Who's the Worst Passer on the Jazz? The Jazz's Future and Passing Prowess.

[BYE]

I remember hearing Phil Jackson talk about the two most important aspects of a winning team: 1) team defense/defensive execution and 2) trust in the pass. After the last few games it is apparent how important passing is to success in the NBA. I also remember watching the Dream Team. They passed the ball so beautifully despite each player’s personal scoring prowess. The Spurs are a thing of beauty with there passing. The Mavericks beat the Heat with their pinpoint and unselfish passing etc. etc. My main point is that we have a lot of players that don’t pass the ball at a high rate for their position, and I’m not talking about Jefferson.

Hollinger’s Assist Ratio (with enough minutes)
1. Tinsley (50.9)---[1 in the NBA]
2. Mo Williams (31.7)---[13 among PG’s]
3. Foye (14.7)---[36 among SG’s]
4. Paul Millsap (13.9)---[17 among PF’s]
5. Carroll (13.8)---[32 among SF’s]
6. Hayward (12.4)---[44 among SG’s]
7. Al Jefferson (9.6)---[17 among C’s]
8. Marvin Williams (9.3)---[53 among SF’s]
9. Enes Kanter (4.8)---[39 among C’s]
10. Derrick Favors (4.8)---[68 among PF’s]

To begin with, Kanter had the absolutely worst ratio in the entire NBA last year at 2.3. Tinsley leads the NBA, and Mo is solid. Al (Mr. Black hole) and Millsap are the best at their respective positions at 17. Hayward on the other hand is very bad at passing the ball this year (ranked 8 among SG’s with 20.6 last year, so we know he can pass), but despite his low ratio, Marvin is even lower. What is most disturbing is that our future starting 4 & 5 are horrific passers. This can get better of course and Kanter is showing good improvement, but Favors has got to learn to pass. He is ranked at 68 among PF’s, the exact same rank that he had last year with 6.4. He had 6.4 his rookie year and was ranked 70 among PF’s. Favors did not change from his rookie to sophomore year and has now gotten worse his third year. To make matters worse, Burks had a horrible ratio as well last year. Put our young core together and you have a team that does not know how to pass at all. You’re going to need Tinsley and his #1 rank just to make things run unless these guys start passing the rock. This fact should also be central to the type of PG you get for the future.

 

[Weezur]

I think Kanter and Favors are establishing themselves on the post and on the floor. They're not going to pass unless they get doubled and they usually won't.
I hope Corbin teaches them to pass out of the post to cutters and not only the 3 point line because in my experience, the post is one of the best angles of the court. Easy to pass to a cutter from the post.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Kanter. I've seen Favors make some nice passes. I have yet to see Kanter really make a pass that has impressed me yet.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Kanter. I've seen Favors make some nice passes. I have yet to see Kanter really make a pass that has impressed me yet.

This.

 

[BYE]

Kanter. I've seen Favors make some nice passes. I have yet to see Kanter really make a pass that has impressed me yet.

This.

It wasn't meant to be an opinion poll since the stats pretty much speak for themselves. Favors and Kanter are the worst passers, and choosing one over the other at this point seems like splitting hairs:

Kanter has had 1 game with 3 and another with 2 assists. He's averaging .4 with .8/36. He also had a nice pass to Jeremy Evans against the Rockets at home.

Favors has had 1 game with 2 assists and has even more tunnel vision than last year. He's averaging .5 with .8/36, the exact same.

I've seen Favors show some better court vision, but not this year in the regular season. I think he had 5 assists against the Warriors in the preseason. They both suck balls when it comes to passing!

 

[spycam1]

Kanter. I've seen Favors make some nice passes. I have yet to see Kanter really make a pass that has impressed me yet.

I remember Kanter making a good full court pass in that Eurobasket tournament. But yeah, that's really the only pass that wowed me of his.

 

[addictionary]

this video includes some passes from kanter:

[video=youtube_share;l5kAZL0Q3ic]https://youtu.be/l5kAZL0Q3ic

it's his only experience I know between turkey and nba.

two passes at 1:03

I doubt they are the only passes of his career.

 

[Nate505]

Kanter. I've seen Favors make some nice passes. I have yet to see Kanter really make a pass that has impressed me yet.

He's way too slow at passing the ball, though I think that can be improved with time. It does make me wonder how often they practice it though.

I will say that while I'm not a huge Al fan (though not a huge detractor either...in my perfect world he'd be traded for a solid PG) he's learned how to pass since he's been here. He's way better at it then he was a couple years ago.

 

[gregbroncs]

It wasn't meant to be an opinion poll since the stats pretty much speak for themselves. Favors and Kanter are the worst passers, and choosing one over the other at this point seems like splitting hairs:

Kanter has had 1 game with 3 and another with 2 assists. He's averaging .4 with .8/36. He also had a nice pass to Jeremy Evans against the Rockets at home.

Favors has had 1 game with 2 assists and has even more tunnel vision than last year. He's averaging .5 with .8/36, the exact same.

I've seen Favors show some better court vision, but not this year in the regular season. I think he had 5 assists against the Warriors in the preseason. They both suck balls when it comes to passing!

Millsap and Jefferson get the ball with their back to the basket or in an offensive set. Favors and Kanter get the ball after a rebound or hustle play and put it back in. The assist stats will be skewed by the offense and use of the players involved.

In short your stats don't speak for themselves. They are pretty much worthless.

While I agree with the premise that they need to pass better. These stats leave a lot to be desired as proof of passing ranking on the team.

 

[addictionary]

hell yeah play favors and kanter for one and a half seasons starter and u would be amazed how great bounce passes they can give to each other.

 

[NAOS]

The quality of a pass is the hardest thing to quantify. There are no free and available stats that do **** as far as this is concerned.

Kanter and Favors have lots of room to improve, but I'm betting the house that they are doing what they are practicing.

 

[zman1527]

Coaching matters. Seems to me, this is how we run our offense: dump into the low post and watch. It happens so regularly that it cannot just be that the other four guys are retarded or lazy. Its a scary thought as I do not see Corbin going anywhere for awhile.

 

[LunaticWolf]

Millsap and Jefferson get the ball with their back to the basket or in an offensive set. Favors and Kanter get the ball after a rebound or hustle play and put it back in. The assist stats will be skewed by the offense and use of the players involved.

In short your stats don't speak for themselves. They are pretty much worthless.

While I agree with the premise that they need to pass better. These stats leave a lot to be desired as proof of passing ranking on the team.

As if Al and Paul don't get putbacks?

You're silly if you think we don't run post plays for Favors and Kanter.

 

[franklin]

Favors has very low bbiq & will never develop into a good passer. He's all raw talent and no finesse. Hopefully he can learn a little footwork.

 

[BYE]

Millsap and Jefferson get the ball with their back to the basket or in an offensive set. Favors and Kanter get the ball after a rebound or hustle play and put it back in. The assist stats will be skewed by the offense and use of the players involved.

In short your stats don't speak for themselves. They are pretty much worthless.

While I agree with the premise that they need to pass better. These stats leave a lot to be desired as proof of passing ranking on the team.

Worthless? Good hell, there are people who abide by certain schools here (the Eye Test School) and (the Stats School), and it appears that you are a wonderful apologist for your school, the Eye Test School. Kanter had the worst assist ratio in the entire NBA last year according to these stats. We all knew he was bad, but it doesn't come into focus without a league wide comparison, how does the eye test accomplish this because that's what your invoking. I personally like to use both forms of analysis. And the notion that Kanter or Favors are going to become Magic Johnson once they get more types of touches is dog crap. Kanter can only play with his back to the basket, offensive rebound, or jump shoot, and in the game against Toronto when the whole team was passing the ball beautifully, Kanter recorded 0 assists in 35 minutes, playing with his back to the basket all game, getting stuffed 5 times rather than passing. Thus one uses stats to confirm what you see in the game. Stats are not magic, but they sure as hell are not worthless. What scout in his right-mind would not use them at some level? So what would your rank be for this year in passing by the way? There will be no way of disproving it since stats play no role.

The quality of a pass is the hardest thing to quantify. There are no free and available stats that do **** as far as this is concerned.

Kanter and Favors have lots of room to improve, but I'm betting the house that they are doing what they are practicing.

These stats are pure quantity and have nothing to do with quality, which is what you seem to be after. I agree that you have to watch a lot of games to get an idea of what types of passes players are making. You can use assist/turn-over ratio to gauge how well someone passes to a certain extent. However, you can tell that Hayward is not passing the ball as much as he did last year using stats. His assist/TO ratio, Hollinger's Assist ratio, assists/36 min (stats make this measurable). People often feel like they're giving up some sort of power that only they possess when they use stats. To me they sound like my Grandpa refusing to send an e-mail because of principle. They're not perfect, but everyone uses them at some level because of their usefulness, and I for one think they are very illuminating at times. In short, I think they do do ****.

 

[Thee Idiotic Minivan K]

I remember hearing Phil Jackson talk about the two most important aspects of a winning team: 1) team defense/defensive execution and 2) trust in the pass. After the last few games it is apparent how important passing is to success in the NBA. I also remember watching the Dream Team. They passed the ball so beautifully despite each player’s personal scoring prowess. The Spurs are a thing of beauty with there passing. The Mavericks beat the Heat with their pinpoint and unselfish passing etc. etc. My main point is that we have a lot of players that don’t pass the ball at a high rate for their position, and I’m not talking about Jefferson.

Hollinger’s Assist Ratio (with enough minutes)
1. Tinsley (50.9)---[1 in the NBA]
2. Mo Williams (31.7)---[13 among PG’s]
3. Foye (14.7)---[36 among SG’s]
4. Paul Millsap (13.9)---[17 among PF’s]
5. Carroll (13.8)---[32 among SF’s]
6. Hayward (12.4)---[44 among SG’s]
7. Al Jefferson (9.6)---[17 among C’s]
8. Marvin Williams (9.3)---[53 among SF’s]
9. Enes Kanter (4.8)---[39 among C’s]
10. Derrick Favors (4.8)---[68 among PF’s]

To begin with, Kanter had the absolutely worst ratio in the entire NBA last year at 2.3. Tinsley leads the NBA, and Mo is solid. Al (Mr. Black hole) and Millsap are the best at their respective positions at 17. Hayward on the other hand is very bad at passing the ball this year (ranked 8 among SG’s with 20.6 last year, so we know he can pass), but despite his low ratio, Marvin is even lower. What is most disturbing is that our future starting 4 & 5 are horrific passers. This can get better of course and Kanter is showing good improvement, but Favors has got to learn to pass. He is ranked at 68 among PF’s, the exact same rank that he had last year with 6.4. He had 6.4 his rookie year and was ranked 70 among PF’s. Favors did not change from his rookie to sophomore year and has now gotten worse his third year. To make matters worse, Burks had a horrible ratio as well last year. Put our young core together and you have a team that does not know how to pass at all. You’re going to need Tinsley and his #1 rank just to make things run unless these guys start passing the rock. This fact should also be central to the type of PG you get for the future.

This thread is misleading. I thought it was going to be about passing ability. This is more about ability of how often they pass, with that said good post. Question I have is... Does our lack of passing have to do with offensive philosophy pg's throw into post? Al has gotten better at passing out to three shooters Hayward, Marvin, Foye, and at this stage of Kanter, and Favors careers they have tunnel vision. So this offense is about post up and catch and shoot. The pg's and Al will seem to have more opportunities to pass. Where as Foye and Marvin are spending most their time spotting up behind the three line and Hayward runing the curl play and other catch and shoot stuff.

Also your graffiti is showing the main problem is with the young players, which is usually a problem with younger players.

 

[Thee Idiotic Minivan K]

This thread is misleading. I thought it was going to be about passing ability. This is more about ability of how often they pass, with that said good post. Question I have is... Does our lack of passing have to do with offensive philosophy pg's throw into post? Al has gotten better at passing out to three shooters Hayward, Marvin, Foye, and at this stage of Kanter, and Favors careers they have tunnel vision. So this offense is about post up and catch and shoot. The pg's and Al will seem to have more opportunities to pass. Where as Foye and Marvin are spending most their time spotting up behind the three line and Hayward runing the curl play and other catch and shoot stuff.

Also your graffiti is showing the main problem is with the young players, which is usually a problem with younger players.

Damn spell check!

 

[candrew]

At this point I don't give a flip about Favors and Kanter's passing ability or tendancies.

Most big men become proficient scorers before they become proficient passers. Lets get them to put points on the board on a consistent basis before worrying about their passing.

 

[BYE]

At this point I don't give a flip about Favors and Kanter's passing ability or tendancies.

Most big men become proficient scorers before they become proficient passers. Lets get them to put points on the board on a consistent basis before worrying about their passing.

As I said, I think they can both improve, but Favors has not improved in three seasons so far and has actually gotten worse this year. I personally think they need a lot of playing time. It would also be interesting to know if your statement of "most big men become proficient scorers before they become proficient passers" is true or not. I don't know personally. It seems somewhat logical. If it is true, then how much do they improve on average because K & F have got nowhere to go but up.

 

[BYE]

At this point I don't give a flip about Favors and Kanter's passing ability or tendancies.

Most big men become proficient scorers before they become proficient passers. Lets get them to put points on the board on a consistent basis before worrying about their passing.

Having just looked at the trends of about 30 big men (playing now and in the past), most do not change a lot at all. There are a few that get worse, and there are a few that improve a bit. Very few improve dramatically unless it's going from 2/36 to 4/36, i.e., from someone who can pass to someone who can pass very well. The one exception that gives me hope is Jermaine O'Neal (https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/o/onealje01.html), who started off very low like Kanter and Favors and went up to around 2.5/36 (but dropped off around age 30). Kanter in my mind can improve the most since he started Bball much later and has shown the most improvement statistically. We'll see.