2018-19 Utah Jazz Regular Season Thread

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[Inigo Montoya]

What is he going to do, erase Gortat, Gallinari and Harris even more?

[KqWIN]

The new season RPM numbers are out. Small sample, blah-blah disclaimers apply...

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/RPM

The Jazz players

General ranking/Name/RPM/positional ranking
27. Rudy Gobert 3.00 / 6th out of 57 ranked Cs
49. Joe Ingles 1.76 / 8th out of 83 ranked SFs
51. Donovan Mitchell 1.74 / 8th out of 99 ranked SGs
54. Derrick Favors 1.62 / 12th out of 91 ranked PFs
88. Jae Crowder 0.73 / 23d out of 91 ranked PFs
163. Ricky Rubio -0.55 / 34th out of 90 ranked PGs
250. Ekpe Udoh -1.20 /46th out of 57 ranked Cs
286. Thabo Sefolosha -1.45 / 55th out of 83 ranked SFs
316. Alec Burks -1.71 /58th out of 99 ranked SGs
343. Georges Niang -1.95 / 63d out of 83 ranked SFs
385. Dante Exum -2.53 / 79th out of 90 ranked PGs
402. Royce O'Neale -2.89 / 75th out of 83 ranked SFs
404. Grayson Allen -2.92 /91st out of 99 ranked SGs

Updated: I used your same formatting and replaced positional rank with ORPM/DRPM because i am lazy. I also didn't change the order because laziness, but it helps you see where people are vs were.

23. Rudy Gobert 3.16, -0.04, 3.20
42. Joe Ingles 2.02 1.16, 0.86
108. Donovan Mitchell 0.42 1.13, -0.71
56. Derrick Favors 1.39 -0.27 1.66
82. Jae Crowder 0.80 1.59 -0.79
121. Ricky Rubio 0.19 0.09 0.10
267. Raul Neto -1.36. -0.43 -0.93
314. Thabo Sefolosha -1.68 -1.50 -0.18
380. Alec Burks -2.48 -0.83, -1.65
321. Georges Niang -1.71 -1.54 -0.17
411. Dante Exum -3.19 -2.03, -1.16
421. Royce O'Neale -3.60 -3.36 -0.24
400. Grayson Allen -2.89 -1.19 -1.70

Note: there are 434 ranked players. Biggest riser is Ricky 0.74 to the good. Biggest faller is Donovan, down a whopping 1.32.

I'm bored and bedridden with a back injury. Update on RPM rankings time!

RPM, ORPM, DRPM
29. Gobert 3.07, -0.06, 3.13
30. Ingles 3.05, 1.08, 1.97
77. Donovan 0.98, 1.43, -0.45
99. Ricky 0.56, 0.23, 0.33
105. Crowder 0.46, 1.39, -0.93
109. Favors 0.40, -0.50, 0.90
200. Udoh -0.76, -1.85, 1.09
308. Neto -1.56, -0.28, -1.30
309. Korver -1.60, -0.57, -1.03
342. Thabo -1.84, -1.70, -0.14
400. Royce -2.72, -2.62, -0.10
423. Grayson Allen -3.28, -1.38, -1.90
426. Exum -3.33, -2.29, -1.04

JIngles massively up, Donovan up quite a bit too.

New update, my turn to take it over! Rudy takes over the number 1 DRPM spot once again. Best defender in the world.

[Crunch 99]

New update, my turn to take it over! Rudy takes over the number 1 DRPM spot once again. Best defender in the world.

Ingles remains a RPM god in the small forward category, ranking #5 for RPM behind Paul George, James, Durant and Leonard. For DRPM, he comes in at #4 behind George, Covington and Anderson. Thabo and O'Neale come in at #9 and #13 respectively for DRPM for small forwards.

ESPN is out today with an article pushing Paul George as the top DPOY candidate. Rudy will get more recognition if the Jazz continue to rise in the standings and defensive rankings. The Jazz have recently climbed to the #4 ranked defensive team per NBA.com at 104.4. Over the last 15 games the Jazz are ranked #1. For the season, the Bucks are #1 at 103.7, Thunder #2 at 104 and Pacers #3 at 104.1, so we are close to overtaking those teams on the defensive rankings. Go Jazz!!!

Paul George is the most disruptive force in the NBA
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25788328/paul-george-most-disruptive-force-nba

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Ricky is about to come back.

[KqWIN]

Read on Twitter

Ricky is about to come back.

If history is any indication, he'll be back for tomorrow. If you practice, you play.

[zero24gravity]

They may only be 7th in the West standings for now, but they've climbed all the way to 4th in this Sports Illustrated power ranking:

https://www.si.com/nba/2019/01/21/nba-power-rankings-warriors-bucks-raptors-celtics-kyrie-irving-resurgence

4. Jazz | Last Week: 3-0 | Overall: 26-21 | Previous Ranking: 9

The Jazz have won six straight and slid into seventh in the West, Next up is five consecutive divisional games, including two against the Trail Blazers, who are only two games up on Utah in the standings. If Utah wins one of those games, it wins the season series over Portland, and gets a crucial tiebreaker in the crowded West. And they say January basketball doesn’t matter.

[BudTugly]

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/1/22/18192356/joe-ingles-hell-yeah?fbclid=IwAR2TqCO1sgs6EiPH3u_PMbkSOZ01mWxGkhL5RLCn8z09uS586Ka6XRv9hZ8

Jingles All the Way
The Jazz are back on track, and they have Joe Ingles to thank for it. Here’s why Utah should build around its slow Australian with a receding hairline.

By Jonathan Tjarks Jan 22, 2019, 6:00am EST

[BudTugly]

[

Paul George is the most disruptive force in the NBA
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25788328/paul-george-most-disruptive-force-nba

Paul George has to be in the running for most talented yet mentally weak players of all time. He will collapse in the playoffs again. Even G is tougher mentally than PG and that is not a compliment to anybody.

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BTW Favors continues to improve his stats without Gobert on the floor(i.e. Favors at center). He is averaging per 36:
19.6pts/13.3rbs/1.7ast/2.1blk/1.3stl on 64% shooting. Do you know how many teams in the league would kill to have a center like this?

[Crunch 99]

So far Nurkic and Jokic have outplayed Gobert. I don't know if they just had good games or what, but I think Gobert struggles against elite offensive talent. (ie Nurkic, Jokic, and Embiid)

I am answering over here rather than the Denver game thread since your post was a general observation. Your post prompted me to look up Gobert's head to head stats against these guys. Gobert's head to head stats against them are mixed, but decent, and the stats understate Gobert's performances by failing to capture his overall defensive impact on the games. These stats could also be limited in usefulness by failing to distinguish between times that Gobert is matched up with some of these guys versus Favors, but they are all I have right now.

Gobert has decisively got the better of Nurkic in both stats and wins, 10-6.
Gobert versus Nurkic
http://bkref.com/tiny/hEELg

Gobert has played Jokic even on points, got the better of him on rebs and blks, but Jokic decisively gets Gobert on assists. Gobert beats Jokic on wins, 6-3.
Gobert versus Jokic
http://bkref.com/tiny/XzXaS

Gobert and Embiid have only matched up three times. Embiid is outscoring Gobert 20 to 13, is beating Gobert on blocks 3:1 and Philly is up 2-1.
Gobert versus Embiid
http://bkref.com/tiny/j5NAc

We face Towns the next two games. Towns is outscoring Gobert 21 to 13 head to head, but Gobert decisively beats him on blocks, 3:1, and Gobert has the wins, 8-3.
Gobert versus Towns
http://bkref.com/tiny/h463y

Go Jazz. Beat the Wolves!

[KqWIN]

[

Paul George is the most disruptive force in the NBA
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25788328/paul-george-most-disruptive-force-nba

Paul George has to be in the running for most talented yet mentally weak players of all time. He will collapse in the playoffs again. Even G is tougher mentally than PG and that is not a compliment to anybody.

PG was OKC’s best player in the series, has taken LeBron’s Heat to 7 games in the conference finals, and come back from a broken leg to become an MVP candidate. Doesn’t strike me as someone with mental weakness.

[vryadli]

[

Paul George is the most disruptive force in the NBA
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25788328/paul-george-most-disruptive-force-nba

Paul George has to be in the running for most talented yet mentally weak players of all time. He will collapse in the playoffs again. Even G is tougher mentally than PG and that is not a compliment to anybody.

PG was OKC’s best player in the series, has taken LeBron’s Heat to 7 games in the conference finals, and come back from a broken leg to become an MVP candidate. Doesn’t strike me as someone with mental weakness.

He also keep star level productivity AND sanity playing with Westbrook, which is incredible feat.

[zero24gravity]

[

Paul George is the most disruptive force in the NBA
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25788328/paul-george-most-disruptive-force-nba

Paul George has to be in the running for most talented yet mentally weak players of all time. He will collapse in the playoffs again. Even G is tougher mentally than PG and that is not a compliment to anybody.

PG was OKC’s best player in the series, has taken LeBron’s Heat to 7 games in the conference finals, and come back from a broken leg to become an MVP candidate. Doesn’t strike me as someone with mental weakness.

...Unless Ingles is guarding him for an entire series.

[TO11]

So far Nurkic and Jokic have outplayed Gobert. I don't know if they just had good games or what, but I think Gobert struggles against elite offensive talent. (ie Nurkic, Jokic, and Embiid)

I am answering over here rather than the Denver game thread since your post was a general observation. Your post prompted me to look up Gobert's head to head stats against these guys. Gobert's head to head stats against them are mixed, but decent, and the stats understate Gobert's performances by failing to capture his overall defensive impact on the games. These stats could also be limited in usefulness by failing to distinguish between times that Gobert is matched up with some of these guys versus Favors, but they are all I have right now.

Gobert has decisively got the better of Nurkic in both stats and wins, 10-6.
Gobert versus Nurkic
http://bkref.com/tiny/hEELg

Gobert has played Jokic even on points, got the better of him on rebs and blks, but Jokic decisively gets Gobert on assists. Gobert beats Jokic on wins, 6-3.
Gobert versus Jokic
http://bkref.com/tiny/XzXaS

Gobert and Embiid have only matched up three times. Embiid is outscoring Gobert 20 to 13, is beating Gobert on blocks 3:1 and Philly is up 2-1.
Gobert versus Embiid
http://bkref.com/tiny/j5NAc

We face Towns the next two games. Towns is outscoring Gobert 21 to 13 head to head, but Gobert decisively beats him on blocks, 3:1, and Gobert has the wins, 8-3.
Gobert versus Towns
http://bkref.com/tiny/h463y

Go Jazz. Beat the Wolves!

Thanks for looking up these stats. It was actually quite interesting to see how the matchups have gone. I will say I think it's a little unfair to compare the all time matchups, because I think all of these players we are comparing Gobert to have improved offensively by a large margin over the last couple of seasons. Gobert is also older than I think all of them, maybe not Embiid... Anyways I don't think looking at the 2015-2016 stats are particularly helpful.

I was definitely overreacting from how well Nurkic and Jokic played in back to back games, but after looking at some of these stats I don't think there is any denying Embiid gets the better of Gobert. Towns has in recent years played Gobert very well. Jokic is also trending upwards against Gobert. Nurkic is the only one where I probably just had some recency biased towards. It would be interesting to see how much different these guys stats change on average when playing against Gobert.

[Crunch 99]

Zach Lowe has commentary on both Jae Crowder and Rudy Gobert in his "Ten Things" column this morning.
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25895789/10-things-like-including-demarcus-cousins-nba

2. "I wish Jae Crowder were 10 percent better."
He concludes that Crowder is good, but that we could do better. Floats Mirotic, Aaron Gordon and Harrison Barnes as possible acquisitions.

5. "Rudy Gobert's All-Star Snub"
Says this might be the most ill conceived snub in recent memory.

[vryadli]

Favors and Rubio offer for Conley (don't care about minor detail)... OK, I think that settles things. Jazz decided to left path of old Pistons and current Nuggets in favor of Timberwolves and Kings path. The end of the run for anything and perennial playoff borderline performance and meaningless trades and talent exodus. Pity... it was good while lasted... but, after all, it is only a game...

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https://www.nba.com/jazz/donovan-mitchell-will-appear-steven-soderberghs-latest-film-netflix

Donovan has a little role on Steven Soderbergh's new movie High Flying Bird.

[KqWIN]

Back to basketball. A new stats site that has good data is bball-index.com. One of the measures they have is CPOE, which is a PAAC style statistic for synergy play types. It takes the delta between the players efficiently at the play type and league average for the play type. Then it multiplies it by the total number of possessions for that play type.

To be ranked high, you need to be efficient and have high usage. To be ranked low, you need to be inefficient and have lots of usage. If you have low usage or mediocre efficiency, you’re going to be in the middle around zero.

I looked at the Jazz numbers and what stood out to me is the pick and roll ball handler play type. The Jazz run more pick and rolls than anyone in the league, it makes sense that we end up with a lot of shots from the PnR ball handler.

Mitchell is one of the best in the league (6th best), which is surprising to me. I knew he had high usage, but I expected his efficiency to be below average. Apparently it’s not and I need to give him more credit there.

Ingles and Rubio on the other hand are amongst the worst in the league (7th and 8th worst). Now this is a little misleading because I’m pretty sure these number only account for the shots they take and not the shots they pass out and create. Ingles and Rubio are both looking to pass out of PnR and not shoot, so most of their PnR value is not being captured here.

However, it does illustrate a huge problem we have. Ingles and Rubio take a large amount of shots out of PnR, and they are bad at it. Having a PnR heavy offense with really bad scorers out of PnR is not ideal.

Conley is 8th btw.