The Way Too Early In The Season To Really Mean Anything Stats

I know its really, really early in the season and you can not tell much about this Jazz team after just two games, but I am going to try to anyway based on the stats. The only real surprise to me in these rankings is where Ronnie Price ended up. All of the other stats and team ranking seem to be right on after 2 games worth of data.

The Team Stats:

Offensive Efficiency: The Jazz rank third in the league in points scored per 100 possesions and 8th in average points per game. Not a big surprise here, the Jazz are an offensive machine and should be in the top 3 all year. Obviously the Jazz will get better with D-Will as well.

Deffensice Efficiency: The Jazz rank sixth in the league in points allowed per 100 possesions and 3rd in average points allowed per game. Can they keep this up? That is the NBA Championship question for sure. If they can keep both of those stats in the top 7 of the league I say yes.

The Player Stats:

The Good-
According to Hollinger's PER stat rating the Jazz have 3 players in the top 25 of the league. Boozer is coming in a #3, Brewer is at #21 and AK is at #25. Only San Antonio can equal 3 in the top 25 right now. You have to assume that D-Will will end up a top 25 player as well. I dont see AK and Brewer staying in the top 25, but they should be in the top 50 quite easily. The early returns for Ronnie Brewer look like all of the shooting practice and weight room work are paying off. AK is doing a little of everything and despite the constant questions about not starting he seems genuinely happy to playing as a 6th man.

The Average-
There is a pretty big gap from AK to the next Jazz player, but this next group is playing right around average for league according to the PER stats. Memo comes in at #133, Kover is at #142, Milsap is at #144 and Brevin Knight is at #160. If Memo can find his shot he should move up. Korver, Milsap and Knight seem to be right where they should be in the middle of the pack as role players.

The Bad-
Ronnie Price comes in at #242, which I don't think is reflective of his actual play on the court. He isnt really that bad and the team seems to better with him on the floor than Knight. His 1-9 game againt Denver is holding him down. CJ Miles is the last rotation player for the Jazz coming in at #254. I hope that CJ is better than this, he is certainly getting paid to be better. At least we have Harpring coming back to take his minutes and then maybe we can package CJ and Morris to the Sonics for some draft picks or spare parts.

I should point out that only 288 players qualify for this stat based on their playing time being more than 6 minutes per game. So no ranking for Almond or Fes.

I think that the Jazz are off to a good start and that we can take these wins and stats for what they are. While we have been missing D-Will our opponent has been missing their best player as well so I feel that the results of the games are close to what they would be with everyone healthy.