A lot has been hypothesized about the following questions?
- Can the Jazz can be a Championship contender with Paul Millsap as their starting power forward?
- Team-wise, offensively and defensively, who is better Paul Millsap or Carlos Boozer?
- Who should the Jazz be playing at shooting guard and small forward for next year? Do they need to upgrade either or both of those positions to compete for a title?
Analyzing the statistics, here is how things break down.
The top 2 Utah lineups for minutes played really weren’t very good.
The lineup that played the most minutes, by far, was Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, C.J. Miles, Paul Millsap, and Mehmet Okur. Opponents outscored this lineup overall, though just barely. Opponents also outrebounded the lineup defensively, but were outrebounded by the Jazz offensively. In all, this lineup was only slightly worse than its opponents.
The second most popular lineup minute-wise was Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, C.J. Miles, Carlos Boozer, and Mehmet Okur. This one was slightly better than the most popular lineup. It barely outscored its competition and barely rebounded more than its opponents on the defensive end. It did significantly outrebound its opponents on the offensive end. In all, this lineup was only slightly better than its opponents.
With these two examples, it doesn’t appear that the controversy should really be between Boozer and Millsap, as we have been led to believe. Neither one of them appears to have affected the team greatly.
When you get outside of the top two lineups, things improve by a lot.
The third most popular lineup included Deron Williams, Kyle Korver, Andrei Kirilenko, Paul Millsap, Mehmet Okur. This lineup outscored its opponents by 23%. It also defensively rebounded much better than its opponents, and the offensive rebounds were about equal.
In other words, swapping in Kyle Korver for Brewer and Kirilenko for C.J. Miles appeared to significantly improve the lineup. So who was it that affected things, Korver or Kirilenko? Or was it the two of them?
Let’s keep going…
The fourth most popular lineup was Deron Williams, Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer, Paul Millsap, Mehmet Okur. With this lineup, the Jazz drop off significantly in offensive rebounds vs their opponents, but significantly improve in defensive rebounding. They also continue to score at a decent pace, slightly less than third most popular lineup.
The only different between this lineup and the most popular lineup is the insertion of Kyle Korver into the lineup in place of C.J. Miles.
If we go down for a few more lineups (and include the previous lineups) we see the following general statements about the top ten lineups:
- Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, C.J. Miles, Paul Millsap, Mehmet Okur – Slightly below even
- Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, C.J. Miles, Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur – Slightly above even
- Deron Williams, Kyle Korver, Andrei Kirilenko, Paul Millsap, Mehmet Okur – Very Good
- Deron Williams, Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer, Paul Millsap, Mehmet Okur – Good
- Brevin Knight, Kyle Korver, Matt Harpring, Andrei Kirilenko, Paul Millsap – Good
- Ronnie Price, Ronnie Brewer, C.J. Miles, Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur – Bad
- Brevin Knight, Kyle Korver, Andrei Kirilenko, Paul Millsap, Mehmet Okur – Very Good
- Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, Andrei Kirilenko, Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur – Very Bad
- Deron Williams, Kyle Korver, Andrei Kirilenko, Paul Millsap, Carlos Boozer – Slight above even
- Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, C.J. Miles, Andrei Kirilenko, Mehmet Okur – Good
- Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, Andrei Kirilenko, Paul Millsap, Mehmet Okur – Good
For the most part, all of the lineups that included C.J. Miles were about even with the other team or worse, except for when Andrei Kirilenko was playing the power forward.
For the most part, the lineups that included Kyle Korver or Andrei Kirilenko were good to very good, except for when they were too small and had Carlos Boozer paying center and ,ironically, the lineup of Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, Andrei Kirilenko, Carlos Boozer, and Mehmet Okur, that was the lineup that I thought would have been the best one Utah could have put out there.
If you continue to look down through more and more lineups, you discover the following apparent truths:
- C.J. Miles is generally inferior to any of the other possible starters at small forward, namely Kyle Korver and Andrei Kirilenko.
- Kyle Korver is a real asset to the Jazz, especially when Mehmet Okur is playing center, but not necessarily when Boozer is also in the lineup (apparently that is far too little defense all around).
- Carlos Boozer can’t play center.
- Andrei Kirilenko is a real asset to the Jazz in most cases, especially when playing power forward.
- Ronnie Price wasn’t a huge dropoff from Deron Williams, especially considering that he was likely playing against a host of second string players on the other side during those minutes.
So what should the Jazz do?
From the statistics and likely scenarios that Jerry Sloan would truly be likely to pick from, the Jazz should really be doing the following:
- Starting Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, Kyle Korver, Paul Millsap, Mehmet Okur
- Bringing Andrei Kirilenko first off the bench to replace Kyle Korver, Paul Millsap, or Ronnie Brewer as needed
- Bringing Ronnie Price off the bench to spell Deron Williams as needed.
- Use C.J. Miles sparingly.
- Use Boozer sparingly, and never at center.
With the amount of money being paid to Boozer, it really doesn’t seem like Boozer makes a whole lot of sense, which isn’t what I would have suspected. It should be noted that I am using 2008-2009 numbers, where Boozer was never fully 100%.
