The key to the entire Jazz season is the improvement of the young players. Traditionally, players make their largest jumps between year 2 and 3. However, with bigs it sometimes can be in year 4.

To try to find comparisons to Derrick Favors I ran a simple search, players who were 20 or younger that were 6’9 to 7’0 and played between 2200 and 3800 minutes.

Nine players fit this description ranging from 1994 to 2011. I eliminated Chris Weber Here is a breakdown of each of them and how they progressed in their comparable season to Derrick Favors.

Andris Biedrins

In Biedrins first two years he played just 385 and 1000 minutes. In his third season, at 20, he played 2382 minutes. In that season and his next he averaged 10 points nad 10 rebounds a game. For the next three years he was a 30 minute a night 10/10 players shooting nearly 60% over that stretch.
Biedrins then got the yips from the free throw line and his game has fallen apart. His jump from year 2 when he was 3.8 pts and 4.2 rebs to 9.5 rebs and 9.3 pts is a good sign for Favors.

Andrew Bynum

Bynum is a interesting comp for Favors because he entered the league as an 18 year old and Favors as a 19 year old. Year 2 Bynum player 1793 minutes and got hurt in year 3 playing only 35 games.
However, he jumped from 7.8 pts and 4 rebounds, almost exactly Favors numbers last year, to 13 pts and 10 rebs a game in his third season.
According to basketball reference, Favors defensive rating was 108 as a rookie and 103 last year, Bynum was 105 and 106 his first two years dropping to 101 in his third season.
The third season set the tone for his per 36 minutes for the rest of his career.

Greg Monroe

Monroe was drafted the same year as Favors but has had a much more natural development. He played a 2,222 minutes his rookie year in contrast to Favors 1,500 and another 2,000 last year whereas Favors played just 1,376.
Therefore, the jump Monroe made year 1 to 2 maybe an indicator of where Favors is in his career. Monroe went from 9 pts and 7.5 rebs a game to 15 points and 9.7 rebs a game in his second year.
Interestingly, Monroe per 36 minutes production really sky rocketed from 12 pts per 36 to 17 per 36. Favors has been at 14.7 pts per 36 since joining the Jazz.
Every aspect of Greg Monroe’s game improved, rebounding, assists and scoring in year 2. If he has another jump he is going to be an all-star for the Pistons. If Favors can take his jump in year 3 Jazz fans will be excited.

Amare Stoudamire
Amare entered the league at 20 and played 2,500 minutes in his rookie season. Favors entered at 19 and in his first two years played 2,900.
After his rookie year Amare averaged 13.5 pts and 8.8 rebounds. In his second season he exploded to 20 pts and 9 rebs and then in year 3 went bananas scoring 26 pts and 9 rebs.
Favors doesn’t have the offensive game of Amare. Yet his per 36 minute numbers at the end of last year were 14.9 pts per 36 and 11.1 rebounds per 36 minutes. After Amare’s rookie year was 15.5 pts per 36 minutes and 10.1 rebound.
In the next season Amare jumped to 20.1 pts per 36 minutes and then to 25.9 pts per 36 minutes. Not sure that is in Favors bag of tricks, but it shows the type of jump that can be anticipated from this kind of athlete.

Brook Lopez
Lopez is a different player than Favors, but still comparable in development because he entered the NBA after two years of college at 20 and immediately played 2,500 minutes in his rookie year. Favors got those minutes in his first two years after 1 year of college.
Lopez jumped from 13 pts per game to 18.8 pts per game in his second year. He had an increase in rebounding but a decrease in rebounding per minutes played.
Lopez point per 36 minutes increased from 15.4 to 18.3 to 20.8 in his first three seasons.
His shooting percentage and rebounding both decreased.

Eddy Curry
Curry’s career is in the doldrums now but he is worth the look in his early years. Curry’s first two years are very close to Favors, same age, similar minutes at the end and after two years he averaged about 9 pts and 4 rebs. Favors is at 8 and 6.
The next year Curry finally got a lot of time and played 30 minutes a night averaging 15 pts but just 6 rebounds Favors per 36 minutes rebounding numbers show him to be a superior rebounder to Curry. Offensively, Curry had higher numbers in his 1st two years.
Though Curry is a thought of a bust now, he did averaged 15 pts his 3rd year and then 16 the following year, with a high of 19.5 in his 6th year in the NBA.
Staying with what the previous players all showed was a considerable uptick after 2,500 career minutes in their career.

Nene Hilario
Nene’s career is one of the stranger progressions in the NBA. Derailed by an ACL and cancer he doesn’t follow the usual progression.
Nene played 2,500 minutes in his rookie at the age of 20. He averaged 11 pts and 6 rebs and his per 36 minute numbers were 13 pts and 8 rebounds. To some extent his numbers never changed. He is one of the few players who never took the next step.
It is hard to tell if he was going to take that step, because in his 4th season he played 1 game and in his sixth he played just 16. In his 8th season he finally took the next step.

Spencer Hawes
Hawes is the one player has never gone to the next level. He played 931 minutes his rookie year in Sacramento and then his 2nd year at 20 he played 2,220 minutes. He averaged 11 pts and 7 rebs and shot 46.6%. That has been his best nba season.
His minutes have diminished every season since his 2nd year dropping to 1,900 then 1,700 and last year in the shortened season just 920.
If you lift the limit of not playing 3,800 minutes you include both Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard in this group.

Howard played 2,670 minutes in his first year and averaged 12 pts and 10 rebs and continued to progress in year two 16 pts an 12 rebs and then 18 ptd and 12 rebds before exploding in year 4 with 21 pts and 14 rebounds a game.

Chris Bosh played 2,500 minutes his first year as a 19 year old and then 3,017 in his 2nd year. In his first three years he jumped from 11.5 pts then 16.5 and finally hit his stride in year 3 at 22.5 pts a game. His rebounding took a similar increase.

CONCLUSION
In almost every case these big man made a significant jump after playing wither 2,500 minutes or playing in the NBA 2 seasons. Favors has hit both of those plateaus. Looking over these players in almost every case the player became a double double player at this point and then continued to take one more significant step in the following season.

I am working on a larger project with what to anticipate with Favors this season. My general feeling is Favors will leave the coaches no choice and he will be our best player this season.

Therefore, how do the Jazz coaches move the minutes around to keep everyone happy. The Jazz have to hope that Favors can average 35 mins and Kanter can move from his 14 to nearly 20 a night. But that combines for an increase of about 20 minutes without losing any players.

Last season, Jefferson averaged 34 minutes and Millsap averaged 30. Let’s assume Jefferson drops to 30 a night and Millsap drops to 26 a night. The only way to achieve Favors at 35 minutes and Kanter at 20 is to play Millsap about 6 minutes per half as a small forward.

In turn, Millsap would be playing 14 minutes a night as a power forward and 12 minutes a night as a small forward.

Where this gets tricky is figuring out how to achieve it in the rotations. Tyrone Corbin last year didn’t like playing Jefferson and Kanter together and I can’t imagine that is going to change.

Truthfully, I think Kanter getting to 20 minutes is going to be hard to achieve. Kanter will have to blow some peoples socks off to be able to get to that point in his 2nd year at 20 year old. He is working hard, last time I was at the facility he was there.

How could you put this together. Assume 1st half and 2nd half rotations would be the same, which will never be the case because different line-ups will close each night

Favors/Jefferson start and play 1st 8 minutes
Millsap subs in at 6 minute as the small forward
Kanter enters at 90 minute mark for Jefferson
End of 1st quarter – Favors 12; Jefferson 8; Millsap 6; Kanter 4

Start the 2nd Quarter with Millsap and Kanter
Jefferson enters at the 9 minute mark for Kanter
Favors enters at the 6 minute mark for Millsap
End of 2nd Quarter — Favors 18; Jefferson 17; Millsap 12; Kanter 7

I suspect that on certain nights Millsap re-enters in the 2nd quarter or 4th quarter with 4 minutes left as the small forward then getting to the 26 minutes a night.

Kanter is only at 14 in this scenario. Kanter is going to have to be good enough to get minutes from Jefferson.

I believe Marvin Williams in the small forward and plays around 27 minutes a night as he has the past two years in Atlanta. In the above scenario he would play 27 of the 36 minutes at small forward that Millsap is not playing with Hayward sliding over for a few minutes as well.

The problems are going to arise if Kanter and Burks force themselves on the floor. In addition, if Foye can play the back up point guard many of these issues go away immediately.

Marvin Williams and Randy Foye for Raja Bell, CJ Miles and Josh Howard

This analysis is a bit more complicated because the Jazz injuries rarely had Bell, Miles and Howard all playing at the same time and therefore the possession numbers are a bit screwy.

CJ Miles used 10 possessions per game, Josh used 11 and Raja used 6. For the convience of the discussion I will take 80% of those possessions as the Jazz regular amount of CJ, Josh and Raja possessions on any one night.

That makes for 22 possessions a night with CJ averaged .88 pts per possession, Josh was .91 and Raja was a high quality 1.05. Using the 80% mentioned before these three combined to use 21.6 possessions a game and score 20.09 pts per game.

Now move those 21.6 possessions to Foye and Marvin Williams. Last year Foye averaged 11.6 possessions a game and Williams averaged 10 which nicely ads up to 21.6. It is not clear how those possessions while be distributed with the Jazz. However, since both Josh and Cj got 11 a game I think it is fair to assume Randy and Marvin will be around 11 a game as well.

Last season, Foye averaged .94 pts per possession, one of the best of his career. Marvin averaged 1.01 pts per possession. Take the aforementioned 21.6 possessions and move them to Foye and Williams the Jazz increase their offense to 21 pts per or 1 point per game better than the old crew.

One point is worth 2.7 wins over a season.

Defensively, the Jazz allowed 105.4 pts per 100 possession with CJ on the floor and were worse when he was on the bench at 108.3. CJ played 67% of his minutes as a shooting guard.

The opposite was true for Raja Bell, the Jazz allowed 110.5 pts per 100 possessions when he was on the floor and 106.2 when he was on the bench
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Finally, Josh Howard who played 37% of the Jazz minutes at small forward last year, the Jazz defense was a notch better when he was on the floor than off the floor. The Jazz defense allowed 106.2 per 100 points and when he was on the bench 107.7.

None of these players had a huge impact on the game defensively. The contrast with Raja was the most extreme.

Marvin Williams played 67% of his minutes at small forward and 20% at power forward, with the final minutes at center. According to PER, Williams is a great defender at the small forward allowed a PER of 11.9. He is poor at the power forward.

For the season, the Hawks were a better defensive team with Williams on the bench then they were when he was on the floor. They allowed 103.3 with him on the floor and 101.2 with him on the bench. These numbers are dramatically better than the former Jazz players but, the Hawks were better with Williams on the bench.

Two seasons ago, the Hawks were almost identically defensively with Williams on or off the floor and three seasons ago they were much better with Williams on the floor. In that year, Williams played almost exclusively at the small forward.

Foye is very similar to CJ and Josh. The Clippers were slightly better when he was on the floor than when he was on the bench. The Clippers allowed 106.8 when Foye was on the floor and 107.9 when he was off the floor.

According to 82games Foye allowed a PER of 14.4 at shooting guard but only 12.5 at point guard in limited time. Foye’s size may make him a very good defensive back up point guard. The last time he played a lot of point guard was in Washington and he allowed a 14.8 PER at the point.

Bell, Miles and Howard all allowed around 13 to 15 PER last year on defense. Harris and Watson were both between 16 and 17.

It is not clear the Jazz have a defensive upgrade with Marvin and Randy. Yet, if Marvin is solely a small forward he is at his strength and if Foye plays some of the back up point guard he maybe better defensively.

Being conservative I am going to call the defense a slight upgrade with the departure of Bell as the shooting guard spot but nothing too significant. Coupled with the offensive upgrade and a slight defensive upgrade I would call the Jazz 3 wins better with these moves.

The Lakers and Nuggets were involved in the blockbuster trade of the off-season and on Locked on Jazz we statistically broke down the trades to see how the teams improved. The Lakers improved nearly 7 wins and the Nuggets stayed about the same

For a moment let’s assume the Jazz just made two trades Devin Harris for Mo Williams and Raja Bell, CJ Miles and Josh Howard for Marvin Williams and Randy Foye. Here is how those would be statistically broken down if they had been made.

Devin Harris for Mo Williams
In Los Angeles Mo Williams used 14 possessions a game. In Utah Devin Harris used 12 possessions a game. Mo Williams averaged .94 pts per possession whereas Harris averaged a bit better at .95 pts per possession.

In the previous season both Harris and Williams were traded mid-season and that de-railed their effectiveness so we will keep the research one last year alone.

Offensively, the Jazz slipped about .14 pts per game with the move from Harris to Williams.

On the defensive end, Utah was very poor with Harris on the floor allowing 107.7 pts per 100 possessions and when he was on the bench they were a notch better at 106.8, but still not good. According to 82 games.com opposing pt guards had a 16.6 PER, a notch below average.

Mo Williams does not seem to be a defensive upgrade. With Mo on the floor the Clippers allowed 110 pts per 100 possessions and when he was off the floor they allowed 105.0. However, Williams played 80% of his minutes at the shooting guard where he is terribly undersized. In his limited time at point guard the opposing point guards had a 15.0 PER, average and better than Harris.

To discover if Williams is a better defensive point guard I went back to his two previous season. In 10-11 with the Clippers he was the point guard and allowed opponents just 13.7 PER. That is fairly strong. However, the defense still allowed 109.9 pts per 100 possessions when he was on the floor. That is better than the 110.7 they allowed when he was on the bench.

His Cleveland defensive numbers told a similar story, better at point than at shooting guard but not super at point guard.

Neither of these guys have great defensive numbers. The difference between the two seems to be immaterial.

In conclusion, looking statistically the Jazz are virtually the same on the offensive end and a slight upgraded defensively but not enough to account for wins. I would call the Jazz even statistically on this hypothetical deal.

The coaching staff can give you numerous reasons why the Jazz are improved on non numbers issues. Time will tell.

The other part of the mega Dwight Howard deal is the Nuggets are trading Aaron Afflalo and Al Harrington and receiving Andre Iguodala. Again the brilliance of the player acquired is his defense. Last year, the 76ers allowed 97.6 pts per 100 possession with Iguodala on the floor and 102.7 when he was on the bench. This difference is one of the highest of any wing player in the NBA.

Aaron Afflalo has the reputation as a good defender however when he was on the floor last year the Nuggets allowed 106.11 and when he was on the bench they allowed 103.6. With Iguodala taking those minutes the Nuggets defense will be considerably better.

On the offensive end, Iguodala used 13 possessions a game and scored at .92 pts per possession (league average is .91). The year prior Iguodala used 15 possessions a game. Denver traded Afflalo who used 14 possessions a night at 1.06 pts per possession. This is a huge step back offensively for the Nuggets. Over 14 possessions that comes out to losing nearly 2 points a game.

Research has shown that a point is worth 2.7 wins so offensively Denver steps back worth 5.4 wins. They will make a lot of that up defensively. However, last year the Nuggets ranked 19th in the NBA defensively and to make up for the offensive decline they will need to move to around 10th and I am not sure they can do that.

The Nuggets also moved Al Harrington who used 15 possessions a night at .95 pts per possession. It is unclear who on the Nuggets roster uses those possessions but most of the choices are not as good offensively.

In conclusion, Iguodala is a game changer defensively, but the Nuggets have taken a huge step backwards offensively.

This is a very quick and crude numbers analysis of what Dwight Howard does to the Lakers. Howard is the best defensive big in the NBA. Last year, the Lakers were 13th in the NBA in defense. From 06-07 to 10-11 the Orlando Magic were never worse than 6th worst defensive team in the NBA.

It is fair to assume the Lakers with Howard will move to top 5 in the NBA in defense. That is approximately a 2.5 pts per game improvement and that equals to a 6.75 win increase over the season.

On the offensive end, Bynum used 18 possessions a night and averaged one of the leagues best 1.02 pts per possession (league average is .91). Howard used 21 possessions a night in Orlando last season and 22 the previous season. Howard averaged a 1.03 pts per per possession. The difference is almost nothing. Over 20 possession in a game the .01 difference is worth only .2 pts per game and ,54 wins per season.

Therefore, the quick analysis has the Lakers a good deal better than they were a year before exclusively on the defensive end. Last year, the Lakers point differential was only 1.4. If they are 2.7 pts per game better and improve to a 4.1 point differential then they still trail last year’s Thunder (7.2), and Spurs (7.2), but places them clear above the rest of the west.

In addition, the Lakers added Steve Nash. However, from an early breakdown on Nash it was surprising how little the Lakers offense improved despite Nash’s addition.

Conclusion, the Lakers are better but they have not closed what was an enormous gap to the Spurs and Thunder

Whenever another team makes a trade in the West I plug the numbers into the Locke system and see if they have improved or not. Let me first say this is very rudimentary compared to John Hollinger or Kevin Pelton’s system. With that said, it has been remarkably good at forecasting what was going to happen.

When the Lakers acquired Gasol I plugged in the numbers and it was scary what came out and low and behold it was true. Same thing happened with the Celtics putting the big 3 together and with Chris Paul going to the Clippers.

This projection is entirely offensive based. I try to guestimate how a team will distribute their possessions based of the previous year’s performance and then plug in how each player does pts per possession used.

One of the more stunning statistical research projects I have done over the years is how little a players performance changes from team to team. The only time they really alter is if they are playing with one of the three or four elite players in the game. If you play with LeBron you look better than you are. When you played with Stockton and Malone or Jordan or Hakeem the same thing happened. Otherwise, players are who they are regardless of teammates. I know hard to buy into but believe me.

Here is the Jazz possession usage from last year:

I combined Howard and Miles into one player. They both averaged 10 possessions a game and were not always healthy at the same time. I did the same with Watson/Tinsley and with Carroll/Bell. Raja had a very good year at 1.05 pts per possession and Carroll was .87 but both used about 5 or 6 possessions a game when they played .

This gives the Jazz about 106 possessions a game and that is close if you count an offensive rebound as a new possession. The Jazz scored 98.9 points per those 106 possessions using last year’s numbers.

Now let’s project what happens this year. I dropped Jefferson 1 possession and Millsap 1 and those went to Favors. Hayward increased 2 possessions and those came from Howard/Miles who I put down to 11 in the name of Marvin Williams. Favors increased 3 possessions a game and Kanter increased 1 as well. I dispersed the 6 Bell/Carroll possessions with 3 going to Burks, 1 going to Marvin, 1 going to Hayward and 1 going to Mo.

Again the Jazz come out as 106 possessions and the total this time is 99.6 pts per game an increase of .7 pts as a team. That is an increase of 2 wins in a season.

The loss of Devin Harris at .98 pts per poss is significant and if you go back to two years ago when Mo Williams played point guard in Cleveland and in LA with LeBron or CP3 it was much worse.
For a larger improvement the Jazz will need Burks and Favors to go from .90 to something above the league average. If the two of them were both to get to .95 the Jazz would increase 2 points or almost 5 wins in a season.

The Jazz are better with the addition of Marvin and Mo but for a real significant jump the Jazz will need to get improvement from within. In addition, the Jazz real issue is they ranked 22nd in the NBA defensively and a larger role of Mo, Marvin and Favors may help defensively far more than offensively.

Will Marvin Williams be a better player for the Utah Jazz than he was for the Atlanta Hawks? The Utah Jazz certainly hope this to be true. A case can be made that Williams needed a move out of Atlanta.

However, before I do the analysis let me say I fundamentally believe a player is a player regardless of teammates and teams system. Al Jefferson has been remarkably close to the same player he was in Minnesota despite different system and different teammates. This is usually how it works.
In the case of Marvin Williams both psychologically and basketball wise it seems a new location and specifically Utah could allow Williams to prosper.

From the psychological standpoint Williams was drafted #2 ahead of Deron Williams and Chris Paul in one of the greatest draft gaffes of all time. Williams forever had the pressure of trying to live up to that mistake and he was never able to free him of that burden. For the first time this season he will be a member of a team without that expectation upon him.

On the floor, Williams became almost exclusively a spot up shooter. Last year, he was good at that hitting on 40% of his spot up three point shots. This was a big improvement from a year prior at 35%. Williams used 35% of his possessions last year on spot ups and 19% in transition.

His game didn’t fit the Hawks offense. The Hawks ran a isolation game with very little cutting and movement. Williams is not a good isolation player, he was just 6 of 18 shooting in isolation last year and the year prior he got more opportunity and struggled as well 15 of 53 shooting for 28%

Williams had success off cuts which is a large part of the Jazz offense hitting on 33 of 58 plays off cuts. This was true the year prior as well; he was 33 of 54 on the cut and got fouled 17% of the time on these plays. Watching him on synergy he anticipates well and moves off the ball with great smarts.

Williams was only involved in 37 post up plays and 16 pick and rolls all year. The question is whether that is because the system didn’t allow it or he couldn’t do it. A year prior he posted up more but didn’t have a great deal of success at 22 of 57 on post-ups.

One area of concern is Williams took a huge step backwards finishing at the rim last season. For the three years prior he was 64% at the rim and then this season he was just 54%, with 8.5% of his shots being blocked the highest in his career. He has been inconsistent on his 16 to 23 footer. The league average is 38% and last season Williams hit 34% after the year before nailing 44%.

Maybe the most important item is that Williams has always played better as a small forward rather than a power forward. In Atlanta he had to play nearly 40% of his minutes as a power forward. He was more productive on both the defensive and offensive ends as a small forward. He was overmatched defensively from the power forward position, but well above average defensively from the small forward.

Everything I have heard about Williams is he is a great guy, a hard worker and needs a fresh start. At this point he is a nice addition to a team and can fill a valuable complementary role, if can evolve beyond that in a new system will be the question.