NBA.com power ranking quote on Utah Jazz post-break improvement

[The Blue Elephant]

Reading is fundamental!

You did mention the pace is slow but 30th in the league, literally slowest team in the NBA pace wise. Still good to be able to allow fewest points especially after rocky start.

 

[framer]

Good points.
Charlotte had Big Al at his peak and then destroyed team chemistry by bringing in Lance Stephenson. Team shooting percentages are down, most notably at the 3. Kemba is their Trey Burke: horrible percentage, yet he has the most 3PT attempts.

AS for Sacramento, the team was playing very well under Malone to start the season. Cousins was actually engaged. Then he goes down and Ranadive decides to outsource the team.

Sure we MAY return to earth, but also don't forget Utah is the YOUNGEST team in the league right now. We passed up Philadelphia at the trade deadline by getting rid of Novak. Everyone has the potential to get better. Maybe Hayward just incremently, but everyone else a LOT. Burks comes back and we hopefully have Hood for the entire year. There is no reason, outside of major injuries, that the Jazz SHOULDN'T be a playoff team.

Amittedly we did screw up their "next step" by matching Hayward. Losing out on Hayward and having to settle for Lance was a disaster for them. Oh well, screw them. . .

 

[jope]

hood is the truth

i do see some paul pierce in his game

 

[fishonjazz]

i do see some paul pierce in his game

Pierce is a poor man's Rodney hood

 

[nightmare3983]

Pierce is a poor man's Rodney hood

I eventually hope to agree with you on this when not drunk on the Jazz Kool-Aid.

 

[Coach Ellis]

Also, Kings and Hornets are mired in mediocrity because of impulsive owners who have made poor front office and coaching decisions. I personally think that DL and Quin are special talents in their own right. Seeing as how the Core players are all young and improving, I see this team as being on an upward trend.

 

[JazzForLifee]

bottom line - that nba.com dude has no ****ing idea what is happening to this mighty team

 

[Spinoza]

WTF is this idiot talking about?

The Kings were 19-35 pre-all-star break and 9-19 post-all-star break in 2012-2013, the season before last season, the season he says the Kings "showed the most post-break improvement".

It was in fact the Lakers, with a 25-29 pre-break and a 20-8 post-break record who showed the most post-break improvement in the category that actually matters, which is win-loss record. I imagine he is looking at his "advanced analytics" (points per 100 possessions) to describe the Kings as the most improved team in 2012-2013. But then that's just misusing statistics to support a dubious claim. Describing a team that was losing at a higher rate post-all-star break than they were pre-all-star break as "most improved" based on a single advanced stat is ridiculous. I can't believe these guys get paid money to write this ****.

 

[Spinoza]

Yep, looking into it more, the guy is comparing Sacramento's 2013 improvement from a -7.8 net rtg pre-all-star break to -1.5 post-all-star break with Utah's 2015 improvement from -3.1 pre-all-star break to +8.1 post-all-star break.

I can only hope we follow Sacramento's trend for the next season. They went from an overall -5.6 net rtg in 2013 to -3.4 in 2014. If we do something similar with our current +0.4 rtg we would have a net rtg comparable to this year's Memphis Grizzlies next year.

Charlotte last season to this season is a little more comparable to our situation stats wise. Thankfully, our team is built nothing like theirs, so trying to compare the two teams would be foolish (just don't tell the "professional" sports journalists at nba.com that).