Regression to the mean

[Douchebag K]

Would be nice. But it would take Exum + Davis + a bunch of throw-ins to make salary work. Hard to do a 5-for-1 trade.

I’d do that in a flash but yeah can’t see how we could.

 

[Gameface]

Perhaps a more apt title could be progression to the mean. Anyway, a number of nuggets out in the past day that we have had the hardest schedule in the league thus far. 538 has us now projected as second in the west and 57 wins. We’re 6-3 with our offense being one of the worst in the league. We’re favored in 36 of our next 38 games. Our defense looks as good as it has (toot my own horn [and knock on wood] to state that I’ve said I did not believe we took steps back defensively]).

So we’re still in an adjustment period. Conley’s been way below even an outlier. Ingles hasn’t really done anything. Rudy’s D has been Rudy’s D. Donovan has been much more efficient and Bojan is having a career year so far. Still a lot of improvement to yet expect as things jel (gel?). That said, rather than talk about hypotheticals, I’d be interested in seeing what this team looked like if we removed a few of the anomalies and outliers and substituted in historical averages. The negative anomalies seem to greatly outweigh the potential positive ones (i.e. Donovan is probably much more likely to be playing at form than Conley is). If anyone has any more comparisons to put out, whether good or bad, please share.

Since we have at least a rough sketch of what our offensive balance (in terms of who’s getting shots) may look like, I’ve calculated out what each player would be scoring if they took the exact same shots, but instead shot their career averages rather than this year’s averages.

Conley’s scoring bumps from 13.6 ppg to 16 ppg (+2.4 ppg)

Mitchell’s decreases from 24.8 ppg to 23.7 ppg (-1.1 ppg).

Ingles goes from 7.9 ppg to 8.6 ppg (+0.7 ppg).

Bojan I didn’t bother calculating because his FG% is the same. Three and FTs are up a bit.

I’m not sure what to make of Gobert because it’s hard to say what quantity of shots he’ll get, but I’d imagine this picks up. He’s averaging 10.9 ppg while the past three seasons were 15.9, 13.5, and 14 ppg.

Conley is averaging 3.1 turnovers per game in 4 mpg less than last year when he averaged 1.9. His career is 2 TOV/game. His TOV% is 17.8 this year compared to 9.1 last year.

Joe is the anomaly I’m worried most about not being able to rebound to previous levels. That said, his shooting surely will be much better than 36.7% and 31.7%.

I see Donovan’s efficiency possibly being a bit elevated, but there’s every reason to be optimistic that what we’ve seen is a trend (even if inflated) and that this is more sustainable than simply assuming a regression to the mean. Conley, on the other hand, is a complete outlier, in both shooting and turnovers. Turnovers I’d anticipate to drop below career averages because he’s handling the ball less.

Anyhow, there are lots of variables from our small sample size, but I’m encouraged with where we’re at, especially with how poorly we’ve played in some regard, and how the positive outliers seem to have good evidence for being legitimate while the negative outliers seem to have a lot of evidence to refute them being anything more than an outlier that shouldn’t continue, at least not as poorly as it has.

Would love any other thoughts or any other angles to see this.

 

[jaytulao]

His D is second only to Rudy, often gets the hardest assignment, really has taken his game to another level this year.

I thought Royce did a pretty good job vs. Giannis the other day, considering thats the MVP right there

 

[Rubashov]

I thought Royce did a pretty good job vs. Giannis the other day, considering thats the MVP right there

They had Giannis play the 5 to get him away from Royce. Im sure there are people who can bring up stats to prove or disprove this either way but he's got to be top 15 to 20 in the league as a wing defender.

 

[Archie Moses]

Perhaps a more apt title could be progression to the mean. Anyway, a number of nuggets out in the past day that we have had the hardest schedule in the league thus far. 538 has us now projected as second in the west and 57 wins. We’re 6-3 with our offense being one of the worst in the league. We’re favored in 36 of our next 38 games. Our defense looks as good as it has (toot my own horn [and knock on wood] to state that I’ve said I did not believe we took steps back defensively]).

So we’re still in an adjustment period. Conley’s been way below even an outlier. Ingles hasn’t really done anything. Rudy’s D has been Rudy’s D. Donovan has been much more efficient and Bojan is having a career year so far. Still a lot of improvement to yet expect as things jel (gel?). That said, rather than talk about hypotheticals, I’d be interested in seeing what this team looked like if we removed a few of the anomalies and outliers and substituted in historical averages. The negative anomalies seem to greatly outweigh the potential positive ones (i.e. Donovan is probably much more likely to be playing at form than Conley is). If anyone has any more comparisons to put out, whether good or bad, please share.

Since we have at least a rough sketch of what our offensive balance (in terms of who’s getting shots) may look like, I’ve calculated out what each player would be scoring if they took the exact same shots, but instead shot their career averages rather than this year’s averages.

Conley’s scoring bumps from 13.6 ppg to 16 ppg (+2.4 ppg)

Mitchell’s decreases from 24.8 ppg to 23.7 ppg (-1.1 ppg).

Ingles goes from 7.9 ppg to 8.6 ppg (+0.7 ppg).

Bojan I didn’t bother calculating because his FG% is the same. Three and FTs are up a bit.

I’m not sure what to make of Gobert because it’s hard to say what quantity of shots he’ll get, but I’d imagine this picks up. He’s averaging 10.9 ppg while the past three seasons were 15.9, 13.5, and 14 ppg.

Conley is averaging 3.1 turnovers per game in 4 mpg less than last year when he averaged 1.9. His career is 2 TOV/game. His TOV% is 17.8 this year compared to 9.1 last year.

Joe is the anomaly I’m worried most about not being able to rebound to previous levels. That said, his shooting surely will be much better than 36.7% and 31.7%.

I see Donovan’s efficiency possibly being a bit elevated, but there’s every reason to be optimistic that what we’ve seen is a trend (even if inflated) and that this is more sustainable than simply assuming a regression to the mean. Conley, on the other hand, is a complete outlier, in both shooting and turnovers. Turnovers I’d anticipate to drop below career averages because he’s handling the ball less.

Anyhow, there are lots of variables from our small sample size, but I’m encouraged with where we’re at, especially with how poorly we’ve played in some regard, and how the positive outliers seem to have good evidence for being legitimate while the negative outliers seem to have a lot of evidence to refute them being anything more than an outlier that shouldn’t continue, at least not as poorly as it has.

Would love any other thoughts or any other angles to see this.

The Jazz average the league's third worst PPG at 101. The Knicks and the Magic are the only other two teams that score less.

That said, the Jazz allow the fewest PPG at 97. There is only one other team that opponents average less than the century mark and surprisingly, it's the Magic.


Our offense isn't that bad IMO. I think we romanticized how good our offense was going to be with Conley and Bojan.

 

[jumpin bean]

Nice post, would rep. This is the only thing I would disagree with. Ingles is adjusting to a new role and will improve in that area and don't forget who inbounded the last play against the bucks to get Bogey that shot.

Watched shootaround and ingles hit 22 of 25 3 balls warming up shot better than anyone in warmup including boge. Joe just needs to adapt to the coming off the bench. No worries at all about him

 

[infection]

Our offense isn't that bad IMO. I think we romanticized how good our offense was going to be with Conley and Bojan.

I think that depends on what you mean by romanticized. We still go through some spurts where we can’t get a bucket, but this is light years better than last year. We literally had nobody outside of Donovan who could create. Now that we do, he’s taking much less threes but at a significantly higher percentage (if someone can look into these numbers and see how many are his last second heaves when the ball is tossed to him, it’d be interesting to see). We have the ability to throw the ball to someone else and have them go to work. Conley’s been bad. Despite that, and despite our offensive ranking, we’ve been a lot better comparatively. I think what perhaps you’re referring to is the idea that we’d be a top 5 offense. That I don’t know about — honestly, not suggesting that I doubt that we could, just that I don’t know what to make of it either way — but I don’t see why we wouldn’t be top 10.

 

[infection]

They had Giannis play the 5 to get him away from Royce. Im sure there are people who can bring up stats to prove or disprove this either way but he's got to be top 15 to 20 in the league as a wing defender.

In context of the thread, are you saying that 1) he’s an outlier that will regress, 2) he’s an outlier that’s sustainable, or just 3) that he’s playing well and you want to recognize him?

 

[Rubashov]

In context of the thread, are you saying that 1) he’s an outlier that will regress, 2) he’s an outlier that’s sustainable, or just 3) that he’s playing well and you want to recognize him?

Combination of 2 and 3, think he will probably get better as the year goes on and he gets more comfortable and confident. Playoffs Royce as regular season Royce, his defence and play at forward at 6'4 has been impressive as hell.

 

[framer]

I thought Royce did a pretty good job vs. Giannis the other day, considering thats the MVP right there

Royce probably won't get MVP THIS year, but after a couple more successful seasons, who knows?

 

[framer]

The Jazz average the league's third worst PPG at 101. The Knicks and the Magic are the only other two teams that score less.

That said, the Jazz allow the fewest PPG at 97. There is only one other team that opponents average less than the century mark and surprisingly, it's the Magic.


Our offense isn't that bad IMO. I think we romanticized how good our offense was going to be with Conley and Bojan.

I think the line of thinking was that our offense was going to HAVE to be super stellar to make up for what we lost on defense. Turns out that there wasn't a lot of drop off on defense. Jazz put out a LOT off effort on D. That is going to have an effect on the other side of the ball. We aren't deep enough to run at full throttle both ways.

 

[Rubashov]

Royce probably won't get MVP THIS year, but after a couple more successful seasons, who knows?

Think you can get odds for 2022?

 

[carolinajazz]

We have had the hardest schedule in the league thus far. 538 has us now projected as second in the west and 57 wins. We’re 6-3 with our offense being one of the worst in the league. We’re favored in 36 of our next 38 games. Would love any other thoughts or any other angles to see this.

Our offensive play is improving so the 57 wins certainly seems plausible. However, we can't lose to chump teams like GS tonight, or we will never catch Denver for the division lead.

 

[Thee Idiotic Minivan K]

I generally agree, but I also feel this team lacks size, "force" (to quote Lowe), and depth that could be a problem for a very, very long season.

Wish we had the assets to trade for Love. Would add rebounding and shooting. Would add stress on Gobert defensively but he can handle it I think.

 

[infection]

Wish we had the assets to trade for Love. Would add rebounding and shooting. Would add stress on Gobert defensively but he can handle it I think.

The only assets you need to trade for Love is matching salary. We have that. The thing is, is that we wouldn't want to give up the guys that the salary is attached to to make it happen.