One of my favorite quotes of all time is one by Mr. Albert, not Marv but Einstein: "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted". Truer words can not be said for what I think of statistics in basketball. I don't know if it's just that people like to simply things; Kidd is known as Mr. Triple double, Duncan is the double-double machine, LeBron had a sneaker out called 20-5-5 - but stats sure as hell get more attention than they should deserve. It's common habit for people to judge a players performance by looking straight at the boxscore. In a 82 season league with 30 teams, you generally have no alternative unless you are glued to your couch at home and watch League pass every moment of your living day. However, besides single games, whole seasons and MVP races are evaluated using that box score and ultimately the success of a players career. First I want to take a look at the current batch of stats, and then identify some new stats that should be introduced.
Box Score aka Report Card aka KPI
Everyone at every level is judged based on certain aspects. At school you get grades which make up your report card. At work you might have some Key Performance Indicators. In the NBA theres is the boxscore. A couple of numbers in the end summarizes all of your efforts and endeavors. Here's what I think of each stat and how much meaning we should attach to it when we look at them.
Points- This is the number one most important stat in basketball. You have 30 points or more and it doesn't matter if you had 6 airballs, 12 turnovers and played the most selfish basketball in your life - people will think you had a good game. In fact that isn't unlike something players like Kobe and Allen Iverson did for many years. Jerry Stackhouse was a scoring champion, Ricky Davis could average insane amounts at will, and even Ronald Murray had a season where it seemed like he was going to be one of the best scoring players in the league. So basicly it doesnt mean much. Six points scored in crunch time against a good defensive team is much more meaningful that someone who scores 25 in garbage minutes.
Assists- The way an assist is calculated is that a player must take no more than one dribble after a pass is made and score. The reason I know this is because I would always complain at our stats keeper in high school that she didnt count my assists correctly. In fact, there are so many things wrong with this stat I don't know where to begin. First of all it includes as an assist many instances where the person who passed the ball might not have done anything significant. Imagine Smush Parker passes the ball to Kobe, Kobe takes couple of seconds to eye down his opponent and throw a couple of jab steps, then he dribbles takes one step back and hits a fade away three. Assist goes to Smush Parker. Now imagine theres a 2 vs 3 fastbreak and Steve Nash cleverly misleads the 3 defenders and passes to a wide open Amare Stoudamire, and Amare dunks the ball in after two quick dribbles - Nash gets no assist. These two examples hopefully help point out the problems associated with trying to track how well a player is setting up his teammates. I'm not even going to get into the whole, 'PG creates a perfect setup and Center misses a layup' argument.
Rebounds- I'm always surprised at how much attention this stat gets. I can bring in a tall Mongolian freak of nature who has never stepped onto a basketball court before, and he can get 10 boards easy in a single game. Well in fact this has already been done with the likes of Gheorge Mursan. This stat almost encourage players to play the wrong way - the person who boxes out the player gets no credit while the guy who doesn't and goes for the board does. Again, the context in which you grab a rebound is also not considered. A rebound from a center after an uncontested free-throw gets the same credit as a person who jumps over three players and manages to grab the board.
Steals and Blocks- These stats are okay I guess but many times a player gets a steal due to the defensive efforts of his other teammates. Similarly, a block is often achieved my a player intentionally leading his defensive assignment to where his big men can swat the ball.
FG/FT/3PT %: Perhaps the most useful of the stats, as it gives you exactly it says it will. Percentages can be misleading depending on what kind of team you play for, what kind of looks you get, and even small things such as launching shots at the end of buzzers. Last year's FG% leader was Mikki Moore of the Nets, but yet he isnt a remarkable shooter by any means, he just ends up shooting alot of easy shots (dunks).
Thinking Outside the Box Score
Charges- I've heard people mention that Battier leads the league in charges taken, but I'm not sure if theres an official sheet with everybody's charges. If so I would definitely like to see it. Taking a charge might be the most impressive single feat in basketball. Think about it, you sacrifice your body so that MAYBE you can get the win the ball for your team. If that doesn't embody everything that is basketball, I don't know what does. So please, lets start keeping track of this stat and include it as a separate column in the box score.
Crunch Time- NBA.com and Nestle had a neat tracking of performance in the game when it really mattered, but I don't see it anymore. Their execution wasnt perfect, but it was as close to tracking players' clutch ability as I have ever seen using numbers. 82games.com also had a FG% for game winning shots which was also interesting to see. More of this needs to be officially tracked.
Setup- As I mentioned earlier, assists aren't a good indication of how well the PG does his job because it varies with how well his players shoot the ball as well as other factors. So a new stat can be introduced where we track how many clear cut scoring opportunities a player prepares for his teammates. The immediate objection would be that it's subjective to a specific person how 'clear-cut' the scoring opportunity is. However such minor subjective takes doesnt prevent sports like tennis from having "Unforced Errors" stats from being displayed.
Hustle Play- Among the most important plays in the course of a basketball game is hustle plays. These are plays that sometimes singlehandedly change the momentum of a game. Imagine Ben Wallace plays extremely good defense on one end of the court and forces a player to travel. On the other side he jumps into the crowd and saves a ball from going out leading to a basket. Here, Ben Wallace provides his team with a 4 point swing, but his box score hasn't changed.
Defensive Stop- Back when Ron Artest was in Indiana, an intern had calculated what Ron Artest's defensive assignment's field goal percentage was. Along with this, how many stops vs. scores he let in should be tracked. So at any given time we can see a player's defensive stop %. Another category can be added for how many turnovers he forced.
Statisticly Speaking
While stats do a good job giving us a general picture, it is something we have begun to rely too heavily on. So if this is the case, changes and additions need to be made to the way we keep stats. We can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to all the plays that dont show up on the stats sheet, for we may devalue those who specialize in those areas, areas that take the most effort and will. If we do make some of these changes I have proposed, and consider the currents stats with a grain of salt like Ive indicated, we may be in a world of surprise..
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