perception problem

[Kestas <Kestutis.Kveraga@dartmouth.edu>]

On nba.com, there is a poll asking which pair you'd rather have - Finley
and Nowitzki, or Pierce and Walker. So far, 12-year-olds have voted
overwhelmingly in favor of the Maverick duo - 62% vs 38%  with 68k+ votes
submitted. If this were an election, it would be a landslide victory for
the candidates from Texas. No chad classification and manual hand counts
for us. But do the stats bear this assessment out?


MPG FGM-A FG% 3PM-A 3P% FTM-A FT% 	OFF DEF TOT APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG  
mf
41.8 134-294 .456 17-49 .347 42-51 .824 		1.30 3.60 4.90 	3.4 1.07 .40 2.07
2.00 21.8 

dk
35.9 105-229 .459 25-62 .403 88-102 .863 		1.40 6.70 8.10 	1.8 .86 .50 .86
2.60 23.1 

pp
40.2 113-256 .441 39-84 .464 58-76 .763 		1.40 5.60 7.00 	2.7 1.75 .92 3.33
3.50 26.9 

aw
43.9 103-268 .384 43-107 .402 42-58 .724 		3.00 8.10 11.10 	5.0 1.08 .67
3.00 3.50 24.3 

To make the impact of these duos easier to assess, I summarize their stats
below:

Combined stats for the two pairs
	MF +DK		PP+AW
mpg	77.7		84.1
fg%	.457		.412
3fg%	.378		.429
3fga	111		191
ft%	.850		.746
fta	153		134
rpg    	13.0		18.1
apg  	 5.2		7.7
spg    	1.93		2.83
bpg   	0.9		1.59
to	2.93		7.0
pts	44.9		51.2

Thus, PP+AW lead MF+DK in every statistical category, in some cases by
substantial margins, except 2-point FG%, FT%, and turnovers. The other
notable stat is that the Dallas pair has an FTA/3FGA ratio of 1.38, whereas
our guys' ratio is 0.70. 
Still, despite the negatives, it could be argued our pair is quite a bit
more productive. So, why the disparity in votes (assuming that
the12-year-olds from Dallas are not stuffing the ballot and race is not an
issue)? I would guess that our pair is dragged down by Walker, who has a
major perception problem because of his offensive inefficiency and poor
shot selection. If Jack Ramsay's comments are representative of what the
coaches think of his (and, to a lesser extent, Pierce's) game, I'll be
surprised if he makes the All-Star team. 

Of course, were these pairs to switch places, with Nash and Hardaway
running the show in Dallas, Antoine able to play his true position of SF
with Juwan Howard at PF, and a competent shotblocker in Bradley, who knows
what their efficiency would be? But such considerations certainly don't
enter the predominantly juvenile nba.com voter minds, and I even doubt that
most coaches give a lot of thought to the circumstances. 
Kestas