For the Second Time, Korver Has Boosted Utah’s Offense After a Midseason Arrival

Deja vu: Once again, Korver arrived midseason and turned the Jazz offense around. (Melissa Majchrzak via espn.com)

As soon as the Utah Jazz traded for Kyle Korver in November, the deja vu juices started flowing, a callback to his first sting with the club from 2007 to 2010. Back then, the sharpshooter revolutionized an anemic offense; has he done the same in tenure number two? 

Remember, remember

In 2007, the Jazz were coming off a year in which they went 51-31 and won the Northwest Division. The team qualified as the fourth seed for the playoffs and beat the favored Houston Rockets in a classic seven-game series where the Jazz won on the road in a nail-biter for the decisive victory, 103-99. They advanced to face the Golden State Warriors,  who as an eighth seed had just upset the Dallas Mavericks. After defeating the Warriors in five games, the Jazz unexpectedly found themselves in the Western Conference finals, ultimately falling to the San Antonio Spurs, the eventual champions, in five games.

With confidence and newfound expectations, the next year, however, started too slow. On the night of December 29, the Jazz traded for Korver with a 16-16 record. The team went on to win 19 of its next 22 games. The Jazz finished the season 54-28.

Before the trade, nearly half of the team’s first 32 games in 2007 saw the Jazz shoot below 35 percent from three, and they attempted fewer than 10 threes a dozen times, as I wrote earlier this year at the Deseret News. With Korver hovering on the perimeter, the Jazz attempted less than 10 only two more times in the season. By the end of the season, the Jazz ranked 10th in the league in 3-point percentage with 37 percent. 

Back to today

Korver’s return to Utah has had a similar impact on the 2018-19 Jazz. The Jazz shot below 35 percent from three in 14 of the team’s first 22 games. Prior to the Korver trade, the team would hoist 30 bombs a game, good for 10th in the league, but connect on only 32 percent, which ranked 28th out of 30 teams. 

As Ryan Ashton with the JNotes pointed out, that lack of a shooter infected the overall offense, too. On November 28 — the day before the Jazz acquired Korver from the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for Alec Burks and picks — the team’s offense was a shambles. Ashton writes, “The Jazz ranked 27th in the league in offensive rating, putting up just 104.5 points per 100 possessions.” One abled body out on the arc has completely changed that identity and that statistic. 

In the month of January, where the Jazz accrued an 11-4 record, the team shot a deep bomb on 41.6% of its possessions (compared to 38.7% in November) with a 34.7% shooting percentage (compared to 30.5% in November). They also nearly jumped into the top-ten with 110.9 points per 100 possessions (12th best in the month). 

Granted, the team still isn’t in the top half of the league when it comes to their percentage from outside threes, or season-long points per 100 possessions, but they are creeping in the right direction and one has to connect the dots back to Kyle Korver. 

Keep Connecting, now to wins

The stat floating around connects Jazz wins to threes by Korver. 

Specifically, Korver has made 2+ of his deep shots 17 times this season, where the Jazz have only lost one of those outlined games. If we stretch it just one further, the newly named KK has made 3+ of his deep shots 13 times; the Jazz have won every time. It would seem a delicious recipe: give KK open looks, give him seven or eight attempts, and the Jazznote should light purple with victory. 

Keep connecting, now to lineups

It’s worth noting that the team’s second-best five-man lineup involves Korver. 

Granted

name something you do as well as Kyle Korver hits threes running off screens 🗣 pic.twitter.com/fvuFQ8rY1p

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) January 26, 2019