Stats say...

[Bricklayer]

We are completely average. Well, some of us.

Got tired of talking sexual assault, and with fantasy basketball season upon us, had me cruising through yahoo this morning when I stumbled upon an interesting set of statistics. They were compiled for fantasy bball, but the results of that compilation are pretty universal. Basically what they did was take the top 25 players at each position, as determined by their fantasy stats over the last two seasons (FG% FT% 3pters pts rebs ast stl blk TO), and then averaged out those stats to see what an "average" Top 25 player looked like. What interested me was how very close to "average" our PG/OG/SF were. Don't want to talk about the bigs.



PG
Average: 16.8pts (.449FG% .812FT%) 3.6reb 6.3ast 1.4stl 0.2blk 2.6TO
M.Bibby: 17.1pts (.404FG% .830FT%) 3.2reb 4.7ast 1.1stl 0.1blk 2.4TO

SG
Average: 19.3pts (.457FG% .813FT%) 4.6reb 3.9ast 1.2stl 0.4blk 2.3TO
K.Martin: 20.1pts (.473FG% .844FT%) 4.3reb 2.2ast 1.2stl 0.1blk 1.7TO

SF
Average: 18.7pts (.465FG% .784FT%) 6.3reb 3.2ast 1.3stl 0.7blk 2.1TO
R.Artest: 18.8pts (.440FG% .740FT%) 6.5reb 3.4ast 2.1stl 0.6blk 2.1TO


Now you can say all kinds of things about the methodology employed here -- it was not rigorous, nor intended to be rigorous, and offered here only for entertainment. But it is uncanny how close the numbers are for our "Big 3"...Big 3 Completely Average Performers perhaps.

And then the bigs:

PF
Average: 16.4pts (.491FG% .749FT%) 8.4reb 2.4ast 1.3stl 0.9blk 1.1TO
KThomas: 5.3pts (.482FG% .513FT%) 6.1reb 1.2ast 0.7stl 0.3blk 1.5TO

C
Average: 14.3pts (.508FG% .712FT%) 8.6reb 2.0ast 0.7stl 1.4blk 2.0TO
B. Miller: 9.0pts (.453FG% .772FT%) 6.4reb 3.6ast 0.6stl 0.6blk 1.7TO

Ouch.

 

[Warhawk]

Uh, you forgot to include the #s for PF and C.

And I would argue your use of the word "average". Averages for the top 25 players is not necessarily "average" considering there are 30 teams. You are not even accounting for one starting position for each team. This is an average of the better players only.

Edit - ooops, you were editing as I was typing.

 

[allrightythen]

Well statistics don't tell the whole story but those definitely tell a lot of it. Seems like what most of figured. Given that Kevin Martin is by far our most efficient offensive weapon, does getting him the ball more make sense, or will that simply drive down his effeiciency?

As far as the front court goes, Unless I had Dwight Howard (or someone similar) on my fantasy team, I wouldn't want any of our guys.

 

[TheFifthMookie]

so, don't keep us in the dark, who were the top 5 leaguewide in this analysis at each position? Seems like a good indicator of how accurate the analysis is.

 

[HndsmCelt]

So if the team is average, this means that they are not living up to their potiential

 

[Gary]

Shoot.. I would love to have that starting lineup that's listed as "average".

 

[tyrant]

nice thread brick. ridiculous how outplayed thomas and miller get played. im anxious to see what spencer can do. at least he has an idea on how to play with his back towards the basket.

 

[Ryan]

On paper we're average, but for some reason I have a good fealing about this season. But then again, i've only see game highlights on the internet.

 

[jaysoonii]

This is why statistics can never tell you how good a basketball team is.. =]

 

[bibbinator]

It would be nice to standard deviations on those numbers.

Also, that methodology misses the intangibles. Artest, for example, has a bigger impact on the game than his numbers show.

The number that interests me is whether the team improves when a player is on or off the court.

 

[BawLa]

Can someone please explain to me why we should put any weight on any analysis that includes last year's statistics? This team had no identity, no offensive flow, no offensive direction. Week-in and week-out we were watching Artest and Bibby huck up ugly looking shots, instead of setting up our best scorer in Kevin. And Kevin still had an enormous season last year. But last year was so abysmal, that I don't think it is fair to our players to analyze them based on last year's performances.

I look at what Theus has been doing in this preseason, and without putting too much weight on the preseason, I have been impressed with our offesnse...well, at least relative to last year. At least this year we have a better idea of what we want to do. We are moving the ball around well, getting out on the fast-break (mainly due to our defense - because we still can't rebound a lick), and in general we just seem to have more confidence.

And to say that our guards are simply average is just wrong.

Mike Bibby:

First of all, those #'s for Bibby are not an average of the last two years. They are only last year's #'s. If you average the last two years you will get a FG% of .419, FT% of 84%, etc. Not that it is that much better, but last year was Bibby's worst season of his career.

Bibby statistics were brought down to the average level after shooting below 43% for the first time in his career last year. That is 3% worse than his rookie campaign, and 4% worse than his career averages. Mike has never been the best assist-PG, but last year was the first time in his career when he averaged less than 5 AST/game. That speaks volumes to me about the offensive system that was in place. I was very critical of Mike last year, but he is still better than average.

Kevin Martin:

Had a breakout year in one of the worst offensive systems I have ever seen employed by the Kings. I will admit, that I am not too familiar with the bad teams before the Adelman Era, but that is irrelevant. Last year was an abysmal offense and our young star still found a way to have a career year. And with Kevin, we still don't know if last year was his plateau, or if he will continue to improve. Considering he is still only 24, I think there is still room for improvement. Average? Hardly. His shooting percentages are WAY better than league averages. So simple logic will tell you that if he got more touches last year, to the point where his FG% dropped to the league average, that he would probably be scoring much more than 20 PPG.

Ron Artest:

Is it really that bad that Ron is simply average offensively? I don't think so. You have potential DPOY every year with Ron so I don't mind average offense. Especially considering that the strength of our team is in guards and small forwards. If we can get Ron to attack the hoop more than sitting on the perimeter, then there is a good chance his #'s will increase.

 

[Kingster]

Very interesting comparison, Brick. I'd be interested to see the same comparison for the San Antonio Spurs. My guess would be that PF and PG would be above average and everybody else below average.

 

[VF21]

Can someone please explain to me why we should put any weight on any analysis that includes last year's statistics?

Did you read the OP? These stats were compiled for the sake of fantasy basketball for this season, which necessitates using last year's information since you have to draft for this year before it starts.