Jump Ball Tidbits: 12/7-12/13
By Matt Femrite
Over here at Nylon Calculus there are several statistics available for viewing. Some are pretty helpful while others, like jump balls, are borderline meaningless. That doesn’t stop me from posting random findings while updating wins and losses:
I just can’t help myself, so I’ll put together what catches my eye. For now, I’m experimenting with how I’ll organize this, but for this post there are notable, specific jump balls, some milestones when looking at totals, wins and losses, and players who got their first jump ball of the season, or in some cases their first jump ball in several years. So important. We’ll see how this goes.
Notable Wins or Losses
Overtime or late-game jump balls will get a bit of attention here.
Not last week, actually, but two Saturdays ago Lavoy Allen took the jump ball for the Pacers in overtime against the Jazz. Prior to that game, Allen was 12-48 in all jump balls and 8-38 on open tips. He won the jump ball against Derrick Favors, but the Pacers got outscored 12-9 in overtime. Sad, but notable times.
With 14 seconds left in Monday night’s game between the Blazers and Bucks, Michael Carter-Williams won a jump ball against CJ McCollum. The Bucks were down one but gained possession of the ball, increasing their win probability from 17.4 percent to 37.2, according to Inpredict’s win probability charts. The Bucks ended up winning the game.[1. Hat tip to Justin Willard on this one.]
On Friday, Amir Johnson won both jump balls in overtime against Golden State, though the Celtics eventually lost. The amount of times where a player has won consecutive jump balls in overtime since 1997 is over 100, though, so this isn’t too rare.[1.It’s either 116 times or 136, but my work in Excel was not dandy and I couldn’t rely heavily on one or the other.]
Also on Friday, Kenneth Faried won his first jump ball in overtime since 2013. Unlike the first two players and their respective teams mentioned regarding overtime, the Nuggets finished the night with a victory.
One last notable from Friday: Kobe Bryant won a jump ball against Ray McCallum and the Spurs, now 55-55 over his career. So there’s that.
Milestones
Because perfect numbers, rankings and all.
Vince Carter reached 100 total jump balls on Tuesday night. Tears of joy, as he became one of the best over a career, minimum 100 attempts, and joined Rudy Gay as the rare wing with both a high total and win percentage:[3. LeBron James has a win rate a bit lower at 58.5 percent, but he’s currently at 99 total jump balls.]
Also:
100 career wins for Favors, the 99th player since 1997 to win at least that many. Shaquille O’Neal leads this group, 815-310 and the second-best winning percentage in the screenshot above.
200 total jumps for Timofey Mozgov, also the 99th player since 1997 to join that group. Tim Duncan leads this category with 1,163 total jump balls and might reach 1,200 by the end of the season.
300 total losses for Roy Hibbert, joining a group of 19. Kevin Garnett leads the bunch with 516 losses, but has 615 wins, the majority of each coming as a Timberwolf from 1997-2007. With a winning percentage of 47 percent, it’s possible Hibbert passes quite a few players as the season continues and as long as he stays healthy.
300 open tip wins for Deandre Jordan, the 17th player to reach that mark. Shaq leads with 696. He should definitely attempt a comeback just to get to 700.
Notable First Timers
First jump balls of the season or career for a player.
Joakim Noah, who now has only 14 jump balls in the last two seasons, but 502 from 2008-14.
Carmelo Anthony also got his first of the year last week, now 46-26 since 2004. That win-loss record is good for the Hall of Fame resume, for sure.
Larry Nance Jr. (lost) and Trey Lyles (won) each had their first jump balls of their careers. Hopefully the first of many.
Sasha Vujacic had his first jump ball since 2011. He lost. Welcome back.
Until next week. As a reminder, you can catch updates here.
Jump ball stat are compiled from play-by-play data at NBA.com.