The Utah Jazz - WTF?

Okay, so we're about a quarter of a way through the NBA season and the top team in the Western Conference is...the Utah Jazz?

Lets take a look at who saw this coming,

ESPN's experts seemed to have them on the bubble, although Chris Sheridan and Tim Legler (Tim Legler?) both picked them as the 4 seed. Chad Ford and John Hollinger had them as the 7 seed, and Hollinger gave a pertinent quote:

The Jazz's potentially awesome frontcourt has rarely played together, but if Carlos Boozer, Andrei Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur manage 200 games between them then this team is playoff-bound. The upgraded backcourt (Derek Fisher and Ronnie Brewer) should also pay dividends.

Now, to smack Tim Legler down again, because even the broken clock gets the worm.

This team defends, shares the ball and has balance offensively, with seven guys capable of getting 20 points on any given night -- Williams, Kirilenko, Boozer, Gordon Giricek, Mehmet Okur, Matt Harpring, and Derek Fisher.

Oh, of course! Noted 20 PPG scorers like Derek Fisher and Gordon Giricek! Yeah, I think it's safe to say that Tim Legler is still a retard.

Anyway, lets look at how the Jazz have done so far:
UTAH JAZZ
W-L: 16-5 (.762)
Pyth %: .614
Pace: 91.5 (12th)
Offensive Efficiency: 117.1 (3rd)
Defensive Efficiency: 108.0 (22nd)

The offense is based on two things:
1) Crashing the boards. They have the highest OReb% in the NBA (32.8%)
2) Shooting really, really, well. (eFG of 51.0, 5th in the NBA)

Free throw wise, they're mediocre, and they're bottom of the pack in turnovers. I'd say with the rebounding was the part that everyone expected--they were that good last year too, at 32.4%. The shooting has improved from 28th to 5th. The question is: is this sustainable?

Here are the players who are significantly overperforming relative to what they did last year (almost everyone is by a bit, but these are the ones that are more than a point or so off):

Matt Harpring: eFG 2006: 48.5, eFG 2007: 52.7
Deron Williams: eFG 2006: 47.8, eFG 2007: 51.0

Harpring, I think, will probably come down to earth. It's plausible that he is just getting better looks with everyone in though. Williams clearly had the pedigree coming out of college, but most of the stat-based services seemed to disregard him as a real prospect ESPECIALLY because of his poor shooting. He was only ranked as the 4th best prospect in Ed Weiland's 2005 draft preview, which had this to say:

Williams’ ticket will be defense. The offense, at least the scoring part, is pretty weak. He has shot in the low .400s his entire college career, though he has been decent at hitting three pointers, .374. That’s going to be a problem, as players generally need to shoot better than Williams has and get to the line more often than Williams has in college to make it as an NBA PG. I’ve heard Jason Kidd mentioned as a possible comp to Williams. It seems right. Both are big, strong point guards with mediocre shooting ability. But the fact is Kidd wasn’t a poor shooter at Cal

...

He’s big enough that he can guard most SGs and probably some SFs. But that weak shooting ability is going to hurt him, unless he can improve. Right now he looks to me like a defensive-minded third guard. He might start, but it would have to be the right situation, that being a team with a lot of scorers.

Chalk one up for the scouts on this one, I guess. Although I have to say, he did have a Rafer Alston-esque stretch of games late in November. It's too soon to say whether he's turned the corner completely, but if he has, this team sort of reminds me of the 2004 Pistons. Not defensively, obviously, but their five starters can all shoot and only one of them is incapable of creating his own offense (Harpring).

The Jazz actually haven't sent Ronnie Brewer out there much, which is a little surprising because he was considered one of the most NBA-ready players in the draft. The big contributor off the bench has been Paul Millsap, who was best known as being the guy who got booed in the Cheesy Doodles clip. Millsap has a 19.97 PER, and is actually a perfect representation of the Jazz as a team. He was a second rounder (not well-regarded), he has range on his shot and is a merciless rebounder (2nd best rebound-rate on the team, only Boozer is better), but is very light for a power forward, giving a bit of his gains back on defense.

Defensively, I can't say I understand the numbers being where they are, because talent-wise this group looks pretty solid. Okur has never been a great defender, but everyone else in the starting five have pretty great reputations. Kirilenko is widely considered a shut-down guy, Williams was drafted with this as a big plus, Harpring has been well-regarded over his career, and Boozer, while not a stud, has shown ability. Even Derek Fisher is highly thought of, off the bench.

The raw stats show them as a team of hackers; they have the worst FT/FGA in the league. eFG-wise, they are holding their opponents to 49.0, which is middle of the pack. As you'd expect, they do great boardwork, finishing third there. The big difference is that they just don't have the turnover margin you'd expect; they are only 24th in the league in TO ratio, at 15.5. Last year, they finished 9th at that.

So, to put it all in perspective; The Jazz shoot well, rebound well, but their pyth indicates that they are playing over their heads a bit. The raw stats have their defense as worse than I think they would be talent-wise, and I'm inclined to believe they will start forcing more turnovers on defense. Deron Williams is key for the Jazz--if he regresses, they are in trouble. I don't know if this will completely over-take the pyth, but I feel pretty good about the Jazz winning their division and getting 55-ish wins. They will have problems in the playoffs against teams that can actually defend though.

Knickerblogger.net's stat pages were a big help to this article. If you'd like to better understand the stats used, please check out the bottom of this page.

David Wright is the new Derek Jeter

And I really don't know how to feel.

I started liking David Wright in 2003. He was a third baseman for the St. Lucie Mets, and put up solid power numbers in the pitching-heavy Florida State League (.270/.369/.459, 15 homers). That season in the major leagues was full of dissapointment for the Mets; they spent the offseason diddling around with an aging Tom Glavine. I spent all offseason hating this move, not only because Glavine was an old guy and our team was not anywhere near competitive yet, but because he was Tom Glavine. I loathed Tom Glavine, Atlanta Brave legend, who had mastered getting the outside corner (or as I called it for many a year, the Brave corner), and had made a mockery of my teams chances for years. We even signed Mike Glavine, and after we realized we were awful this year, let Mike Glavine play Major League Baseball. Mike Glavine. We had let my favorite player, Edgardo Alfonzo, walk; even though he was younger and cheaper than Glavine, so we could court this geezer by letting his untalented chump brother play Major League Baseball.

That opening day, a very memorable one to me, Tom Glavine got his asshole raped by the Chicago Cubs, 15-2. The loss set the tone for an entire season of depression; it's 66-95 finishing record was the worst record I have ever seen in my ten years as a Mets fan.

I took solace where I could find it, and I found it in our young third baseman. Not Ty Wigginton. I started scouring the minor leagues. Everyone knew about Jose Reyes and Scott Kazmir (it still hurts to imagine he could be in this series right now, fuck you Victor Zambrano), but very few people were picking up on David Wright. He got a little lost in the shuffle, as most of my favorite players tend to do.

It's kind of weird having to share David with America now that he's gotten famous. I feel like an older brother who keeps having the younger imitate everything he does; flattered, but annoyed. Now all of the sudden we're less than 48 hours from having Joe Buck and Tim McCarver orally stimulate him for the better part of a week, and thats not even counting the World Series (if he makes it), I'd like to make things straight to the media.

1) David Wright is not a good defensive player at this point of time. Stop saying he is.
2) Nobody really cares that he went to Hickory High School. Nobody cares that his dad was a firefighter. This is fan girl stuff. Let it remain on the internet where it belongs.
3) If you repeat that he likes 24 more than three times over the course of the NLCS, I will murder both of you with my bare hands if I have to stalk you out in your nursing home. We get it, you're on FOX. Go fuck yourselves.
4) David Wright was not as good as Garrett Atkins this year offensively, he had a poor second half.

None of this will matter to anyone if he wins a ring, and this makes me sad. I will obviously continue to root on my favorite team, but I'm concerned that David will get lost in Jeter-perbole, where he becomes the leader and the clutchiest mcclutch that ever clutched. He never makes an error ever; the error was the balls. When we do this, America, we lose focus on how good a player he is. We lose focus on the things that he is good at. Derek Jeter is a really great player, he's a good defender (finally), he has a great contact bat, he can steal a base, he's everything you'd ever want in a ballplayer other than pure power. For years, he was all of these things except the great defender. The problem is, he wasn't a superstar. He wasn't going to knock 40 homers and 130 RBI's. Because we couldn't play this angle, and because he was so gosh-darned handsome, we ended up talking up intangibles and clutchety and how great his glove was and other ways he's more important than anyone.

It's weird what three years will do to you. I got out of high school, eventually. Then I ended up spending most of the next two years longing to get out of my hometown before eventually ending up staying put. Alfonzo is back with the Mets--in Triple A--after being released by two seperate teams this year and essentially being a dead contract. Tom Glavine is the game one starter, and only consistently reliable pitcher, for the team with the best chance to make the World Series in baseball. Scott Kazmir is a Devil Ray, Jose Reyes is the best shortstop in the National League and probably the best leadoff man as well after being pushed off the position by Kaz Matsui. I hope Mike Glavine is at home having some wine with his kids. I really do hope.

And David Wright? He's just a really good third baseman who plays for a great team. And I am rooting for him to become the man I most loathed as a teenager, to lead a team that includes, in a key role, the man I most loathed for most of the last three years, to the World Series.

Life is weird like that.