In describing the last three seasons of Utah basketball one would not be tempted to use the word “progress.” In 2006-07 the Jazz finished with 51 victories and an appearance in the Western Conference Finals. Two years ago the team improved to 54 wins, but was bounced in the second round. Last year, the Jazz regressed to 48 wins and a first round exit in the playoffs.
Such a record would suggest changes would need to be made if the Jazz are hoping to reverse course. This suggestion, though, was ignored by powers-that-be in Utah. This past summer the only change Utah made to its roster was adding guard Eric Maynor in the draft. Every other player listed on this team’s roster at ESPN.com was on the team in 2008-09.
Given that the Jazz are returning the same roster, should fans of this team expect the same outcome?
To answer that question, let’s first examine the outcome from last season. Table One reports the Wins Produced and WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] for each player employed by the Jazz last season.
Table One: The Utah Jazz in 2008-09
The Jazz employed five above average players last season (average WP48 is 0.100): Paul Millsap, Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer, Ronnie Brewer, and Andrei Kirilenko. Despite missing a combined 81 games this quintet still managed to produce 39.4 wins.
In the off-season Millsap was signed to an offer sheet by the Portland Trail Blazers. When Utah matched this offer it was expected that Boozer – who plays exactly the same position as Millsap – would be sent elsewhere. At the start of training camp, though, both Boozer and Millsap are still employed in Utah.
But who is the starter? At the moment, ESPN.com lists Boozer as the starter. So the depth chart for Utah would be as follows (with 2008-09 Win Produced and WP48 reported]:
Potential First String
PG: Deron Williams [10.9Wins Produced, 0.209 WP48]
SG: Ronnie Brewer [8.5 Wins Produced, 0.156 WP48]
SF: Andrei Kirilenko [5.2 Wins Produced, 0.138 WP48]
PF: Carlos Boozer [3.9 Wins Produced, 0.158 WP48]
C: Mehmet Okur [4.1 Wins Produced, 0.082 WP48]
Potential Second String
PG: Ronnie Price [-0.4 Wins Produced, -0.024WP48]
SG: C.J. Miles [1.3 Wins Produced, 0.038 WP48]
SF: Kyle Korver [3.2 Wins Produced, 0.081 WP48]
PF: Paul Millsap [10.9 Wins Produced, 0.229 WP48]
C: Kosta Koufos [0.4 Wins Produced, 0.031 WP48]
In addition to these ten players, the Jazz also have the services of the following players:
PG: Eric Maynor (Rookie, above average point guard last year in college)
SF: Matt Harpring [0.4 Wins Produced, 0.030 WP48]
C: Kyrylo Fesenko [-0.1 Wins Produced, -0.017 WP48]
Again, this team suffered some significant injuries last year, primarily to Carlos Boozer. Not only did Boozer miss games, his per-minutes performance also declined. Prior to last season Boozer’s career WP48 stood at 0.266. Had Boozer matched that performance last year the Jazz would have won 51 games and entered the playoffs as the 6th seed (as opposed to the 8th seed). And had Boozer been available the entire season – and maintained his career average – the Jazz might have won more than 55 games and taken the second seed. In sum, a healthy Boozer would have made a huge difference in 2008-09.
Understanding Boozer’s injuries gives us insight into the plan in Utah. If Boozer is healthy (and yes, that’s a big if), Utah can be one of the top teams in the West. Of course, there’s the issue of who gets to start at power forward? And perhaps more importantly, can Boozer and Millsap play together? If not, then the Jazz will always have a very productive player sitting on the bench.
If Boozer and Millsap can play together, though, the Jazz can field a line-up of Williams, Brewer, Kirilenko, Millsap, and Boozer. Such a line-up – with Boozer producing at his career average – would have an average WP48 of 0.200. To put that in perspective… a team where each player averages a 0.100 WP48 will win 41 games. So if the team doubles the average WP48, the team doubles its win total. Yes, this line-up is quite good.
Of course, other players will play. But the Jazz – with everyone playing and producing as they have in the past – can be quite formidable. And that decision to stay the course will look very, very smart (and many of my colleagues at Southern Utah will be very, very happy).
– DJ
The WoW Journal Comments Policy
Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.
The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score
Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:
Simple Models of Player Performance
What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say
Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics
Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.
Wages of Wins Journal 
romalley
September 30, 2009
It seems like so many teams improved. The Spurs, Mavericks, Blazers, Cleveland, Orlando, Washington, now possibly Utah if they stay healthy. The question, with all of this improvement, who’s going the other way? There’s only a certain amount of wins and losses the league can have as a whole. Where are all those losses adding up?
dberri
September 30, 2009
romalley,
One thing to remember is that all teams are being looked at as fully-healthy. That is not going to be the case. Injuries will happen, and those injuries will cause teams to decline.
TK
September 30, 2009
It’s off topic… but where are the QB Score stats? We’re three weeks in — that’s got to be a statistically significant number of plays!
Thanks for the blog, as always.
dberri
September 30, 2009
TK,
Your the first person to ask. Maybe a post on this after this week’s game. The season will be 25% over at that point.
romalley
September 30, 2009
I wonder how your boy Matt Stafford is doing. Apparently good enough to beat my Redskins…
brgulker
October 1, 2009
Dr. Berri,
Is there enough data to consider what Boozer offers while playing Center?
If so, I’d be curious to see what his numbers look like at that position. If he is productive at that position (even if less so than at PF), it might tell us something about whether or not Boozer and Milsap can play together.
Assuming a couple things: 1) Boozer can be productive at C; and 2) Utah is willing to pay the luxury tax; it seems quite possible that they have one of the best 3-man big man rotations in the league, doesn’t it?
I realize it’s speculating a bit, and I realize that Boozer has expressed a desire to be traded, and I also realize that Utah has expressed reluctance to pay the luxury tax … but (informed) speculation is what makes talking sports so fun, doesn’t it?
PJ
October 1, 2009
Tiny sample size, but that ideal unit wasn’t effective last year. Looks like, not surprisingly, it was not a good unit defensively (see 82games.com). But maybe someone who watched them play more can provide some details.
Tball
October 1, 2009
Romalley,
The key to the question about who is getting worse is to look at how the teams that got better are getting better. If the Blazers’ improvement comes from Miller, the Sixers will be getting worse for losing Miller. If Orlando improved with the arrival of Carter, the Nets will be worse for lacking Carter. Miami is expected to be worse. As are the Knicks.
And some of the improvements are only prospective. If improving requires a healthy Arenas, Brand, Manu, etc. and these players are not able to play a full season, those improvements will go away. Similarly, if the Celtics best case scenario is repeating last season’s record, if everyone is healthy, then we can assume they are going to be giving up a few wins.
Tball
October 1, 2009
Are we saving the Pistons for the end? Saw on TrueHoop yesterday that the Mavericks’ stat guru thought Chicago blew it by allowing Gordon to go to Detroit and that Detroit would take Chicago’s seat in the playoffs.
He also mentioned in his blog that the T-Wolves blew it by drafting two PGs and trading away Telfair because Telfair is an “outstanding point guard.” P/M with personalized, top secret “noise filters” seems to be all the rage with NBA team stat gurus.
dberri
October 1, 2009
Tball,
Did you look at Winston’s report on Gordon’s career at his blog? Apparently the noise filters still leave quite a bit of noise.
Jeff Siegel
October 1, 2009
TBall: The Knicks are expected to be worse? By whom? And why?
Tball
October 1, 2009
Jeff,
You’re right. As the Knicks gave away two of the five players that were better, on a per minute basis (minimum 100 minutes), than Gallinari, I expected they’d be worse by giving those minutes to players not as good as Gallinari. I thought db had suggested, when he said they were discarding the season, that they would get worse. He didn’t.
There is a lot of mediocre talent shifted around over there since the start of last season, but I don’t have a good reason for expecting them to do worse.
Tball
October 1, 2009
db,
I looked over at Winston’s blog. Apparently you have to buy the book to have the terms defined. Any notion what “impact” is?
Gordon was great at “impact” last year, but was in the negative the year before (not sure if zero is average and I’m not sure if the value means a negative impact or really didn’t impact the games).
Winston champions Gordon based on the good season and dismisses the bad season. The bad season is dismissed, in part, because Heinrich didn’t shoot well in November ’07. Three seasons ago Gordon’s impact was positive. The year before that it was in the negative. The year before that, his rookie year, it was positive. The only consistency is the fluctuation. And for that, Winston thinks Gordon is a $14m/year player.
Italian Stallion
October 1, 2009
I think the Knicks will be a better team, but they could be worse on a relative basis because several other teams may have improved more.
The Knicks have so many young developing players, it seems likely they will get an upside surprise from at least one player. If they get more than one, they will be decent.
IMO, Telfair is another example of the problems with Adj +/-, but I’m willing to see what Gordon does on Detroit before blasting him.
Italian Stallion
October 1, 2009
Boozer doesn’t have a very good long term record for staying healthy. I think you almost have to assume some down time for him. If he winds up being healthy for almost the whole season, it should be considered an upside surprise.
PJ
October 1, 2009
Not many Jazz fans around, I take it? No one wants to challenge the idea that, even if everyone’s healthy, Boozer and Millsap aren’t going to see the floor a lot together — and even if they do, they might not be as effective as Professor Berri thinks?
MC Welk
October 1, 2009
Jazz fan here … keeping quiet because I don’t want to jinx it.
The Franchise
October 1, 2009
As another Utah resident, the vibe here isn’t very positive about Boozer. However, the real problem is having a player produce from the 5. Okur may be called a center, but that doesn’t mean he is one. Koufos and Fez don’t contribute anything significant. But perhaps having significantly above-average play from every other position will be enough to compensate.
Jazz Fan
October 1, 2009
Sloan has said that they’ll see the floor together, but that lineup isn’t used a lot because Kirilenko and Brewer aren’t great shooters. That more than Boozer’s inability to play center is why the lineup isn’t ideal.
But if you switch out Kirilenko or Brewer for Okur or Korver you don’t sacrifice too much on the average WP side, and you have another threat out on the perimeter to keep Boozer and Millsap from getting collapsed on. Okur’s size is also a factor, but Sloan throws Millsap in at center quite a bit so size isn’t the whole story. If either Kirilenko or Brewer managed to improve their shooting this summer then things might change, but as it stands right now the Millsap-Brewer-AK-DWill-Boozer lineup isn’t as effective as Sloan would like it to be.
MC Welk
October 1, 2009
http://www.sltrib.com/sports/ci_13463042
dberri
October 1, 2009
MC Welk,
Millsap at SF? That should be interesting.
PJ
October 1, 2009
Interesting stuff, Jazz Fan, thanks. I like the team and hope they improve this year. And since Sloan is perhaps the best coach in the league (or maybe second to Popovich), I’d certainly trust his ideas on this.
Utah Jazz Blog
October 1, 2009
Nice article. As a numbers geek, I love the statistical analysis. My biggest contention with your assessment is that a starting lineup of Williams, Brewer, Kirilenko, Millsap, and Boozer would be absolutely abysmal from an outside shooting perspective. They need at least one guy (aside from DWill) who can stretch the defense. Otherwise teams will just pack the middle and dare them to shoot.
Utah Jazz Blog
October 1, 2009
Sorry for the somewhat duplicate post. I hadn’t read the other responses carefully and just realized that Jazz Fan had already made a lot of the same points. JF, I concur!
My Utah Jazz Blog contains a few articles with my thoughts on the Jazz offseason and their prospects for the coming year. Check it out if you’re curious.
Caleb
October 1, 2009
I’ve thought for a while that the Jazz are a ridiculously talented and deep team, but for some reason (injuries for one I’m sure) they haven’t become an elite one.
Tommy_Grand
October 2, 2009
The Jazz should trade Boozer while he still commands prime value. Of course, I would not sell him cheap since, if no stellar offer is forthcoming, their BATNA (keeping him) is decent.
Tball
October 2, 2009
Trade machine offering – Boozer and Harpring for Redd. In Milwaukee, Boozer pushes Warrick out of the starting role and Delfino enters the starting lineup as a SG. In Utah, Milsap enters the starting lineup and Brewer becomes the first man off the bench, while Redd helps spread the floor. (Boozer and Redd had similar WP48 numbers last season)
The biggest problem for Utah trading Boozer is they don’t want to be so far over the tax cap and there are not many trades out there where they can significantly reduce their tax number. In this deal, the cap number for Utah drops slightly for this year, but Redd would lock them into a high tax number again next year.
todd2
October 3, 2009
smashmouth basketball a la sloan. perimeter defense (bigs in foul trouble from needing to help too much), transition game (easy baskets) and overcoming deficits (inability to play fast and score in bunches) will be an issue again—no speed.