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
Good stuff Nick, thanks for pulling up the net PER stats. TA's net PER is still 5th best on the team, not bad for a bench player. To judge the meaningfulness of a stat, it's often helpful to place it in the context of what everyone else on the team is doing. 5th best net PER pretty much settles the argument of who is currently the bench's best player, doesn't it (I took that stat from 82games.com)? Powe is close, Eddie a little further back, but TA, with the best net PER, scoring average, and steals per game of any bench player, is currently our best bench player, right? If you can agree with that statement, then it's hard to understand all the hubbub about TA....I mean, if you want to improve the bench, you start with improving the players around the bench's best player, right? Shouldn't we be having 15-page threads about Eddie or Powe?
I, for one, have never said that Tony isn't this year best bench player, because, he is. But that, I think, is more a statement on the overall quality of our bench than it is a statement about just how good Tony is.
And again, this goes back to what I said this summer when Danny was putting together this bench. I wanted an experienced bench with different components. My dream pick-ups had nothing to do with James Posey. I wanted a solid defensive big with length like Kurt Thomas. I wanted a backcourt player that could add offense and some ball handling, like Roger Mason. I wanted a defensive minded wing, like Matt Barnes or Mikael Pietrus. If a bench like this, not necessarily this group who would have been a dream bench but a bench like this that were veterans, I would have been thrilled about this team chances.
Because of Rondo's and Perk's development I still am convinced this team will repeat but think if the bench had a different makeup this team might have been considered one of the best ever. But Danny's idea of putting together a bench was to sign a lazy project at center, add two rookies(probably his best idea), resign a PG who does more coaching than playing, resign a SG that's a poor shooter and is not the smartest of players, and resign a PG that can't dribble or drive and needs to be passed the ball in the right spots to get his offense.
Not the best of summers for one Danny Ainge.
It sounds like we're pretty much in agreement, surprisingly enough, except for the quality of DA's offseason. This team is extremely tapped in terms of salary cap #s--we have 3 players making approximately 60 million dollars and as such we're forced to cut corners in other areas. To DA's credit, he cuts corners extremely well, filling out this team with overachieving 2nd round picks (Powe, Baby, Pruitt, Giddens, Walker) and great young players still on relatively cheap deals (Rondo, who's still on his rookie deal, and Perk, who signed a ridiculously low contract a couple years ago). So, after losing Posey (who he would have overpaid for in years 1, 2, and 3, but not 4 or 5), DA knew he could bring back Sam, House and TA on cheap, short-year deals, and then bide his time come this season, and pounce on whatever free agent is the most attractive and fills a need of the team as currently constituted. We now have the money to pounce with and get us a Joe Smith, Marbury, Antoine Walker, PJ Brown, Alonzo Mourning, etc...and until we do (or the months pass and we don't) I'm giving DA an incomplete on his offseason. With the constitution of this team, he's doing the right thing, which is waiting to see what high-priced, bought-out veteran he can convince to sign with us for short money sometime in Feb/March...
Now, that said, I'd love to have Roger Mason Jr. on this team...that was a great signing for the Spurs. The rest? We'd be in the same boat as we are right now, still needing that veteran presence to solidify things out there. Even with Mason, we'd probably still need a veteran big to round things out. And there just isn't that much money to go around, especially considering the big time extension Rondo's going to get this offseason.