Pierce's stats

[Mike Dynon <mdynon@ix.netcom.com>]

(Good thing ESPN posted this before last night. -- Mike)


Tuesday, Mar. 2 12:22am ET
Pierce paces NBA rookies

By Rob Neyer
ESPN.com 

At the conclusion of last summer's NBA draft, a number of observers
considered Paul Pierce, selected by Boston with the 10th pick, the steal
of the draft.

Early on, it looks like those observers, and the Celtics, were right
about
Pierce. And it looks like most of the nine teams who could have draft
Pierce,
but didn't, were wrong.

Through Wednesday night's games, Pierce actually ranked as the 13th most
productive player in the NBA, as rated by ESPN.com's own Player Rating,
which utilizes the following formula:

[Points + Rebounds + (Assists*2) + (Steals*2) + (Blocks*1.5)
+ (FTA*.20)] - [Missed FGA + Missed FTA + (DQ*5) +
(Turnovers*2) + (PF*.20)] 

Does our Player Rating system "work"? Well, according to the method, the
top five players in the NBA are Jason Kidd (37.3 per game), Gary Payton
(34.7), Shaquille O'Neal (31.6), Allen Iverson (30.6) and Karl Malone
(29.4).

The table lists the top five rookies, according to Player Rating. 

	Rookie		Drafted	Rating	NBA Rank
	Pierce		No. 10	25.3	13
	J. Williams	No. 7	20.3	36
	Bibby		No. 2	19.9	42
	Carter		No. 5	19.6	43
	LaFrentz	No. 3	17.4	62

After those top five, there's a huge dropoff in performance. With a 17.4
Player Rating, Raef LaFrentz ranks 62nd in the NBA. What's more,
LaFrentz would rank about 10 spots higher, except his season-ending knee
injury occurred early in Denver's game last Thursday, thus lowering his
per-game averages. 

After him, the next rookie on the Player Rating list is Antawn Jamison,
all the
way down at No. 148 with a 10.4 Player Rating.

The difference in performance between Carter and Jamison is particularly
interesting, as the two were teammates at North Carolina a year ago, and
were chosen with consecutive picks - Jamison No. 4, Carter No. 5 - in
the
1998 draft.

As easy as it might be to second-guess nine NBA teams for not selecting
Pierce, a look at the table suggests that most teams knew what they were
doing. After all, of the top five rookies this season, all five were
among the first 10 picks of the draft.

The other five selected among the top 10?

1. Michael Olowokandi
Has to be considered a disappointment, even when you take into account
his
status as "a project." Remember, a year ago Tim Duncan was the No. 1
pick,
and he contributed from the get-go. Will this pick be remembered as yet
another in a long series of poor ones by the Clippers.

4. Antawn Jamison
As we noted, he's not doing a whole lot, especially in comparison with
Vince
Carter.

6. Robert Traylor
Barely playing, and currently ranks as the 220th most productive player
in the
NBA.

8. Larry Hughes
A scoring machine in college, Hughes is averaging only 8.8 points per
game
for the 76ers. But he just turned 20 years old, so it will be a few
years before
we really know how good he can be.

9. Dirk Nowitzki
Milwaukee selected Nowitzki with the ninth pick, then traded him and No.
19
pick Pat Garrity to Dallas for Traylor. So far, the trade might be
scored as
essentially even, as Nowitzki's production has been virtually identical
to
Traylor's, and Garrity has barely played.

As we saw a year ago with Tim Duncan, the occasional first-year player
will
step right into the lineup and be productive in the NBA. But those kinds
of
players are rare. For the most part, even the rookies who eventually do
make
their marks in the NBA take a few years to get there.