I should preface this column by saying that I am a complete nerd, and I have no delusions of being anything but. I resigned myself to this fate a long, long time ago; I'm well past the point of no return.
I think I've finally figured out why it took me so long to fully embrace my identity as a basketball junkie.
For a long time, my obsession with baseball was rooted in my love for its statistics. It began when I was seven, when I would spend hours looking through old baseball cards, memorizing batting averages and ERAs for no practical purpose whatsoever; it fully came to fruition when I was 18, and I learned to embrace such beautiful terms as EqA, WARP, FIP, BABIP and of course, the almighty "VORP."
Baseball was an exact science. Basketball was a mess - you could watch the game every night and still not be able to make logical sense out of it.
My opinion has changed dramatically over the past few months. With the growing popularity of the "plus/minus" stat - a simple yet elegant metric, borrowed from hockey as a means of calculating the scoring margin amassed with a given player on the floor - in basketball, hoops statistics are more prevalent than ever. And naturally, being me, I've become an obsessive stathead.
So as a treatise on my newfound devotion to the statistical analysis of basketball, here are a few conclusions I've made about the NBA this season, strictly by the numbers.
LeBron is better than Kobe. Period. This year brings the most contested MVP race I can ever remember, and seemingly every journalist, blogger and commentator (with the notable exception of Tommy Heinsohn, whose top three candidates are Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen) seems to have narrowed the ballot down to King James and the Kobe Bean. Why not narrow it down to one?
The obvious part is the simple counting stats - LeBron leads Kobe by about two points, two rebounds and two assists per game. LeBron's plus/minus shows him yielding the Cavaliers 15.8 points per game; Kobe checks in at a not-even-close 8.4. His offense accounts for 6.5 of those points, a number that puts him on par with such future Hall of Famers as Mike Dunleavy and DeShawn Stevenson.
The problem isn't that Kobe is particularly bad, but he's no MVP. He forces a few too many jumpers rather than looking for the extra pass, and the Lakers' field goal percentage on assisted shots is significantly higher with Kobe off the floor (64 percent) than with him on (59). The guy's surrounded with more talent than he's ever had since the Shaq golden age, and he's not adjusting accordingly.
For what it's worth, Kobe's better defensively. But not better enough.
Steve Nash is (still!) the league's best point guard. All right, I love Chris Paul. Nothing glues me to a TV set better than a Hornets game. The alley-oops never get old, and the kid hustles after a loose ball like none other.
But keep in mind two things. First, CP3 is tremendously overrated defensively; he's just too small to effectively contest shots. With Paul on the floor, the Hornets allow 52 percent shooting and 107 points per 100 possessions; without him, it's 48 percent and 102 per 100.
Second, all that garbage about how "Nash makes his teammates so much better" is actually true. The Suns shoot 58 percent from the floor with Nash - that number is downright nasty. Without him, they're at about 49 - Nash's 9 percent gap is way bigger than that of Paul (5 percent), Deron Williams (also 5), Baron Davis (4), Chauncey Billups (3) or Rajon Rondo (2). (Fun fact: Derek Fisher's is negative. Suck it, Lakers.)
Kevin Garnett's defense has transformed the Celtics. While LeBron, Kobe and occasionally CP3 dominate the MVP debate, KG continues to linger in the race. He's the darkhorse candidate that won't go away - he's Mike Huckabee without the cultural ignorance, goofy grin and general insanity. And I know what you're all thinking: "What is all this fuss about defense? The MVP is about putting up the numbers."
But in his own sublime way, KG has put up numbers, and that's why he at least belongs in the conversation. The Celtics allow just 98.5 points per 100 possessions with Garnett on the floor; the average NBA team is around 107. KG's defense nets the Celtics 4.3 points a night, and it should go without saying that the Celtics' opponents' field goal percentage, rebounds and blocks all go up with him the floor. This stuff is quantifiable, and it's true: Garnett's defense is a big deal.
There is no one in the NBA more underrated than Antawn Jamison. The Wizards don't get nearly enough respect for the season they've had, establishing themselves as the fifth-best team in the East despite missing a legitimate superstar in Gilbert Arenas. Jamison has stepped up to become the team's leading scorer and rebounder, but that's not all.
Jamison's plus/minus - you won't believe this - is the highest in the NBA, beating out Nash, LeBron and Dirk Nowitzki. Part of this is of course due to the Wizards' lack of bench depth; if I were backed up by a combination of Andray Blatche and Darius Songaila, my stats would look good too. But Jamison's tremendous ability on the offensive glass - the Wizards get 32 percent of offensive boards with him on the floor and 26 without him - should never go overlooked. Jamison isn't the world's best pure scorer, but he does so many little things so well. Take heed.
Kevin Durant is just not that good. Sorry. If KD ends up winning Rookie of the Year, he may well be the award's worst recipient ever. Depending on which NBA stats guru you trust most, he's somewhere between the eighth- and 11th-best player on his own team (plus/minus: -9.1 - yes, seriously, that's a negative sign), and this is a Sonics club that's on life support to begin with.
Part of the blame belongs with P.J. "How Do I Still Manage to Find Employment?" Carlesimo, whose decision to use the 6-foot-9 Durant on the wing has made him absolutely dreadful defensively. He just doesn't know how to guard guys like Tracy McGrady and Manu Ginobili. He doesn't have that kind of quickness, and he just gets juked and side-stepped to death.
But he also takes too many bad shots on the offensive end, where the Sonics (the Sonics!) shoot two percentage points better without him. He also averages 2.2 assists and 3.0 turnovers, numbers which are really only excusable for a true big man like Dwight Howard or Amare Stoudemire.
Want a real ROY candidate? Al Horford and Luis Scola are solid candidates, but with a plus/minus of 7.4, Jamario Moon stands alone.
Don't believe me? You can look it up. All of it.
Evans Clinchy is a junior majoring in English. He can be reached at Evans.Clinchy@tufts.edu.
