xtapolapacetl
Banned
- Aug 8, 2006
- 6,841
- 126
Originally Posted by Juan Baller
Originally Posted by Xtapolapacetl
No it's not. But it's amazing how you can put such a positive spin on a 23 year-old averaging 21 and 7 and such a negative spin on a 26 year-old
averaging 19 and 7 as if they're from different planets. And this is in no way to downgrade Penny, just your flawed logic.
They are certainly from differently planets.
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf had loads of talent, but he wasn't able to put it together in the NBA to ever be a productive player. Yes, he got buckets, but he did so at the cost of his team by scoring in an highly inefficient manner.
In Abdul-Rauf's best season, when he averaged 19.2 pts and 6.8 ast, he attempted 16.8 FG per game to get those 19.2 pts. That equates to 1.10 pts per FG attempt, which is very inefficient. As a point of reference, the NBA average was 1.24 pts per FG attempt in 1995-96. In the league today, Raymond Felton would be the closest comparison in terms of inefficient scoring.
Conversely, Penny Hardaway put up 21.7 pts that same year on only 14.8 FG attempts per game. That's 1.47 pts per FG attempt, which is way above average.
So yes, Penny's and Abdul-Rauf's lines are very different. One was remarkly efficient and one was very inefficent. Another measure of efficiency is PER (Player Efficiency Rating which measures per-minute production standardized so the league average is 15). In 1995-96, Penny had a 24.6 PER to Abdul-Rauf's 18.6 PER (and going back to my original argument, Barros had a higher PER than Abdul-Rauf over his career). The correlation between scoring efficiently and winning games in the NBA is very strong.
Oh, you're one of those PER ignoramuses? Well, why didn't you say so? I can see how there is no way that a player averaging 19 and 7 on 1.1 points perFGA attempt could have a better PER than Penny Hardaway.. Except TERRELL BRANDON who happened to have those same averages the same year Penny had thatextremely efficient season yet he had a better PER than Penny (25.2). Well, I guess it's settled then, Terrell Brandon was better than Penny Hardaway. Youlearn something new every day. Career PER? Guess who has a career PER that is higher than Penny Hardaway's:
Peja Stojakovic
Brad Miller
Andre Miller
Corey Maggette
Terrell Brandon (has higher PER both in Penny's best season AND a higher career PER? Now I guess there's really no discussion between who ofthe two is better)
Andrei Kirilenko
Zach Randolph
Zydrunas Ilgauskas
Shareef Abdur-Rahim
Antawn Jamison
Rik Smits
Jeff Hornacek
Glenn Robinson
Man, I never knew that all these players were better than Penny Hardaway. But thanks to you, now I know.
My personal favorite example of PER's brilliance and why it should be used in every argument possible about who is a better basketball player is when in2001-02, Jason Kidd, who finished second in MVP voting and who many think was the right MVP of that season had a PER of 19.1 - not even remotely close to thePER leaders that year. Thankfully, he didn't win the MVP with such a lousy PER. All hail PER.