GTS Atlanta @ Utah 2/27/13

Egads, can't defend the home court. How demoralizing. Only bright spot was a solid game out of Favors as a starter. Suddenly it looks like the 8th seed is going to be a nail biter.

Best plus minus tonight was Demarre at plus 6; worst plus minus tonight was Marvin at minus 19.

Ugh...

Al may have "got his", but Horford spent the entire game WIDE OPEN.
I would have never picked the Jazz to win had I know about Millsap being out, but it is what it is...

Jazz lost by 11.
Marv had 8 points, so "no".

(But the game announcers sure were all over how "great" Marvin has been playing the last two games .... how much you think Ty paid them to help try & make his decision to keep Marvin in the line-up seem like the right choice?)

Crunchtime1 wrote:

Best plus minus tonight was Demarre at plus 6; worst plus minus tonight was Marvin at minus 19.

It occurs to me, maybe the REAL problem isn't any of these role players, or even Tyrone Corbin at all...

On the season, do you know who the player with the worst +/- on the entire team is?

A: Al Jefferson, -106.

And that isn't even close, Marvin Williams is a distant second worst with -87, and it's only that close because Marvin has been absolutely horrific over the last 10 games...

Over the last 10 games there are only 4 players on the entire team with a negative +/-, they are Earl Watson (-21), Al Jefferson (-23), Jamaal Tinsley (-34), Marvin Williams (-57!!)

Over the last 10 games the top 4 are Alec Burks (+63), Demarre Carroll (+43), Paul Millsap (+33), and Enes Kanter (+23)

That is just stunning.

According to 82games.com Jefferson has the worst on/off rating on the team, and opposing teams have an offensive rating of over 111 when he is on the court vs. 101 when he is off. Just to put that in perspective, there are only 2 teams in the NBA that have an offensive efficiency over 111 (Heat & Thunder), so when Al Jefferson is on the court it litterally makes every team in the NBA looks like they have an elite offense. And while that is amplified by the people around him, he's easily the worst, with Foye second at 110 and Millsap 3rd at 108.

I think we need to eveluate the possibility that swapping DC for Marvin in the starting lineup may make as little difference as trading Watson for Tinsley, because the real root of the problem still isn't being addressed.

TheMagnus wrote:

It occurs to me, maybe the REAL problem isn't any of these role players, or even Tyrone Corbin at all...

On the season, do you know who the player with the worst +/- on the entire team is?

A: Al Jefferson, -106.

And that isn't even close, Marvin Williams is a distant second worst with -87, and it's only that close because Marvin has been absolutely horrific over the last 10 games...

I don't disagree that Al can be an issue, but in all fairness. Al plays more, giving him the "opportunity" to have a larger negative impact (how sad is that statement?). If given the same minutes then their +/- would be almost identical ...... if that makes anyone feel better.

zero24gravity wrote:

TheMagnus wrote:

It occurs to me, maybe the REAL problem isn't any of these role players, or even Tyrone Corbin at all...

On the season, do you know who the player with the worst +/- on the entire team is?

A: Al Jefferson, -106.

And that isn't even close, Marvin Williams is a distant second worst with -87, and it's only that close because Marvin has been absolutely horrific over the last 10 games...

I don't disagree that Al can be an issue, but in all fairness. Al plays more, giving him the "opportunity" to have a larger negative impact (how sad is that statement?). If given the same minutes then their +/- would be almost identical ...... if that makes anyone feel better.

Kind of just re-enforces the point doesn't it?

This actually surpized and dissapointed me. I actually have liked what I have seen from Al, I feel like he has been having one of the best seasons of his career and he has grown as a basketball player.

Unfortunately it seems painfully clear that the real problems with Big Al's game are uncorrectable. He's simply a terrible team defender, and his scoring prowess in the post is the low block equivalent of Carmelo Anthony hero ball, everybody just stands and watches because their is no rythm or flow and it's actually less efficient than if you ran a play and let a random open guy shoot it. Those things haven't changed no matter what defensive scheme the Jazz use, no matter how much more Al passes the ball, and no matter who he plays with (spent all last night next to Kanter and Favors and still allowed the Hawks to score over 50 pts in the paint).

Jefferson is just one of those players that doesn't make his team or the players around him any better. Over his entire career it has been that way, no matter how much he was killing it, how many points he scored or how many rebounds he pulled down or how many shots he blocked, over the course of a season his teams were only better for having him on the court 2 of the 9 years in his career. Those two years were last year when he was being backed up by 19 year old Kanter and 20 year old Favors, and 2008-2009 when he was playing for a truly horrific (24 wins) Timberwolves team where he was being backed up by Kevin Ollie and Jason Collins.

I'm sorry, I don't want to hate on Jefferson, I like the dude, I really do, it's just that the more I look at his career and the impact he has on this team the more dissapointed I am in what he delivers. I wouldn't even have brought this up if I hadn't been out trying to quatify how bad the other vets (Marvin and Watson spefically) have been. No doubt they have been bad, far worse than Jefferson (only recently true in Marvins case), but everything I looked at put Jefferson in the same group with those guys, and when that evidence starts to pile up it's hard to ignore.

More on the +/- thing though, a questions, is how much does Al playing the most minutes on the team factor into it? Wouldn't almost a .500 record play a part in that as well?

And I'm for +/- stats, I'm FOR it, but it doesn't tell 100% of the story. So when you are getting majority of your offense from your Center that doesn't play defense, you need to surround him with guys who do: Millsap/Hayward/Favors/Kanter/Burks and of course Demarre Carroll. I still think Marv has GOT to get out of there, so that DC can bring the things that this team needs, and specifically Al lacks. Al doesn't play defense, but he brings great offense. Marv just doesn't bring anything.

Mutangclan wrote:

More on the +/- thing though, a questions, is how much does Al playing the most minutes on the team factor into it? Wouldn't almost a .500 record play a part in that as well?

Record, or more specifically margin of victory, has a huge impact on total +/-, the value isn't in the number itself, but what it is relative to the rest of the team/units.

This is why the last 10 games +/- is so interesting. The Jazz are 5-5 in those games and the margin of victory is almost dead even, but in terms of +/- in those 10 games there are only 4 players that have a negative +/-, 3 of those are easy to guess as they have been the 3 worst players over that stretch (Tinsley/Watson/Marvin), and the 4th is Jefferson.

I aslo should clarify the difference between +/- and on/off. On/off is about relaitive effeciency of the team and it's opponent, as a whole, when a player is on the court and when they are off, so the record of the team doesn't really impact that since you are comparing it against itself. In the second post were I talked about Jefferson not making his team better I was using on/off numbers.

TheMagnus wrote:

This is why the last 10 games +/- is so interesting. The Jazz are 5-5 in those games and the margin of victory is almost dead even, but in terms of +/- in those 10 games there are only 4 players that have a negative +/-, 3 of those are easy to guess as they have been the 3 worst players over that stretch (Tinsley/Watson/Marvin), and the 4th is Jefferson.

So then from my side of things, Watson/Marvin/Al all are negative on the court, but out of all of them, at least Al is giving us 20 and 10.

TheMagnus wrote:

Crunchtime1 wrote:

Best plus minus tonight was Demarre at plus 6; worst plus minus tonight was Marvin at minus 19.

On the season, do you know who the player with the worst +/- on the entire team is?

A: Al Jefferson, -106.

And that isn't even close, Marvin Williams is a distant second worst with -87, and it's only that close because Marvin has been absolutely horrific over the last 10 games...

Yes, Jefferson's plus minus has been gnawing at me every time I bring up DC's plus minus stats, but Marvin's is even worse on a per minute basis; so is Mo's and so is Watson's. All those guy's negative plus minus stats makes Millsap's positive plus minus stat seem a little more impressive considering he starts with them.

http://www.nba.com/statistics/plusminus/plusminus_sort.jsp?pcomb=1&season=22012&split=9&team=Jazz

Per Min Plus Minus
Mo -0.084
Wats -0.075
Marv -0.067
Jeff -0.057
Foye -0.052

Millsap +0.013
DC +0.132

I still think DC is worth a try in the starting unit for energy and disruptive defense. Our starting unit is getting handily beat by the other teams' starting units. Also, I am leaning towards agreeing with you that Millsap might be the better choice to keep out of Millsap and Jefferson this summer, depending partly on how much money each wants. But I am content to leave that decision up to O'Conner and Lindsey. I like both these guys.

It's really simple, and Ty Corbin is making it hard. DC ONLY brings good to this team!!! Play the em effer!!!!!


And Marv has done one thing consistently this year: not much. Its simple, Corbin is failing in this area.