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警告：本文過長，請先準備好點心飲料再往下看
Hollinger's Team Forecast: Utah Jazz
By John Hollinger
ESPN.com
http://tinyurl.com/47rfhj 原文及其他各隊分析
2007-08 Recap
Call it a case of foul play.
Utah had the best point differential in the Western Conference last
season and was lights-out in the second half of the season. Heading
into the second round of the playoffs, they seemed to have a great
shot at upsetting the top-seeded Lakers and making a run to the
Finals.
They might have pulled it off, too, if not for a pesky rule that
permits a player to shoot free throws if the other team fouls him. In
six games, L.A.'s Kobe Bryant took an unfathomable 96 free-throw
attempts; he made 80 of them. That, in a nutshell, was the series.
Utah scored more than enough points to win and did reasonably well in
other respects on defense, but the Lakers' parade to the free-throw
line killed any hope of an upset.
The free-throw frenzy wasn't isolated to those six games. Bryant
didn't get 96 free throws because of some conspiracy to favor the
Lakers or a nefarious plot by David Stern to keep small-market teams
out of the Finals; it happened because Utah really, truly fouled him
on nearly every play, just like they did to most of their opponents
all season.
┌────────────────┬─┐
│ HOLLINGER'S '07-08 STATS │Ｘ│ (註：Pythagorean畢氏定理
├────────────────┴─┤ 流行於棒球界的一種藉由得失分來
│W-L: 54-28 (Pythagorean W-L: 62-20) │ 推測勝率的公式，因為式子很像畢
│Offensive Efficiency: 110.8 (2nd) │ 氏定理故命名之。這裡用的是對NBA
│Defensive Efficiency: 104.0 (12th) │ 用的修正版)
│Pace Factor: 95.6 (11th) │
│Highest PER: Carlos Boozer (21.96) │ 2007-08 推測勝率:
└──────────────────┘ http://tinyurl.com/3kjekk
That tendency has become a hugely important story, because in 2007-08
the Jazz were a championship-caliber team in virtually every other
respect. The rampant fouling was really the only thing standing
between them and a conference title at the very least.
┌───────────────────┐
│Opponent FTA Per FGA: 2007-08's Worst │
├───────────────────┤
│TEAM OPP. FTA/FGA │
│Utah .393 ←┐ │
│Indiana .358 ←┘哇! │
│New Jersey .353 │
│Minnesota .350 │
│Boston .341 │
│League average .306 │
└───────────────────┘
And I do mean RAMPANT fouling. Jerry Sloan's teams have posted
ridiculously high foul numbers for most of the past two decades, and
last season the Jazz redoubled their efforts. Utah led the NBA in
both personal fouls and opponent free throw attempts, and did so by a
staggering margin. Jazz opponents took .393 free-throw attempts per
field-goal attempt last season (see chart); not only was that
terrible, but they're actually getting worse: Relative to the league
it was a .05 increase from their league-worst mark of a year earlier.
And it was hugely costly. Utah gave up 410 more points on free throws
than it would have by fouling at the league average rate, or exactly
five points a game -- an amount large enough to swing about 13 games
in a typical NBA season. Granted, opponents would have taken shots
from the field on most of those possessions and probably hit a solid
percentage (fouls tend to come when the defense is at a
disadvantage); but even if they'd made 55 percent of them Utah would
have saved itself two points a game.
Those two points a game are worth between five and six wins for a
typical NBA team, which for the Jazz last season was the difference
between being the top seed in the West and having to play on the road
every round.
More generally, the major hole they dig themselves into with the
fouls makes it virtually impossible for the Jazz to have a
championship-caliber defense; the only reason they were even in the
hunt last season was because they led the league in offensive
efficiency over the second half of the season. That's been the case
for Utah ever since Sloan adopted the foul-on-every-play strategy
near the end of the Stockton-Malone era (their Finals teams fouled at
much less prodigious rates) -- the defense has been average at best
every season, because you can't be at the top of the league giving
away this many free points.
It's amazing that the personnel cost wasn't greater, too. Utah had a
unique approach to avoid foul trouble to its best players -- the
starters would play normal defense, and the bench guys would come in
and just hammer people. While each of the starting five had
reasonable foul rates, four Jazz reserves (Paul Millsap, Ronnie
Price, C.J. Miles and Jason Hart) had among the highest foul rates at
their positions, while Matt Harpring and Kyle Korver weren't far
behind.
Korver, actually, is a great example of how this is clearly a
tactical decision for the Jazz. He averaged 3.0 and 3.1 fouls per 36
minutes the two previous seasons as a member of the Sixers; in Utah
that ballooned to 4.2.
The fouling at least had one positive: often the Jazz wrested the
ball away and the zebras let the contact go. Utah had the league's
third-best opponent turnover rate, forcing miscues on 16.7 percent of
opponent possessions. Combined with a strong performance on the
defensive boards, the Jazz were the toughest team in the league to
get a shot off against (see chart). Utah opponents fired only 94.1
shots per 100 possessions, which was the main reason the Jazz were
able to finish 12th in defensive efficiency instead of, say, 30th.
┌─────────────────────┐
│Fewest Opp. Shots Per Possessions, 2007-08│
├─────────────────────┤
│TEAM OPP. SHOTS* PER POSS. │
│Utah 94.1 │
│Boston 94.7 │
│Philadelphia 95.2 │
│Indiana 95.5 │
│Chicago 95.7 │
│League average 96.7 │
├─────────────────────┤
│ * Shots = FGA + (FTA * 0.44) │
└─────────────────────┘
Speaking of Korver, it was Utah's midseason acquisition of him that
helped turned their season around after a slow start. The Jazz
started the year just 18-17, with Mehmet Okur in particular playing
horribly, before snapping out of their early funk and rolling to the
division title. That was around the same time Korver arrived -- after
trading Gordan Giricek and a first-round pick to Philadelphia to get
him, they went 38-16.
His impact was more the threat of his shot than the reality of it --
he only made 38.8 percent of his 3s for the Jazz. But on a team
devoid of his shooting, his presence loosened up packed-in defenses
-- especially when Okur was off the floor -- and allowed the other
guys to do their thing.
As I mentioned, Utah ranked first in offensive efficiency for the
second half of the season, and second for the year as a whole. They
were second in the NBA in field-goal percentage, 2-point shooting
percentage, true shooting percentage, and free-throw attempts per
field-goal attempt (Jerry's teams get it as good as they give it when
it comes to fouling). And although they still rarely took 3-pointers
-- they had the fourth-lowest rate of 3-point shots -- Korver led
them to a solid 37.2 percent.
Like I said, it was a championship-caliber offense. And hopefully
they'll stop hacking long enough to prove it.
Biggest Strength: Interior scoring
This team is a layup machine, plain and simple. Williams is among the
best point guards in basketball and always delivers it to the right
spot, and starters Boozer, Kirilenko and Brewer are all outstanding
finishers around the basket.
Additionally, Utah's offensive system is an unorthodox one by NBA
standards, relying heavily on off-ball screening and cutting to get
players open near the rim for short-range shots. It produces lots of
layups and free throws, especially for players like Brewer and
Harpring who excel at moving without the ball -- Williams will always
find them, and Kirilenko is a good passer too.
Off the bench, the Jazz don't lose a lot in this regard. I mentioned
Harpring above, but Millsap is also very effective around the basket,
and Price, the backup at point guard, is a good finisher when he gets
to the rim. With layups coming in waves, the Jazz don't need a whole
lot of shooting to be among the league's elite offenses.
Biggest Weakness: Interior defense
A big reason the Jazz sent opponents to the line so often was because
the backline bailed them out so rarely. The combo of Okur and Boozer
up front is brilliant offensively, but at the defensive end their
weaknesses are more easily exposed. Okur is indifferent at best as a
help defender and can't get off the floor to block shots at the rim,
while Boozer's explosive leaping at the offensive end doesn't seem to
translate into quality defense.
Off the bench it doesn't get too much better. Millsap is incredibly
active but incredibly foul-prone, while Jarron Collins is a spent
force whose offensive limitations prevent him from playing much.
Harpring, when used at power forward, is of limited utility as a help
defender and worthless as a shot-blocker.
For those reasons, some wonder if the Jazz would be better served by
trading one of their bigs for a wing player and moving Kirilenko to
power forward. He was one of the league's leading shot-blockers from
that position until two years ago, and might be a highly effective
help-side flyswatter if returned to that role. With both frontcourt
starters potentially entering free agency after the season, it's food
for thought.
Outlook
OK, they foul on every play. The good news is that if they just cut
the foul rate a little bit, they can be good enough defensively to
allow the offense to win games for them. And we have reason to
suspect they can pull that feat off. Between Brewer's emergence as a
stopper on the wings, a likely reduction in playing time for
high-foul players like Harpring and Collins, and, more hopefully,
some recognition by Sloan that this state of affairs must change, it
seems plausible for the Jazz to improve here.
If so, it's hard to argue with them in the West, because they've got
everything else. The Jazz have go-to stars in both the backcourt and
the frontcourt, have multiple scoring weapons surrounding them, and
have arguably the deepest team in the conference. That last point is
important, because this team is tailor-made for the regular-season
grind --it can easily survive minor injuries and slumps and has no
player who is too indispensable.
Additionally, they're still on the upswing. Williams is 24, Boozer is
26, and every key player except Harpring is in his 20s. Okur and
Korver are both likely to have better years than a season ago, but
nobody except perhaps Harpring projects to sharply regress.
Add it all up and the Jazz, perhaps a bit surprisingly, came out with
the top record in the West when I projected each team's outcome --
beating out the Lakers by a single game. L.A. has the higher ceiling,
and arguably so does Houston, but the Jazz have a far better
likelihood of getting close to their roof.
Taking things a step further, picking the Jazz to have home-court
advantage by virtue of the best record in the West means one almost
has to pick them to win the conference, too -- between the altitude
and the crowd's impact on the zebras, this team is nigh unbeatable at
home. It's a crowded race and they're one of three teams I see as
having roughly equal odds of making it out, but if I have to pick a
horse out West, this is the one.
Prediction: 58-24, 1st in Northwest Division, 1st in Western
Conference
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