The NBA Championship betting sees the Utah Jazz odds amonsgt the top 10 chances to win the title:
UTAH JAZZ
Western Conference. (NBA odds = 15.00, NBA Western Conference odds = 8.00)
You can tell if a team are genuine championship contenders by looking at how they perform against strong, winning squads.
The Utah Jazz repeatedly out-performed all-comers last season, topping both the Western Conference and the NBA.
After ending up with their first NBA Finals appearance since 1998 they promptly won.
No small feat by anyone’s standards.
TEAM STATS
Based on their ‘per game’ averages, here’s how The Utah Jazz matched up last season compared to the other teams in the top 10 according to their NBA betting odds.
Most 3-pointers attempted (43)
Most 3-pointers (17)
Joint lowest number of opponent 3-pointers attempted (32)
Lowest number of opponent 3-pointers scored (11)
Joint lowest number of opponent points scored (107)
Clearly, The Utah Jazz are a team that likes to shoot from distance.
They destroyed the field here in terms of their attempts at 3-points with a clear 13 more than the lowest side.
Does that mean they are less effective at breaking down defences and are being forced into the early shot?
How about restricting their opponent to fewer 3-point attempts than any other team?
Does that represent a weaker defence that is allowing players to dribble and pass through them rather than be forced into the shot? No, because they restricted their opponents’ total points to only 107! What’s happening then?
LET’S SEE IF THEIR OTHER STATS CAN SHED ANY LIGHT.
Here are some more of their category-topping numbers:
Joint most total rebounds
Joint most offensive rebounds
Joint most defensive rebounds
So, they are obviously claiming a large number of the rebounds that they contest. When we look at their offensive rebounds claimed then we might expect that to naturally mean they scored a lot of 2-pointers while close to that end of the court. Not so.
Lowest number of 2-pointers attempted (45)
Lowest number of 2-pointers scored (25)
Highest number of opponent 2-pointers attempted (60)
Highest number of opponent 2-pointers scored (30)
Overall quite a confusing set of stats from The Utah Jazz last season. One thing we can say for certain is that they bettered their opponents in a number of significant categories and kept them from scoring heavily when they did turn the ball over. Impressive stuff.
AT A GLANCE
Better than their opponents in:
PTS, FG%, 2P%, 3PA, 3P, 3P%, FTA, FT%, TRB, ORB, DRB, AST, BLK*
Worse than their opponents in:
FGA, 2PA, 2P, TOV, STL,
Level with their opponents in:
FG, PF
DRAFT PICKS
The Utah Jazz odds (15.00) only found themselves with 1 pick in The Draft. He does not feature in the Rookie of the Year betting.
40th pick:
Jared Butler (point guard/shooting guard)
Butler is a talented scorer and an intelligent, willing passer of the ball. He has all the makings of a highly coachable player, with good communication and attention to detail. In spite of his size, he doesn’t use physicality to defend against small forwards. Butler won’t be winning any foot races this season, so needs to beat defenders with skill and creativity rather than pace.
EXISTING PLAYERS
The giant New Yorker:
Donovan Mitchell #45 point guard/shooting guard
Mitchell hit 39 points, 9 assists, and 9 rebounds in 40 minutes of his last game at the time of writing. Any player who can produce a performance like that regularly is a literal game-changer. Time will tell if The Utah Jazz can continue to get a song out of him this season.
The veteran:
Mike Conley #10 point guard
Conley will be hoping to recreate last season’s performance, where his scoring was decent and his assists were through the roof.
