Double minutes, double stats

[Kim Malo]

At 10:20 AM 6/4/2006, Eggcentric at aol.com wrote:
>With Jeff's disappointing sophomore year and 
>Allen's little off-court "F him over" directive 
>while crushing some guy's eye socket ("I made a 
>little mistake and used bad judgment"), good guy 
>Perkins seems to have risen to the top of our 
>future stars list, even ahead of gasp, wheeze... 
>the incomparable Delonte. < We have the living, 
>breathing example that you can work miracles 
>with touch in one offseason with Perk. Yes he 
>still clangs a few (I think part of the issue 
>with him is getting used to controlling his new, 
>stronger body), but compare his shooting first 
>two seasons to last season and he clearly added 
>major touch to his shot over the summer. It's a 
>jaw dropping difference. > -Kim It appeared to 
>me as well that Perk had really improved his 
>offense this past season.   Yet when comparing 
>his 2004-05 production/stats to those of 
>2005-06, I must admit to not seeing the ”jaw 
>dropping difference” Aside from an increased 
>FG% from 47.1 to 51.5 (although both were down 
>from his rookie season of 53.3%), a quick peek 
>at his progress reveals little more than double 
>minutes for basically double stats. 
>2004-05          (2005-06) Min. 
>9.1           (19.6) PPG 2.5            (5.2) 
>FT% 63.8           (61.5) R's 
>2.9             (5.9) A's 0.4             (1.0) 
>To's 0.7           (1.6) 
>St's   0.2           (0.3) Blk's 
>0.6           (1.5) PF's 1.6                (2.9) Egg

Fine, but since there isn't a stat for touch I'm 
not sure why you would expect to see the jaw 
dropping difference I referred to in the above 
stats. That being said, his shooting %, which is 
the nearest stat there is, did improve 
significantly if not jawdroppingly over last 
season (47% to 51% - first season he only took 15 
shots, so not a significant enough sample), on 
taking about 2 1/2 times as many shots.

One of the things that doesn't show in the usual 
stats is that even more of them were actual shots 
- i.e. requiring touch -  not just slamming back 
a rebound that was already over the hoop. No, 
we're not talking gently rained 3s or even 
Blount's consistent mid range jumper, but I don't 
want Perk that far from the basket anyway (you 
should hear me when he ventures out toward the 3 
point line during the shootaround. Or no, maybe you shouldn't hear me).

What you did see was some genuine soft shots, 
such as you hadn't seen in the prior year, and 
what you didn't see as much of was every miss 
being a clanger that bounced at least 10-20 feet 
back out. Even your misses can indicate improved 
touch when they go from ricocheting missiles 
(equal and opposite reaction and all that) to regular pop back out rebounds.

Kim "damned statistics and lies" Malo <g>