Jump Ball Tidbits: 1/11-1/17

We’re just over halfway through the season, or about half of this season’s jump balls have already been decided. Even though most of them are meaningless, there have been some jump balls that shifted the odds late in a game and there have definitely been amusing matchups. Weird milestones have also been reached while, since we’re at the halfway point, there’s a chance to look at single-season marks that could be broken. As a reminder, you can find jump ball statistics since 1997 here, but this post takes a look at just last week’s totals.

Let’s get started.

Notable Wins and Losses

Below are the five jump balls with the highest change in win probability, according to Inpredictable, a site that charts win probability throughout games. Usually, I go with the top 10 jump balls, but this was another week without one major shift in win probability. I also switched to just pre game odds:

And like last week’s post, some of the interesting jump balls were not from the table above. For example, we got our closest version of the jump ball that happened in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:

In NBA.com’s play-by-play feed, Will Barton was credited with a 19-foot floating jump shot, but Kenneth Faried was not given an assist. Shucks.[1. Hat tip to fellow Nylon Calculus contributor Positive Residual for that Vine.]

For a few moments, the Heat and Thunder were on pace for 320 jump balls on Sunday. There ended up being only two from the first nine seconds, but there were six during the Bulls-76ers matchup on Thursday. That isn’t the most in one game since 1997 or even the most this season. Below is a look at the most jump balls in a game over the last 20 seasons and added another list that takes out mandatory opening tips to start first quarters and overtime.

And lastly, Brook Lopez defeated Robin Lopez in a jump ball this week to move to 8-3 in their matchups. Pretty huge deal.

Milestones

As of Sunday, Dwight Howard was fifth in jump ball wins since 1997 with 614, one away from tying Kevin Garnett, and then passed him on Monday against the Clippers. Pau Gasol moved up to 12th with 492 wins of his own.

LeBron James reached 100 jump balls for his career. At 59-41, he has the 35th-best win percentage among players with at least that career amount and the same ranking when looking at just ‘live’ jump balls and a sample of greater than 75, where he’s 54-34.

Since we’re at the halfway point, I also took a look at Karl-Anthony Towns and Brook Lopez, the former being the leader this season in total jump balls and total losses through Sunday and the latter the leader in wins with 41[1. Late edit: He snagged two more wins on Monday.]. I compared them with the leaders in each category since 1997.

Both Towns and Lopez have been helped (or in Towns’ case and his total losses, harmed) by their durability so far, but we’ll see if their pace through the first half of the season holds up.

Notable Firsts

A few bigs came back from their injuries and got involved in a jump ball last week. Willie Cauley-Stein has had more than few jump balls already this season, but won his first opening tip on Thursday and is now 1-12 in those situations. Meanwhile, Nene made a return to the starting lineup while Marcin Gortat was out with a sore left knee.

Nikola Pekovic also returned and won a tip over Enes Kanter, but with his intimidation factor[1. Not an advanced stat…yet.] he could probably win a few just by using the method by Isaiah Thomas.

Enjoy the week.

Jump ball stats are compiled from play-by-play data at NBA.com. You can view win-loss records here.