Magnification can just as easily be called exaggeration. Per minute "stats" take actual stats and then extrapolate from them to create theoretical numbers that players can be compared on. Such "stats" may not be completely useless as a measure of player productivity, but there's waaaaaaaaay too many variables being taken for granted for such "stats" to be taken all that seriously.
Mike
It's not exaggeration and it's not theoretical. It's simple math that you probably learned in 2nd or 3rd grade. If x = y, then 3x = 3y.
If I play 8 minutes a game and get 6 rebounds a game, and Nick plays 32 minutes a game and gets 8, would you claim that Nick's clearly a better rebounder than me because he gets 8 a game and I get 6? Or would you say that I'm a better rebounder because I get .75 boards per minute when I play and Nick only gets .25 rebounds per minute?
Saying I get 6 rebounds in a minutes a game or saying I average .75 rebounds for every minute I play or saying that my per40 rebounding rate is 30 are 3 ways to say the exact same thing. It's not an exaggeration. It's not at all theoretical because it's based solely on my actual production. It doesn't imply that, if I played 40 minutes a game, I'd get 30 rebounds a game. It say that I average 30 rebounds for every 40 minutes I'm on the court. Nothing exaggerated, nothing theoretical.
It is theoretical because it's taking what actuall happens and then projecting forward in order to evaluate. It's not x = y, therefore 3x = 3y. It's more like x = y, therefore x+a = y+b. Projecting what player x's stats would be compared to player y's projected stats is a much more dubious proposition than you assume because you can't know if the player's performance will be consistent over the projection variable you are inserting into the equation.
Instead of theoretical projections, let's look at actual stats. Fan from VT stated that Maxiell was better than Davis when it comes to scoring. Maxiell started 29 games for the Piston's last year. Baby's only similar stretch was the 36 games in the 08-09 regular season and playoffs after KG went down.
In those 29 games, Maxiell averaged 7.2 points. In those 36 games, Baby averaged 13.2 points. So, while the stats say Maxiell is the better scorer than Baby, when both players were given a chance to start, Baby turns out to be the far superior scorer.
Now, my comparison isn't 100% conclusive because there are other variables I'm not taking into consideration. But the idea that there is ANYTHING conclusive about per40 or per36 stats, especially when applied to players who are on the court for far less time than that, is silly.
Mike
I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand. There's no projection at all involved in per36 or per40 stats. Your argument boils down to "I don't understand what these numbers are meant to represent, therefore they are meaningless.
Per36 is just normalizing numbers for comparison's sake. It's another way of representing production per minute, which is actual, not theoretical. There is, once again, no projection involved whatsoever. If I play 18 minutes a game and average 9 points a game, my per36 average is 18 points.
All that means is, for every 36 minutes I play in games, I score on average 18 points. It doesn't mean that if I played 36 minutes in a single game I'd average 18 a game. It doesn't mean that if I played those 18 minutes (on average) at other parts in the game (like vs starters instead of backups) that I'd still average that same 9 points a game. All it's doing is giving people a quick and easy way to compare *actual* production per minute (or other unit).
An actual example would be if I said that Rondo was our best rebounder in the LA series. He got the most rebounds per game and most overall rebounds. You might look at the stats page on espn and notice that Rondo got 6.3 rebounds a game in 39 minutes a game, while KG got 5.6 rebounds a game in 32 minutes. You could then whip out a calculator (or do the math in your head) to determine that KG got more rebounds per minute when they played than Rondo did. You might do similar calculations for Pierce, Perk, Baby, Sheed, even Nate or Ray.
Or you could simply press the button that says "Per 48 minutes". You would then immediately see that all four of the bigs plus Sheldon and Daniels averaged more rebounds per minute than Rondo. You could come back and post the list of players who averaged more rebounds per minute than Rondo and claim that, in fact, he wasn't really our best rebounder vs LA.
Even though you used the dreaded "per 48" to quickly find out who got more rebounds per minute than Rondo, your post would be exactly correct. It wouldn't be based on theory. It wouldn't be based on projections. It would be solely based on what the players did in the games.
What you (as you noticed) can't do with those per 48 stats is claim that we'd have destroyed the Lakers if we'd played Marquis more because he was giving us 60 points per 48 minutes (5 total points in 4 total minutes in the series). You also couldn't say that if Baby started instead of Perk we'd have done better on the boards because he got more boards per minute, which could be because he was going up against Odom and not Bynum.
See? I'm saying that per minute stats are a handy way to compare production per minute on the court between two or more players. You're claiming that it's useless because it can be misused by people who don't understand what it means. I'd say that's true about any stats, including all of the ones you're using to support your claims.
Topic: Why Is Glen Davis still on this team? (Read 69624 times)