A few years back a friend of mine said, “You know your team is bad when you are worrying about your starting 5 players.  You know your team is really good when you have time to worry about your water boy.”  Right now that water boy is Gordon Hayward.  He, selected by the Jazz with the 9th pick in the draft, was supposed to be gift-wrapped talent sent from the heavens.  Now he has become the Jazz’s victory cigar only seeing playing time in garbage time at the end of blowouts.

30 games into the season Jazz fans are eager to call the Hayward a bust and a waste of a pick, eagerly pointing to other rookies (Landry Fields, Xavier Henry, etc.) as proof that the Jazz missed the mark with this selection.  Here are a few points that I’d like to make before we throw Hayward under the bus and give up on him before the season is even halfway over.

We are comparing him to Wesley Matthews

AP Photo/Don Ryan

Wesley Matthews was able to steal, yes I said steal, playing time because of injuries.  Korver was hurt, Miles was hurt, Price had a few bumps and bruises.  This allowed Matthews to play out of necessity.  Otherwise he never would have seen time, possibly never would have been signed, if no preseason injuries occurred.  It is true he stepped up but there is something to be said to stepping up because you HAVE TO instead of pushing others to do so.  Matthews was able to gain confidence because he was their ONLY option at SG for a time.  Knowing that you can make mistakes without being pulled is a luxury that cannot be overstated.  Also Matthews was a 4 year college player.  There is something to be seen from playing 4 years of college.  It is called experience and maturity.  Hayward is still learning that.

Veteran Team

Veteran Cast

Hayward is coming onto a very veteran laden team.  Miles is a 5 year veteran. Price is a 5 year veteran.  Kirilenko is a 9 year veteran.  Bell is a 10 year veteran.  Those are the guys ahead of Hayward on the depth chart.   You’re telling me that on all of your first 3 months on the job you put to shame coworkers who had been working with your respective companies for 5, 9, and 10 years?  It’s hard to earn minutes on a team that is not mistake prone.  When you are on a veteran team usually the one making mistakes is the rookie.  That’s rough.  Especially when you got tons of people critiquing your every move.  Was your first day of work covered on ESPN, NBA.com, local news outlets, bloggers, and the newspaper?

Not All Good Players Start Strong

Case in point: Kobe Bryant.

(Yes, I already know what you’ll comment below and save yourself the trouble.  He won’t become a Kobe Bryant or a great player.  Not what I’m trying to show.  I don’t think he becomes top flight.  But rarely do great players start great. And rarely do good players start good.  And rarely do average players start average.)

Can anybody off the top of their heads list his rookie year statistics?  If you were to look at his rookie year stats and say, “This kid is going to be one of the top 10 players in the game.” People would think you were crazy.  Here they are:

15.5 mpg 1.3 apg 1.9 rpg 7.6 ppg

His minutes per game are misleading.  In the first half of the season he was only averaging about 7-8.  He only started 6 games.  His following season he only started 1.  He only averaged 2 Free throws a game.  Point being he wasn’t great.  Like the Jazz the 1996 Lakers were a team full of veterans and big time talent.  It takes a while for a young talent to find his way.  I’m not saying he’ll be a Kobe Bryant but what I am saying is 1/4 of a season is by no means any way to judge a player.

Highlight Ability

Brewer At Rookie/Sophomore Game (Rare photo of Jazz jersey & headband)

Sometimes a rookie is able to buy time with fans because he is able to excite them once a game with something tantalizing.  I.E. a rim shattering dunk.  The only reason Brewer wasn’t considered a bust in his first year was his ability to have highlight dunks in garbage time.  High fliers like him are able to miss the bust label because they excite you with plays that have a flash in the pan quality.  Gordon Hayward isn’t going to play above the rim.  He’s going to be cerebral.  If anyone of our readers saw him in summer league and preseason you saw what a treat that was.

Mind Games

Do a google search trying to find Hayward & Williams in the same picture just the two of them. Good Luck.

Speaking of preseason, how many of you watched preseason? Summer league?  Hayward was playing good basketball.  I know we like to elevate D-Will on a pedestal and claim that he has done nothing wrong but since that infamous Phoenix home opener and the “pass” Hayward has been timid.  It is not that D-Will chastised him.  This is different.

Think of your idol.

Think of how much you adore them and look up to them.

Now think about your idol calling you out on national tv because you are trying and the rest of your coworkers have quit.  That’s a psyche buster.  I think Hayward is past that and with his breakout game against the T-Wolves he has shown he is ready to play.  But I believe that Phoenix incident set his development back.

Patience

Give Hayward a shot.  Give him a couple years.  Yes, I said a couple.  There’s this crazy thing with Jazz rookies.  They usually elevate their game in the 2nd year.  See also: Matthews, Brewer, Millsap, D-Will.  So before we blame him for not trying let’s be patient with him.  He didn’t step up his game til his 2nd year at Butler ONCE he got comfortable.

Give him a shot.

I know I’m of the few that still believe he’ll be something of value to the Jazz (and no I don’t mean a trade piece). There is no magic recipe to suddenly being great.

Almost three months ago I sat down and tried to predict how the Jazz were going to do in the 2010-2011 season.  For those interested here is the link to that post - Steady With Sloan.  Now that we are 30 games into the season I thought I would check to see how some of my predictions are looking.   Below are my preseason Win Shares predictions compared with the current projection based off 30 games. 

Highlights:

• The Jazz have won 70% of their games, which over the course of an 82 game season would equal 57.4 wins.  This would exceed my prediction of a 50 win season.  Also, 57 wins would be good for the 1st or 2nd seed in the Western Conference over the last three years.
• Deron Williams- I predicted his Win Shares (an estimate of the number of wins an individual player will contribute) at 10.3 wins with a WS/48 of 0.177.  This was an easy prediction since those were his numbers at the end of the 2009-2010 regular season.  Right now he is on pace for 13.4 wins and a WS/48 of 0.208. One concern for Jazz fans could be his career high in minutes per game at 38 minutes.  As of now he is playing more and being more productive.  He definitely should be in the MVP discussion.
• Paul Millsap- He also has been playing more (career high in minutes per game) and being more productive (career high in WS/48) in those minutes.  I had projected his Win Shares at 8.4 and at this rate he would be contributing 12.3 wins or nearly 4 more wins than projected.  He is 10th in the league in Win Shares and WS/48 minutes.  Not bad for the 82th highest paid player in the NBA.  He should be rewarded by playing alongside Deron Williams in the All Star game.
• C.J. Miles- While I know a lot of people discredit the +/- statistic it should be noted that Miles leads the Jazz this year.  That on its own might be a fluke, but his WS/48 (current year = 0.09) is above his career average and almost to the point (0.10) of being an average NBA player.  I know it is just one game, but I was impressed with his performance when I went to Cleveland to see the Jazz-Cavs game.  Miles was one of the most active players on the floor, and he really helped the Jazz pull away from a bad Cavs team.  I had projected him to contribute 2.6 wins and right now he is on pace to beat that my one additional win.  In the Western Conference one additional win can be the difference between the 3 seed and the 5 seed. 

Lowlights

• Gordan Hayward- There is no easy way to put this, but Hayward has been one of the worse players in the NBA.  He can’t shoot (40% from the field), can’t pass (less assists in more minutes than Fesenko), can’t rebound and generally looks lost on the court.  I had projected him to contribute 4.6 wins at a rate of 0.0768 (the average rate of the 9th pick in the draft).  Right now he is projected to add 0 wins.   I don’t mean to pile on the youngster, but he really has no where to go but up.
• Raja Bell - I had projected his WS/48 at his career average of 0.085.  Right now he is at 0.063.   He is playing more minutes (partially to the fact that Hayward can’t get off the bench), but they are just not as productive as expected.
• Kyrylo Fesenko -Did anyone else think he might make a little bit of a jump this year after the experiance he got in the playoffs last year with Okur out?  Well he is hardly playing (6.2 minutes per possible game) and when he is playing he has been terrible (WS/48 of 0.031). 

Overall assessment

The Jazz winning percentage seems to suggest nothing but optimism for Jazz fans.  Williams and Millsap are playing at All Star levels.  Jefferson and Kirilenko are playing at above-average levels.  Miles and Bell are almost equaling an average shooting guard.  However, based on the Win Shares each player should be contributing I have the Jazz coming in at 49.7, which by rounding up would be right at the 50 win/6th seed in the playoff spot.  John Hollinger in his playoffs odds also projects the Jazz winning 50 games.  While that isn’t bad it definitely doesn’t mean Jazz fans should be expecting a title run with this team.  Let’s hope I am wrong.

This summer there was a minor stir created by owner Greg Miller’s “I think that the best approach for us to take as a franchise is just to be competitive” quote.  When he admitted that “we’re probably not going to win a championship, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to give it everything we’ve got” it upset a lot of Jazz fans.  The Jazz have come very close in the past and the current team they have isn’t that far off from being a championship caliber team.  They just seem to be stuck in the tier right below the Lakers, Celtics and Spurs.   Some of the fault is usually placed on the team being in a small market and that ownership isn’t willing to spend the required amount of money.  I disagree with that.  The main reason the Jazz don’t have a championship caliber team is because they have not drafted well over the past 7 years.

When I write that the Jazz haven’t drafted well over the past 7 years I want to be fair to Jazz management.  Before I get into the negatives let me first start off with the few things the Jazz have done  well in regards to the draft:

1. Trading up to get Deron Williams.  Kevin O’Connor traded up in the draft to the 3rd pick by giving up picks that ended up being the following players: Martell Webster, Linas Kleiza and Joel Freeland for Deron Williams.  If he had stayed with the 6th pick then the players he would have been forced to draft were players like Webster, Charlie Villanueva or Channing Frye.   Wow.
2. 2006′s draft - Something must have been in the air that night because Brewer, Millsap and even to a small extent Dee Brown were great picks.  Millsap gave the Jazz leverage with Boozer and will be a great player for the Jazz for years to come.
3. Al Jefferson trade- giving up a 1st round bust (Kosta Koufus) and two protected 1st round picks (especially when you haven’t done a great job drafting) looks to be a smart move.

Without the above three things the below analysis would be even more depressing to Jazz fans.  As far as the analysis goes though I am going to compare who the Jazz drafted with the player selected right after the Jazz pick.  The reason being  is that it frustrates me when people go back through drafts and play the “what if” game.  What if the Jazz took Landry Fields instead of Gordon Hayward?  Well of course the team would be better right now, but nobody would ever have suggested to Kevin O’Connor before the draft to take Fields with the 9th overall pick.  It would have been a better pick, but it just isn’t realistic.

I could go back to 2001 (Raul Lopez instead of  the next pick Gerald Wallace)  or farther, but I would rather start with 2004 since that was a huge year for the Jazz as they had three first round picks.  Let’s look at the Jazz picks compared to the very next pick and see how the Jazz did in their draft by comparing each player’s career *Win Shares.

*Win Shares = an estimate of the number of wins that can be attributed to one player.  For a longer description check out this link.

Better pick by the Jazz: 3 times

• 2005 – C.J. Miles (7.4 WS) compared to the next pick Ricky Sanchez (0 WS). = +7.4 wins.
• 2006 – Ronnie Brewer (21 WS) compared to Cedric Simmons (0.1 WS). = +20.9
• 2006 – Paul Millsap (28.3 WS) over Vladimir Varemeenko (0 WS). +28.3
• TOTAL: +56.6 in the Jazz favor

Worse pick – 7 times

• 2004 – Kris Humphries (7.6 WS) compared to the next pick Al Jefferson (31.1 WS).  -23.5 wins
• 2004 – Kirk Snyder (4.5 WS) compared to Josh Smith (32.7 WS). -28.2.
• 2007 – Morris Almond (0 WS) compared to Aaron Brooks (10.8 WS).  -10.8.
• 2007 – Herbert Hill (o WS) compared to Ramon Sessions (8 WS).  -8
• 2008 – Kosta Koufus(1.4 WS)  compared to Serge Ibaka (6 WS).  -4.6.
• 2008 – Ante Tomic (o WS) compared to Goran Dragic (2.7 WS).  -2.7
• 2009 – Eric Maynor (2.3 WS) compared to Darren Collison (4.0 WS). -1.7
• TOTAL: – 79.5 Win Shares

Comparable picks (I excluded the random 2nd round picks like Robert Whaley if they were matched up with another bust.  Also, I am a Jazz fan and despite evidence to the contrary I rate Deron Williams as the same as Chris Paul) - 3 times

• 2005 – Deron Williams (43.7 WS) compared to Chris Paul (66.8 WS). -23.1 wins
• 2010 – Gordon Hayward (0 WS) compared to Paul George (0.1 WS). -0.1
• 2010 – Jeremy Evans (0.2 WS) over Hamady Ndiaye (0 WS). +0.2
• TOTAL: – 23 Win Shares

Overall Total:  -45.9 Win Shares.

A negative 45.9 Win Shares difference between the Jazz pick and the very next pick shows how close the Jazz have been to getting some real impact players.  What if the Jazz had drafted Jefferson and Smith in 2004 and played them very few minutes like they did with Humphries and Synder?  What if they had then drafted Chris Paul the following year?  Can you imagine a lineup with Chris Paul, Raja Bell, Andrei Kirilenko, Carlos Boozer, Memhet Okur with Al Jefferson and Josh Smith coming off the bench?  Would that team have beaten the Spurs in 2007?  What about the Lakers the next three years? 

Even if you go back only 5 years or even 3 years then you see players that would help this Jazz team out.  Darren Collison would be a great backup point guard for Deron Williams and if they had to trade him like they did with Maynor he probably would have brought back more in return.  Serge Ibaka would have provided a solid inside presence to help every year against the Lakers.

Now you can see how the team I described It is pretty clear over the past seven years the Jazz have done a worse job drafting than the random teams that drafted after them.  Does this make me worry more about Gordon Hayward?  Does this make me think that Kevin O’Connor might not be the best GM at drafting?   Does this make me think more highly of Coach Sloan? (Some might think this speaks less of Coach Sloan and point to the fact that he can’t develop 1st round picks.  I disagree since I don’t know any coach in the world that would be able to make Kirk Snyder into Josh Smith.) Does this make it even more remarkable that the Jazz have been a consistent playoff team?

Yes to all of the questions in the paragraph above.

I think that if the Jazz would have made only one or two different draft picks over the past seven years then Greg Miller probably wouldn’t have had the “just to be competitive” quote this summer.  I think there would be a decent chance that the Jazz would have at least one title and would be looking at another one this year.

Take it the Court is a new weekly column on SCH featuring the arguments, opinions, and random musing of a Utah Jazz fanatic.

D-Will takes a seat (Ravell Call|Deseret News)

It has been a slow posting week for Salt City Hoops – but the Jazz haven’t had the luxury of time off.

The Streak Ends at 7.

On Friday, the Jazz looked flat in the second half against Dallas.  I can’t pretend to know what the player’s were thinking, but it seemed as if they just expected their streak of stellar second-half play to continue.  In the first half, the Jazz were step-for-step, every bit as good as the Mavericks.  But as Jerry Sloan has pointed out so many times in his career, the game is 48 minutes long – and a good half won’t win too many games against the NBA elite.  Bizzarro-Deron showed up on Friday – and put up AK47 type numbers – 12 points, 5 boards, 7 assists, 4 steals, and 1 block (and 4 turns).  While the extra production in steals, boards, and the block might have helped your fantasy team, it was an uncharacteristically poor outing for D-Will, who shot just 30% from the field, including 1-3 from downtown.  Conversely, Dallas looked every bit the serious contender – don’t say we didn’t warn you.  Both D-Will and CJ are products of Dallas and both were Mavs fans growing up.  Dallas’ victory over Utah made Marc Stein a fan, too.

Deron Williams and Point of Hope Assist Santa

(Scott Winterton|Deseret News)

Deron Williams shook off the loss and made the holidays a little brighter for some of Salt Lake’s less-fortunate on Saturday.  Together with his Point of Hope Foundation, D-Will hosted 20 low-income single moms and their 40 kids for dinner (at Flemmings) and gifts.  The Ebeneezer Scrooge in me insists that NBA players only provide this type of charity for the tax write-offs and additional jersey sales.  Deron and his wife, Amy, though, appear to be genuinely happy to use their wealth and fame to do good.  If you’re looking for a good charity this holiday season, consider Point of Hope.

A New Streak Begins?

Compared to this game, AK's hair looks pretty! (Tom Smart|DesNews)

My personal affinity notwithstanding (my pops played college ball with Memphis Coach Lionel Hollins*), a visit from the Grizzlies was just what the doctor ordered.  Sure, the game was ugly.  Big Al and Millsap combined for 19 points.  AK was 1-10, with the sole bucket coming off of a baseline dunk. Deron never really got into the groove – and was hit with 2 quick pesky fouls in the first quarter and another in the second (though he did abuse the much smaller Mike Conley and finished with 27 points and 8 dimes).  The most important stat of the night? W.  Yep. Utah got back to its winning ways.

*For those of you out there that are impressed with completely useless random information, Memphis Head Coach Lionel Hollins (“Train”) spent two years as a Rebel at Dixie State College of Utah in St. George.  He went on to Arizona State University, a sixth overall selection in the 1975 draft, and he even contributed to division rival Portland’s sole championship in 1977 (the first year following the ABA-NBA merger).  Train also earned an All-Star nod in ’77.  His #14 now hangs in the Rose Garden rafters.

LeBron & Company Looking for a Little Revenge

Millsap literally ran all over the Heat (AP)

The Miami Heat come into SLC looking for a little payback.  In what SCH has dubbed “the Greatest Game in the History of the Universe,” the Jazz shocked Miami when Paul Millsap took his talents to South Beach.  After the loss to Utah, many thought the sky was falling for LeBron and company – they lost to the Celtics (for a second time), the Grizzlies in Memphis, the Pacers, the Magic in Orlando, and the Mavs in Dallas.  They’ve since pushed there record to a respectable 14-8.  The Heat boast the 3rd best record in the Eastern Conference – but there are SIX teams in the West with better records (Spurs, Mavs, Jazz, Lakers, Nuggets, Hornets) and would be tied with OKC for the 7th spot in the West.  Miami enters tonight’s contest with a wave of five straight victories (and haven’t lost yet in the month of December).  You can be sure that the Three Stooges Amigos will bring it.  I wouldn’t count on a huge comeback by the Jazz tonight – the better course would be to just play all 48 minutes and not let the Heat get ahead.

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Contact Jefferson W. Boswell at jeffersonboz [AT] gmail [DOT] com.