court advantage with regards to the league average home court advantage from 2002 to 2013.

team | home
-----+-------
UTA | 1.019
DEN | 1.014
IND | 1.009
SAC | 1.009
GSW | 1.008
LAL | 1.008
CLE | 1.008
POR | 1.005
SAS | 1.004
ATL | 1.002
ORL | 1.002
PHO | 1.002
WAS | 1.002
CHA | 1.001
MIL | 1.001
DAL | 1.001
NOK | 1.000
MEM | 1.000
MIA | 0.999
BRK | 0.999
SEA | 0.998
CHI | 0.998
LAC | 0.996
TOR | 0.996
HOU | 0.996
NJN | 0.995
OKC | 0.995
DET | 0.993
CHH | 0.993
NOH | 0.992
MIN | 0.990
BOS | 0.990
NYK | 0.988
PHI | 0.988

Utah leads the pack, with Denver coming in second. What this suggests is that altitude has an effect as well, something Moskowitz didn't look at. It may not be the main factor, however, as Utah has a significantly higher home court advantage than Denver does, even though Denver has a higher altitude. I suspect Utah's rabid fans, plus the more vertical nature of our seats (many of our opponents have commented that it seems as if "the fans are on top of the action") mean a more intimidating environment for referees. Let's go ahead and look at the offensive and defensive impacts of home court:

team | hca_offense | hca_defense
-----+-------------+-------------
ATL | 1.007 | 1.005
BOS | 0.990 | 0.999
BRK | 1.000 | 1.001
CHA | 0.999 | 0.997
CHH | 1.001 | 1.008
CHI | 0.991 | 0.993
CLE | 1.001 | 0.992
DAL | 1.006 | 1.005
DEN | 1.011 | 0.997
DET | 0.994 | 1.001
GSW | 1.014 | 1.006
HOU | 0.988 | 0.992
IND | 1.003 | 0.994
LAC | 0.991 | 0.995
LAL | 1.006 | 0.998
MEM | 1.003 | 1.003
MIA | 0.998 | 0.999
MIL | 1.005 | 1.004
MIN | 0.994 | 1.004
NJN | 0.996 | 1.001
NOH | 0.993 | 1.001
NOK | 0.998 | 0.998
NYK | 0.996 | 1.008
OKC | 0.997 | 1.002
ORL | 1.000 | 0.998
PHI | 0.988 | 1.000
PHO | 1.005 | 1.004
POR | 1.008 | 1.004
SAC | 1.011 | 1.002
SAS | 1.002 | 0.998
SEA | 0.996 | 0.998
TOR | 0.999 | 1.003
UTA | 1.005 | 0.987
WAS | 1.004 | 1.002

Again, 1 here is league average home court advantage. Interestingly, Utah's offense is only helped somewhat more than league average (offensively, Utah's home court advantage ranks only 8th in the league), but defensively, Utah's home court advantage is league-best. Given the results above, this larger difference indicates that either:

Altitude effects teams more offensively than defensively. That is, the lack of oxygen and tiredness means less efficient offense more than worse defense.
Referee bias hits harder on defense, that is to say, rather than calling more fouls in favor of the home team on offense, referees simply don't call fouls on the home team on the defensive end.
Some combination of the above, or something I haven't yet considered.

So how do these numbers impact the Jazz? Let's look at an example of how they work. League average home court advantage is roughly 1.0167 on offense, and 0.9835 on defense, for a total league average home court advantage of 1.035. In addition, the Jazz have a 1.005 times better home court advantage than league average, and a 0.987 times better defensive advantage. The Jazz this season are scoring 107.1 points per 100 possessions on offense, and allowing 107.0 points on defense. Thus, if we do the calculations, we get:

Expected points scored per 100 possessions = 107.1 * 1.005 * 1.0167 = 109.43 ORtg

Expected points allowed per 100 possessions = 107.0 * 0.987 * 0.9835 = 103.86 DRtg

In short, just due to the influence of home court advantage, the Jazz at home are 5.5-6 points per 100 possessions better than normal! Now, this calculation is at least a little misleading because the Jazz actual offensive and defensive ratings already account for how well the Jazz play at home, but you start to understand the impact that the Jazz home court has on their overall performance. On the other hand, a team like Philadelphia, at the bottom of the home court advantage ratings, would only have about a 1.5 point home court advantage per 100 possessions. That's a sizable advantage: even if you divide it by half (because you only play half of your games at home), it's still enough to move a team up about 5 slots in ORtg-DRtg differential. Basically, ESA's home court advantage adds at least a couple of wins per season onto Utah's total.

This is an incredible finding, and it starts to speak to just how good Jazz fans are. The energy from fans, funneled into impacting referee decisions (as explained by Moskowitz), along with altitude and some good stadium construction, make Energy Solutions Arena the hardest place to play for opponents in the NBA.

Looking at Jazz and NBA Trades - The Clark and Andy Show on SLCDunk Radio

andylarsen — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:56:43 -0000

On this episode, Clark and Andy invite Peter Novak on the show to discuss trades. First, we look at the NBA as a whole... which teams are likely to make moves before the trade deadline? Next, we focus in on the Utah Jazz. What trades are the team likely to make? What are the Jazz' options in the trade market, and can they get good value back for Paul Millsap or Al Jefferson? All that and more on this week's Clark and Andy Show!

Listen to us using the nifty widget below, or as always, listen to us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The mp3 link is also below the widget, if you need to listen using that.

Looking at Jazz and NBA Trades - Clark and Andy Show on SLCDunk Radio