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The Kids Are All Right- The Downbeat - #663


In case you didn't notice, Enes Kanter is a fantastic rebounder. One of the best ways to measure a player's ability to rebound is by finding out their rebound percentage. Or in other words what percentage of offensive, or defensive or total rebounds does that player grab of all available rebounds while that player is on the floor? Enes "the rebounding menace" grabs 17% of available offensive rebounds, 27% of available defensive rebounds, and 22% of all available rebounds. How good is that? During his rookie year, Kevin Love grabbed 15% of offensive rebounds, 27% of defensive ones and 21% overall. Al Jefferson grabs 6%, 25%, and 15% this year. Kanter is already a top notch rebounder and is on pace to be one of the best in the league. And he's only 19 years old.

Unfortunately we live in a professional league where players don't stick around and play their whole career with one team as often as they used to. With that said, I was glad to hear and read this quote from Jim Burton's piece on Derrick Favors.

"It felt like (family) when I first got here," he said. "That's why I like the organization. It's more of a family atmosphere."


"We explained to him, 'Hey, we got you in this trade because you're one of the pieces that we wanted. Dig in, find a place to live, expect to be here,' " Kevin O'Connor said. "That's one of the things I think he needs to hear.

Listen closely, Derrick. We want you here. We want you here. Play that over in your mind 100 times if you need to.

Here's an intimate look at the rookie that the Jazz drafted out of Colorado. He looked a lot different when he made this video. Hint: Don't actually watch this video for more than a few seconds. It's lame.


Gordon Hayward has had an up and down season with his scoring and his shooting. But even when he hasn't shot the ball well, he has found ways to stay involved. In fact among shooting guards and small forwards, Hayward is 6th in the league with 6.5 assists per 48 minutes played. Hayward only trails Kobe Bryant, Delonte West, Lou Williams, Hedo Turkoglu, and Lebron James. Sharing is caring and Gordon Hayward cares. A lot.

This was Jeremy Evans' one attempt in the basketball game last night. Seems appropriate. Future Slam Dunk Champion of 2012, Jeremy Evans, ladies and gentlemen. #airjeremy

B

Since this is a special Martin Luther King Jr. Day edition of the downbeat, I hope none of you will be offended if I add one more beat to the today. I will forever revere Martin Luther King Jr for the great he has done, but it is important to remember that there were many people of all races that sacrificed their lives and their bodies for the advancement of equal rights. One of my other favorite civil rights activists was a man named Medgar Evers. Evers was gunned down in his driveway in front of his own family. King obviously gave his life. Today, it is important to remember these sacrifices that were made and realize where we have come as a country and a society and realize where we still have to get to. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day, everybody. Be good to each other.

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Comments

Lame Lame Lame

If you didnt realize #2 section is some Eric Burks who the heck is that the Jazz never drafted him, more like Alec Burks, Quit posting stupid stuff

It's funny if you realize that Bolerjack has been calling him Eric Burks all season long.
Lol

Number 3 is awesome! Thanks for the explanation. I didn’t notice Boler had been doing this. Might need to hop onto some game threads.

ha. One of them even called him Eric Borks once
Says the guy who just joined today...
You can tell clark to stop posting stupid stuff

when you learn what punctuation is, and the proper use thereof.

Sarcasm...
Maybe lead out with something a little less confrontational for your first post

Something like “I don’t get it. Why is there a video of this Eric Burks guy on here?”

See, then people will let you in on the joke and welcome you into the fold

Easy there, buddy.

Fine to not understand something, not fine to attack.

Here's some fun stuff about the kids

1. Kanter

His full per-36 minute line looks good. But went and recalculated it without those first two games. I usually don’t like to throw out games (I make fun of it whenever someone throws out Al’s worst games to recalculate his averages), but considering the context (Kanter hasn’t really played in 2 years), it seems fair for him. Anyway, his recalculated line if you throw out his first two games where he really struggled with his shot:

12.5 pts, 13 rbds, 0.6 ast, 1.8 blocks, 1.1 steals, 2.8 TO’s, 57% FG, 63% FT’s, 2.8 fouls.

His PER is 16.6

2. Derrick Favors

Not throwing out anything. Just his per-36 minute line

14 pts, 11 rbds, 0.1 ast, 2 blocks, 1 steal, 2.3 TO’s, 52% FG, 54% FT’s, 4.5 fouls

His PER is 14.8

The fouls are still high, but it’s a huge improvement from last year (6 per 36 minutes). He’s also shown some great moves and decent range. His O is still imperfect, and his scoring outside of 4 feet is inconsistent, but the tools are all there.

3. Alec Burks

He played great last night. Shot within the offense, made big shots, got to the line well. I still want to see his passing. Of his 8 assists thus far this year, 6 were in one game. He’s got a good knack for passing, he just doesn’t think about it often enough yet.

His per-36 minute line

18.4 pts, 4.6 rbds, 2.3 ast, 0.3 blocks, 1.2 steals, 2.3 TO, 44% FG, 68% FT, 3.2 fouls

His PER is 15.5

4. Gordon Hayward

His up-and-down year is reflected in his stats. And it’s totally inappropriate to throw out the worst games like I did for Kanter, because there’s no similar context, and they’re not clumped at the beginning of the year—he goes back and forth between good and bad often.

Here’s his per-36 minute line:

12.4 pts, 3.7 rbd, 4.8 ast, 1 block, .5 steal, 2 TO, 42% FG, 74% FT, 2.8 fouls

His PER is 13.3

Good thing about Gordon, though. The past two games marks only the second time all year he’s played two strong games in a row. And when you look at context (team winning/losing and minutes played), it’s easy to argue that this set was more impressive than the first set. He also took a season-high number of shots last night. Bit by bit he seems to becoming more confident.

That's some interesting stuff.

As a team we really need to work on our FT percentage.

Team FT's have been ridiculous

I’m researching some interesting stuff about the team’s FT% for Thursday’s Downbeat.

Statistically, as long as you have enough of it, its perfectly acceptable to throw out some of the data as outliers, right?

Just a matter of having a good reasoning behind it. However, I don’t think there is quite enough yet. Maybe 10 more games?

Interesting similarity

between the per-36 stats of Kanter and Favors.

By throwing out Kanter's first 2 games

It’d probably hurt his rebounding after that 11 board LAL game. I say that, not to criticize, but to reiterate just how well Kanter is rebounding. I follow his rebounding advanced stats very closely and tweet about his progress a lot. The kid has the makings to be an elite, elite rebounder.

It lowered the boards just a bit

Honestly, the only thing that changed much was his shooting . And I thought it was worth adjusting for because of the context, and because those two games affected the FG that much.

Lame Lame

sorry the #3 section

Hey, he gave you a warning first didn't he?

Hint: Don’t actually watch this video for more than a few seconds. It’s lame.

5. Second that. Be good to each other.
Haircuts

Anyone else see a correlation between a new (i.e. shorter) haircut and better performance for OGTime?

Sounds like something Moni would notice. (Is she doing a tie thing for Corbin?)

Lesser hair = lesser air resistance...
Fro-hawk
How about the correlation between Raja's new baby and his improvement?

Sounds to me like if OG has a few kids, he’s golden.

I knew I couldn't be the only one to notice!

He shaves his beard, he goes for a great game. He cuts his hair, he has another great game. He should shave it all of and see if he can become a late, break-out write-in all-star. (as many hyphens as you can put into a sentence)

Which only proves

That the farther you get away from Bieber, the world is a better place.

Elder Hayward > Bieber face

If the Jazz are a top 5 team in the West

could we potentially have Sap and/or Jefferson in the All-Star game?

No way we get both these guys in the All-star game.

I’d be happy to get at least one of them though.

Al has to compete with Bynum, Jordan, Gasol, and Nene.

Milsap has to compete with Aldridge, Pau, Love, Griffin. Duncan, Dirk.

Al probably has the best shot, but is actually being hurt by Milsap taking over in the last few games.

Sad thing is

Al does have the best shot. But Millsap is more worthy.

if they do get in i expect it to be as a reserve, which i think is better than the starters anyway because it isn't fan based

but more of a recognition by peers

I thought the coach picked the reserves.

Is that not true?

No, because All Star voting is right now.

And because coaches rarely pick Jazz players.

Top 5? That is a HUGE if.

Granted, we’re sitting at 3rd right now…hahaha.

I meant if we are still a top 5 team in the west haha
i love this downbeat

It is just do happy and positive way nice way to start the week

3

I am totally stoked we drafted this Eric Burks kid. What a find!!

4

I love that Hayward is such a pass-first guy, but sometimes it’s to a fault. It drives me crazy when I see him make a great move and get all the way to the rim, only to pass it all the way back out to the 3-point line. (there was a great example of this last night w/ 5:10 to go in the first quarter.) He just needs to be slightly more selfish and pick his spots better. It seems like sometimes he outsmarts himself.

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