So let's take a look at Tony Allen facts:
As already provided by Roy Hobbs
Stats per 36 minutes
04-05: 14.0 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 1.8 apg, 2.2 spg, 0.7 bpg, 47.5 fg%, 38.7 3pt%, 2.2 tpg, 4.5 pf
05-06: 13.6 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.5 apg, 1.9 spg, 0.7 bpg, 47.1 fg%, 32.4 3pt%, 2.5 tpg, 4.6 pf
06-07: 16.9 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 2.5 apg, 2.2 spg, 0.5 bpg,51.4 fg%, 24.2 3pt%, 3.4 tpg, 3.9 pf
07-08: 13.0 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 3.0 apg, 1.6 spg, 0.6 bpg, 43.6 fg%, 31.6 3pt%, 2.9 tpg, 4.4 pf
08-09: 14.8 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 2.2 apg, 2.2 spg, 0.7 bpg, 47.6 fg%, 16.7 3pt%, 3.1 tpg, 4.0 pf
These are the per game stats for his career:
G MIN FG% FT% REB AST TO PTS
04-05 77 16.4 .475 .737 2.9 0.8 1.0 6.4
05-06 51 19.2 .471 .746 2.1 1.3 1.3 7.2
06-07 31 24.4 .514 .784 3.8 1.7 2.3 11.5
07-08 75 18.3 .434 .762 2.3 1.5 1.5 6.6
08-09 30 19.9 .474 .718 2.1 1.2 1.7 8.1
Without making comments about these numbers they are all simply facts.
He injured himself in the summer of 2005 and missed all of November and December of 2005 and started the 05-06 season on January 6th of 2006.
On January 10th of 2007, in the final minutes of a Celtics loss to the Indiana Pacers, Allen suffered a debilitating knee injury as he landed awkwardly after an uncontested slam dunk attempt after the whistle was blown, tearing both the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and medial collateral ligament (MCL). Allen underwent a successful ACL reconstructive surgery on January 13 at New England Baptist Hospital[9] and was sidelined for the rest of the season.
Allen has been primarily a bench player starting games only when other players were hurt although a rare start not necessitated by other injured players did occur.
Allen played his first year for a good but not championship caliber Boston Celtics team, his next two years for bad Boston Celtics teams and his last season and a third for the best team in the NBA.
In the two years Tony Allen played for playoff teams his usage was shortened greatly as compared to his regular season use that year.
Now all these are facts. There's no getting around them. But how do we interpret them?
That's a pretty good start, Nick, but limited. I'd like to see some other stats, such as Holliger's PER, overall +/-, Net PER (TA's fifth on the team, currently) for the last 4 years before we start the interpretation. There are probably some other good statistic measurements that I'm forgetting. Regardless, we need ALL the facts if we want to interpret them correctly. And we all might need a refresher course on what all those stats are measuring, because it's easy to get lost in the numbers sometimes. This might take all season.
Oh, and as far as usage in the playoffs is concerned, I think we know why he played less in those two playoffs. In 2004, he was a rookie and Doc got cold feet about playing him, even though he was the better option at 2 guard against Reggie. As for last year, we all know that too: TA was still not mentally prepared to lay it on the line, suffering as he was from the emotional effects of his knee injury. That, and some guy named James Posey who got all the wing minutes, not to mention the fact that rotations are tightened in the playoffs and TA hadn't earned his spot in that tightened rotation.
Just so that we are clear, all I stated was the fact that he played less minutes. I never speculated as to the reasons why, that is your own doing SalmonandMashed.
All I said was fact, he played less minutes in the playoffs the two years his teams made it to the playoffs than he did the regular season. The same way I can say that he has had only one season where he had more assists than turnovers and that was last year when he had 114 assists to 109 turnovers. Every other year he has not had more assists than turnovers.
It's the same way I can statistically state that out of all the shooting guards that play more than 15 MPG, Tony Allen has the 5th lowest assist to turnover ratio in the league at 0.72 and is consistently amongst the bottom ten in this category for shooting guards since he entered the league.
I'm not drawing conclusions from those facts, just stating them, people can draw their own conclusions.
Net PER per position:
PG SG SF PF
2004-05 +1.8 +1.3 +22.9 N/A
2005-06 -0.9 -5.1 0.0 N/A
2006-07 0.0 +1.2 +3.0 -50.0
2007-08 -8.8 +2.7 -6.2 0.0
2008-09 0.0 +2.1 -3.0 N/A