I am officially retracting an earlier statement I made which compared Royce O’Neale to John Salmons. That was a dumb comparison. Obviously Salmons would never record six assists in a single game. In making that comparison I was preoccupied with the fact that Salmons and O’Neale have similar looking faces and facial hair. I apologize for making such a dumb comparison. I will come up with a new comparison soon that will be way better.
While you await my genius comparison for Royce O’Neale, check out this stat: in games where O’Neale plays, the Jazz are 10-5. In games where O’Neale doesn’t play, the Jazz are 3-6. Boom. Is that not the most awesome stat ever? I just single-handedly proved how vital Royce O’Neale, who might be the ninth or tenth guy on the roster, is to the Jazz winning basketball games.
Ignore the fact that O’Neale was playing less than five minutes in a lot of these games. Also ingore the fact that he might have only gotten minutes in these situations because the game was already decided. Those facts are not important right now. The important fact right now is that the Jazz win games when O’Neale sees the court. O’Neale = winner. If he ends up getting a big contract because of my nifty stat, I demand at least 10% of the total value of the contract as payment for my services.