Memo's Down Year

[The Big Dog]

Oh hi there Utah Jazz forum. I have a quick question, how come Money Man Memo is having such a down year? I don't have League Pass anymore so I haven't really been able to watch him and the Jazz much this year.

[Soul Patch]

I don't know what's wrong with his offense but his defense is much improved this year.

[GP]

I think teams are catching on that memo just camps on the 3pt line, so half of his offensive game has been neutralized. Defensively I wouldn't say it much improved, but better.

[carrottop12]

Teams are running him off the three point line and he's putting in effort to play defense.

[HammerDunk]

Boozer's injury really helped Memo last year. Teams are running him off the 3 point line much more now and he is just shooting worse from the field in general. I think they have been keying in on him more this year.

[jazzfan1971]

Seems like his minutes are down. Too lazy to check.

[Charlie_S]

Well, first of all he's playing less minutes than last season. His per-minute stats are actually on par with last season or slightly better, except for his scoring.
He's shooting at a much lower percentage, while taking slightly less overall shots and slightly more three pointers. I think that the main difference here is that, with Boozer back, Memo is relied upon less than in the past season and is relegated more often to the perimeter in order to space the floor better, therefore having less short/mid-range opportunities than in the past.
Plus, he's obviously shooting badly. Analyzing his shots, you see he's having an especially bad percentage with his mid-range shot and his long 2's (which he used to be money on). His 3-point percentage is also down from last season, but it's still better than his career average so that's not the big problem (he was just shooting out of his mind last season).
I don't know the reasons for that. Is he taking more difficult shots than he used to? Is he really declining at such a fast rate? Honestly, that doesn't look like it to me... He's probably just in a bad shooting stretch, it happens to shooters. I expect his percentages to even out a bit in the 2nd part of the season.

[Ming Kong!]

He's basically the same old Okur at home PER wise, but he takes 10% dip FG wise, and points are down. Defensively though he's doing better on the road, so atleast he makes up for it. Honestly I thought he was doing a lot worse, but it's really not that bad. Like others have said, Boozer and his 19.5ppg take away from Okur, especially when Millsap gets his 11 as well, so in the frontcourt there isn't a lot of demand for extra offensive production. If you ask me which version of Okur I prefer, I'll take the one that steps up on defense.

[erudite23]

How on earth can you really say that Memo and Boozer take away from each other offensively? That's insane. Their games have always perfectly complemented each other, as evidenced by the fact that Memo and Boozer both had their best seasons in the same year.

The story for this year is simple: Memo has lost his shooting touch. All of his shooting numbers are way down, and as a result he's only scored 20+ TWICE this year. That's a ridiculous number for a guy that is getting paid to stretch the floor and score at a very high rate. He doesn't do anything else particularly well, so if he's not scoring the ball and spacing everything for his teammates, he's a major liability. He's the difference between the Jazz being a top 3 offense, like they were at their peak, and the borderline top 10 squad we've seen thus far this year.

[Reckless]

Memo's never been a great finisher at the basket but this year he is really struggling scoring the ball around the basket. That's really the difference in his FG% cause him not getting points at the rim effects how he shoots from the perimeter

[cjs55]

Indeed. His 3 point percentage is down a bit, but he's still basically at his career average. Everything inside the 3 point line is terrible percentage wise for him though.

And he's gotten even slower. I mean damn, he was slow before, but could still barely get by. Now, not so much.

That extension is not looking very good right now : /

[HammerDunk]

This thread should be renamed "Memo's defensive year".