Jackie Butler shoudl have won MVP last year based on his PER stats.

No Killa, he shouldn't. His numbers were inflated due to small sample sizes.

+/- isn't one of the stat categories that give a deeper meaning. its a selfish stat measure being used to elevate the status of a selfish player above the 11 men he takes the court with night in and night out.

you want to talk stats and deeper meaning. how about guard rebounding?

D Wade is a 6'4 205 guard averaging 7 rebounds a game to go along with scoring 25 per and handing out 7 assists. This is what Wade is doing against actual competition. He is giving his team more chances to win by hitting the boards and limiting 2nd chance opprtunities for his opponents as well as occassionally creating more opportunities for his team. A guard who rebounds like Wade also creates more fast-break opportunities. Wade often takes it out the air and pushes. He keeps thefloor balanced. Another feature of his rebounding is he sometimes creates opportunities to score more from the free-throw line by fouls he draws (like the 1 on Malik Rose) aggressively pursuing the ball in the air. Discuss.



[Edited by - McK1 on 11-30-2005 01:03 AM]

[Edited by - McK1 on 11-30-2005 01:05 AM]

it would have been virtually impossible for our team to have been better last year with Steph off the court. Why?

1) His backups were Jamison Brewer and jermaine Jackson. Whatever anyone's feelings on Steph I think we can all agree he's more capable than either of those two.

2) for the most part our entire offense was built around Steph shooting or finding an 'open jumper' for a teammate. He was far and away the most significant player on our team and everything was devised with him and his 40 mpg in mind. When you take that structure away for little two minute chunks of rest here and there, of course there will be little opportunity for an alternative rhythm to be found or force to emerge.

Those factors taken together yield the obvious falloff the stats reveal. What the stats don't reveal is what might have been with alternative structures in place.