Saturday, July 10, 2010
Basketball Obscurantism
Part 1
People talk about the greatest players by position of all-time, and usually center comes down to Shaq or Bill Russell. I don't understand a great deal of the nuance of basketball so I won't argue about those choices.
But I don't think Hakeem Olajuwon gets the credit he deserves. He was a career 22/11/3 (with 2 steals) player, and that includes several junk seasons at the end of his career. His scoring average jumps to 24/12/3 if you remove those seasons. And his 89-90 season was on of the most impressive statistical seasons ever by a center: 24 points, 14 rebounds and 4.5 blocks (!) per game. Only Shaq and David Robinson have statistical seasons that are comparable, in my opinion.
These stats don't really mean anything, but what absurd box scores for a single player:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-by-five_%28basketball%29#Five-by-five
(Scroll up on that link to see NBA quadruple doubles.)
Part 2
Allen Iverson's 33 ppg in 2005-2006 is the most impressive statistical accomplishment of the past 15 years. Best for the team? Probably not. Jordan's 37.1 ppg in 86-87 was amazing, and by far the highest total in the post-ABA era, but as a percentage of the league team scoring average, it was only 33%, whereas Iverson was 35%.
BTW, Jordan's 88-89 line: 32.5/8/8/3. Sheesh. (While finishing second in defensive player of the year voting.) We will never see another Michael Jordan.
Rodman's rebounding was pretty amazing as a statistical outlier, but Rodman sacrificed nearly other aspect of his game to grab rebounds, while Iverson had to still run the point, and effectively, averaging almost 8 apg.
Part 3
More on statistical outlier accomplishments:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/usain-bolt-its-just-not-normal/ ¶ 10:47 PM
People talk about the greatest players by position of all-time, and usually center comes down to Shaq or Bill Russell. I don't understand a great deal of the nuance of basketball so I won't argue about those choices.
But I don't think Hakeem Olajuwon gets the credit he deserves. He was a career 22/11/3 (with 2 steals) player, and that includes several junk seasons at the end of his career. His scoring average jumps to 24/12/3 if you remove those seasons. And his 89-90 season was on of the most impressive statistical seasons ever by a center: 24 points, 14 rebounds and 4.5 blocks (!) per game. Only Shaq and David Robinson have statistical seasons that are comparable, in my opinion.
These stats don't really mean anything, but what absurd box scores for a single player:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-by-five_%28basketball%29#Five-by-five
(Scroll up on that link to see NBA quadruple doubles.)
Part 2
Allen Iverson's 33 ppg in 2005-2006 is the most impressive statistical accomplishment of the past 15 years. Best for the team? Probably not. Jordan's 37.1 ppg in 86-87 was amazing, and by far the highest total in the post-ABA era, but as a percentage of the league team scoring average, it was only 33%, whereas Iverson was 35%.
BTW, Jordan's 88-89 line: 32.5/8/8/3. Sheesh. (While finishing second in defensive player of the year voting.) We will never see another Michael Jordan.
Rodman's rebounding was pretty amazing as a statistical outlier, but Rodman sacrificed nearly other aspect of his game to grab rebounds, while Iverson had to still run the point, and effectively, averaging almost 8 apg.
Part 3
More on statistical outlier accomplishments:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/usain-bolt-its-just-not-normal/ ¶ 10:47 PM
