In the past 25 years have the Jazz had a more important draft than the 2011 draft?

There was the 2004 draft with 3 first round picks that ended up being Kris Humphries (right before Al Jefferson), Kirk Snyder (right before Josh Smith) and Pavel Podkolzin (right after Jameer Nelson). That draft the Jazz would have done better throwing darts. There were 8 players picked in between the Jazz 14th pick and 21st pick. Below are those 8 players sorted by minutes played in the NBA.

In the 2004 draft the Jazz didn’t draft one player that helped the franchise out, which is even more upsetting considering the talent that was available. Besides the names above they also didn’t draft Delonte West, Tony Allen and Kevin Martin.

The 2004 draft was a failure, which led the way to the 2005 draft including a high lottery pick. This draft was the complete opposite of the 2005 draft as the Jazz smartly moved up to draft Deron Williams, and also got a relative steal in C.J. Miles in the 2nd round. This draft has to be in consideration for most important Jazz drafts in the team’s history. It led to four playoff appearances, which included a spot in the Western Conference Finals in 2007.

 
Those would be the only two drafts that could be argued to be more important than this upcoming draft. For a team that rarely has a lottery pick (4 over the last 25 years) this year is unique in that the team has two lottery picks. Of course it happens to be during one of the more maligned draft classes in recent history, but that doesn’t mean the Jazz can’t find some value.

 
There will be time for draft analysis, but first let’s see where the Jazz end up picking. They have a 8.3% chance of getting the 1st pick and a 27.9% chance of getting a top 3 pick. They are most likely to end up with the 6th and 12th pick, but Jazz fans can hope for good luck tomorrow night. After that there will be time to talk about what the Jazz should do as they try to prevent themselves from becoming a team is used to being in New Jersey during the NBA playoffs.

The 2010-2011 regular season is over, and out of curiosity I wanted to quantify this season’s biggest pleasant surprises and disappointments. In order to set a proper benchmark, I looked at the preseason over/under win total from bodog.com and compared that with the total games each team ended up winning. Without further ado below are the teams that exceeded expectations.

First on the list are the Chicago Bulls, who won 62 games compared to the preseason prediction of only 46.5 wins. There is a reason that Tom Thibodeau is projected to be the coach of the year according to espn.com. In fact all six of the coaches that received votes coached teams that are on the above list.

On the other side of the NBA are the most disappointing teams. It isn’t that surprising for Jazz fans that the Jazz are on the list and actually rank as the 2nd most disappointing team behind the Cavs and tied with the Bucks.

Jazz fans don’t need an excel grid to tell you this season has been a disappointment, but I wanted to quantify how disappointing this year has been, especially compared to other teams. The Jazz fell short of hitting the over on their win total by 11 games. It is clear from the above that only Cavs fans can claim to have had a worse year than the Jazz and even then I would make the argument that dropping from a playoff contender to a lottery team is worse than going from a lottery team to one of the worst two teams in the league.

The last time the Jazz beat the Lakers  at the Staples Center, Keith McLeod was starting over Deron Williams, Robert Whaley was an NBA player and not a future inmate, and Gordon Giricek/Greg Ostertag were still playing meaningful minutes. They won by 4 points due in large part to Kobe Bryant’s absence because of a  suspension. Only two of the players that played that day (Okur and AK) are even on the team anymore, and nobody from that Jazz team played a single minute in last night’s game. In other words it has been a long time since the Jazz beat the Lakers on their home court, which might be better said with fact that it has been 16 straight regular season and postseason home wins for the Lakers over the Jazz.

That is why last’s night win was very satisfying regardless of the context. It doesn’t matter that the Jazz are out of the playoff hunt or that the win really just pushes them closer to the 13th pick in the draft instead of the 12 pick. It doesn’t matter that the Jazz could have used this win 100 times more in any of the three playoff series. I am going to be happy today knowing that in a lost season, the Jazz at least beat the Lakers. Some thoughts from the game:

• Gordon Hayward: Can he really be a productive NBA player? I still have my reservations, but there are some good things about his game that even the most negative Jazz fan has to recognize. He is young, athletic and has been improving his shooting, defense and passing. Last night, he was especially impressive driving to the middle of the paint and either scoring himself or throwing a great pass to one of the post players.
• The 3 Headed Power Forwards: It might only be the matchups against the Lakers, but for one game playing Millsap, Favors and Jefferson at the same time actually worked.
• Derrick Favors: I like his defense, rebounding and potential, but he needs to spend this offseason making 500 free throws a day. It was painful watching him go 2-8 from the line last night.
• I will never get why NBA players complain about a call that is unquestionably obvious against them. Derek Fisher is one of the worst offenders of this. How could he complain so much about tapping the ball out of bounds or the no call when he pulled Watson down before Jefferson’s dunk?

Anyway, there will be a time to review all that has gone wrong with this season, but right now I am going to enjoy last night’s win.

Any casual Jazz fan has noticed the incredible nosedive this year’s team has taken since the middle of the season. John Hollinger wrote about it in his Friday column on ESPN:

It’s hard to remember now, but the Utah Jazz were once 14 games over .500 and pulled into midseason at 27-14; they have won only nine games since. The Playoff Odds peg them to finish with 38 wins, which would put them at 11-30 after the midpoint of the schedule. That’s quite a turnaround, eh? Utah would go from 13 games over .500 at the 41-game mark to 19-under afterward, a 32-game switcheroo.

If so, they’ll make history. According to Elias, the Jazz are approaching a rather depressing milestone — the biggest in-season U-turn since the NBA switched to an 82-game schedule in 1967-68 (see chart). With seven games remaining, the Jazz have already clinched a tie for third place on the list and will cement their status as the worst with losses in just three of their final seven contests. Given that six of their final seven are against likely playoff teams and four are on the road, I think we can start planning the ceremony.

What is interesting is when one compares last year with this year. Last year’s team started off slow and then ended the year very strong. This year’s team has followed the opposite path. I have broken down each season into half intervals below:

• 1st half of the 2009/2010 Season: 23-18: 56% Win Percentage
• 2nd half of the 2009/2010 Season: 30-11: 73% Win Percentage
• 1st half of the 2010/2011 Season: 27-14: 66% Win Percentage
• 2nd half of the 2010/2011 Season: 9-27: 25% Win Percentage

The crazy thing about that is over a year time period the Jazz were a 57 win team. The problem is that year was a combination of the 2nd half of last year with the 1st half of this year. To give you a point of reference, 57 wins would have tied the Lakers for 1st in the Western Conference last year. Now, they are winning only 25% of their games, which would put them at a rate consistent with the Washington Wizards.

Finally, I wanted to share with you a graph that shows how both last year’s team and this year’s team have had a complete reversal of fortunes. The graph’s line is simple in that it goes up a notch when the Jazz won and goes down when the Jazz lost. The line represents how many games above .500 the Jazz were at each point of the season through 77 games.

From the graph it is easy to see how depressing this 2nd half of the year has been compared to the way the Jazz had been playing. They have gone from being the Lakers to being the Wizards.

Living in Minneapolis and without access to a private jet regulates me to either watching the NBA on TV or going to the Target Center and checking out a Timberwolves team that is one of only 6 NBA teams with a losing record at home. Since I don’t really care about the Timberwolves, I go to the game to watch the other teams like the Jazz on March 11th and the Bulls on March 30th. It was shocking to see the difference between the Bulls and the Jazz as viewed through the prism of playing against the Timberwolves.

The Jazz looked completely lost on defense and only slightly better on offense. The Bulls on the other hand looked like a well-oiled machine, where each player knew their role and the offense was designed around making the extra pass and getting an open shot. While watching the Bulls play I didn’t really care who won and was just going to see a good team, but suddenly I became a little melancholy. Why? I realized that the brand of basketball the Bulls were playing looked exactly like the old Jazz teams.

42% of the Chicago Bulls minutes have been allocated to Derrick Rose, Carlos Boozer, Ronnie Brewer and Kyle Korver. I decided to see how the minute allocation would compare with the past three Jazz seasons with the one substitution being Derrick Rose for Deron Williams. Below is that comparison:

The Bulls are following the same strategy as the Jazz used by playing an All-Star point guard with the same exact 3 players approximately the same amount of minutes. They have taken the baton and are now doing better than the Jazz ever did. What is frustrating is that the Jazz were so close to having the team the Bulls have right now, which means the Jazz were that close to being a championship level team. If they could have improved their bench (Taj Gibson, Omer Asik and even C.J. Watson would be an improvement over the Jazz bench options) and hoped that Williams would make a Rose like leap then the Jazz in the famous words of Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront “could have been a contender.”

The Jazz have now taken a few steps back and are now somewhere between a team that is rebuilding around the current players and a team that is about ready to be blown apart. The Jazz can watch the Bulls in the playoffs and reminisce about the time when they had a star point guard, a well-respected coach, a 42% three-point shooter and an above-average shooting guard option that is in the discussion for the all-defensive team. Good luck in the playoffs, the Chicago Jazz. Continue Reading…

In Jeremy Evans last game in college he played 33 minutes and scored 6 points in a 54-48 loss against Troy. That performance wasn’t very far off from his average since he only scored 10 points per game for the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. Leaving that game, I wonder if Evans thought if maybe that was the last time he was going to play basketball. Certainly playing overseas would be an option for a 6-9 forward with his athleticism, but if we was looking at any mock drafts or NBA draft previews he probably came to the realization that the NBA wasn’t in his immediate future.

However, the Jazz drafted him with the 55th pick of the 2010 draft. This was notable for a few reasons. One is that the Jazz passed over more accomplished players like Jon Scheyer or Jeremy Lin in favor for what looked to be a player best described as a small fish in a small pond. The 2nd reason it was notable was because the Jazz have been known for drafting 2nd round gems like Mo Williams, C.J. Miles and Paul Millsap. For some reason it seems like 2nd round or undrafted players (Wes Matthews) respond well to Coach Sloan and the Jazz system. I don’t know if it is because they work harder or are just underrated by the NBA draft system. For those two reasons I was interested in find out more about Evans.

My interest in Evans soon turned to disappointment after I started looking over his college stats. Really the Jazz were going to take a guy, who scored 7.9 points per game for Western Kentucky?  He wasn’t even listed in any pre-draft articles I read about possible 2nd round picks. If I remember correctly, I don’t remember him even making Chad Ford’s top 100 players.

However, things started happening that reaffirmed my faith in the Jazz management’s ability to select 2nd round steals. One thing that impressed me the most was this article on David Berri’s The Wages of Wins Journal.  The title was “Blake Griffin Might Rank Among the All-Time Best Rookies (and John Wall probably won’t.” I encourage you to read the entire thing, especially considering his prediction on Blake Griffin seems to be spot on. Below is what Mr. Berri wrote about Jeremy Evan’s impressive numbers:

As good as Evan Turner might be, Landry Field and Jeremy Evans might be even more productive. Both of these players, though, were taken in the second round.  And given the link between draft position and minutes played (those taken later play less), it is possible neither will play enough to make much of a difference for their respective teams.

The season has started and so far Berri seems correct on most things. He even followed up on Evans and the Jazz yesterday in a post on his blog found here.  Fields and Evans have been posting incredible Win Share numbers. While Fields has leveled off a little bit his total WS/48 minutes is still 0.109, which is still really good for a 2nd round pick. The Knicks have rewarded such production with the 2329 minutes. Jeremy Evans has produced an even better WS/48 of 0.185. If he had played enough minutes that would be good enough to be the 17th best in the NBA. However, Evans doesn’t play enough minutes and it isn’t even close. He is 13th on the team in minutes with only 344 minutes played. Considering the Jazz have played 74 games, that means Evans has only played on average 4.6  minutes per game.

What does this all mean? Probably nothing. Evans is probably one of those backup players, whose numbers would come down to earth if he played more minutes. But what if the numbers did mean something? What if he really is that productive of player. Could Evans be that missing piece in Utah’s frontcourt? Imagine a frontline of Jefferson, Millsap, Okur and Evans. Could that matchup with the Gasol, Bynum and Odom? If it comes down to beating the Lakers then this team stands a better chance then any team with Boozer playing meaningful minutes. Jefferson has more size to defend Gasol and Evans has both the size and quickness to at least stand a chance against Odom. I know I am probably being too optimistic, especially considering how poorly the Jazz have played since trading Deron Williams, but at this low point it is nice to look for a few positives.

In the interest of fairness below are the plus/minuses of Jeremy Evans

• Plus - Great advanced stats. A PER of 20.6 and a WS/48 of 0.185 are both the best on the current team.
• Minus - No idea if those advanced stats would continue if he played more minutes.
• Plus -  Lot of potential considering he is only a rookie.
• Minus- He is already 23 years old. To give you some perspective Paul Millsap had played over 3,000 minutes in the NBA before his 23rd birthday. That’s a little more than the 344 minutes Evans has played.
• Plus - He has made 68% of his shots. This isn’t that unusual for him considering his career low field goal % in college was 62.5%. He might not take a lot of shots, but when he does he makes them at an impressive rate.
• Minus – Not a good shooter as evidenced by his free throw %. In college he shot 68% from the line and so far in the NBA he is only shooting 68%.  Without some type of shot improvement it is hard to see him being a reliable scoring option.
• Plus - Have you seen that athleticism? The play the Jazz run where Evans spins to the goal and the point guard throws an alley-oop to him is one of the most visually pleasing sights in the NBA.
• Minus - That seems like the only way Evans scores. He doesn’t have any post moves and relies too much on one single play that consists of him catching the ball and dunking it. He needs some more complexity to his game, since I have to believe that most teams are going to wise up on how to defend him.
• Plus- From looking at his +/- he is the 2nd best player on the team with a net positive of 9.8.
• Minus – The strong +/- might just be a combination of a small sample size combined with the fact that when Evans is playing might also be the time when the other team’s backups are also playing.
• Plus - Evans PER advantage over the other ‘s team power forward is a +12.6. In other words based on the stats he is dominating his competition.

It is hard to know if Evans can be a big contributor to the Jazz without him playing more minutes. From the few minutes he has played it looks like he can help the team out. I am curious to find out more about the potential of Jeremy Evans.

The Jazz backcourt this year was terrible even before trading Deron Williams. Raja Bell has been an unquestionable failure as a starting shooting guard. The team has invested the majority of their resources (most notably cash) to the frontcourt by paying Millsap, Jefferson and Okur. They went for size and tried to manage the shooting guard position on the cheap. Instead of paying Kyle Korver $5M a year they signed Raja Bell for  $3M a year. Instead of matching the Blazers offer for Wes Matthews the Jazz went out and signed someone like Earl Watson.

I decided to do some analysis by looking at what guards left last year’s team compared to some of the current options. The former Jazz players make about twice as much as the current Jazz backcourt options. They are twice as expensive, but have produced more than three times as many wins. Below is a chart comparing the former players with the current players:

When looking at Raja Bell play what Jazz fan can’t help but think of how much better the team would be with Matthews, Korver or Brewer. Instead of Ronnie Price missing shot after shot as the backup point guard, the Jazz could have at least had Eric Maynor provide a little more value. The Jazz had the options, but decided to do things cheaply, and that could be one of the reasons why this season has gone so poorly. For the Jazz they didn’t get what they paid for – they got less.