FanPost

John Hollinger's PER: What a Crock!

Ok, crock is a strong word for it, he seems like a cool guy and all.  BUT, and this is a big BUT, his stats have absolutely nothing to do with playing winning basketball or assessing whether or not a player is contributing to winning a basketball game.

How do I know this?  Because I am a Spurs fan.  Right now, the Spurs are playing terrible basketball.  They are 1-3.  They got blown out once.  They were very fortunate to win the one game they have one.  Despite that, here are John Hollinger's PER rankings for our Spurs:

Tony Parker - PER ranking #1 - he clocks in a at a stunning 39.41.  Next closest is LeBron way back in the 32's.

Tim Duncan - PER ranking #9 - 28.68.  Just to get perspective on Tony's numbers.  There are six players in the 3 point range between Tim and LeBron.

Roger Mason - PER ranking #25 - 23.21.  And 15 between Tim and Roger's 5.6 point difference.

Amazingly, we have a fourth Spur in the top 25:

George Hill - PER ranking #22 - 23.51 (just ahead of Steve Nash)

The Spurs have 4 of the top performing players in the league.  Hah! 

I'll tell you right now, Tony, Tim, Roger, and George could play like they have the first 4 games for the entire year, but if the Spurs play the same defense then we'll be under .500.  So, can we just throw all the PER talk away?  It doesn't really mean anything other than you are effective putting up stats that don't necessarily contribute to winning.  Me, I'll take Bruce Bowen and his 5.74 (44th among small forwards) and defensive effort.

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