Pursuit of PERfection - Why Spurs Ruck

To 'ruck': to rock or to suck, one or the other, with little middle ground.

Especially with the ubiquity of fantasy sports, there is an inordinate amount of effort that goes into transforming athletes into numbers. This is especially true in baseball, which I can't even follow anymore - any sport in which the difference between greatness and despair sits more than two places after the decimal point has officially lost my interest. That said, there's safety in numbers, and if you know the actual context it's possible to look through the math and see glimmers of truth.

Hollinger's PER (Player Efficiency Rating) statistic is in many ways flawed, but at the very least it makes a reasonable attempt to identify who's overrated and who's underrated in today's NBA. Without further ado, then, a little fun with the (as of today's date) Hollinger PER player rankings.

1) LeBron James, CLE - This is as it should be. At the top of these rankings you'd expect to find players of extraordinary talent in systems that cater to that talent. In this case, the King Without a Ring is a classic showcase star: the whole team is built around helping him do his thing. Does that win championships? Rarely. But it gets you to the top of the PER list. The next three in the list are in the same boat: Wade, Paul and Howard are great players whose teams live or die by their production. Their job is to be the star, and they do that job. You might, in fact, expect that the first few dozen players on the list would fall into this category: the franchise players on each team who get their numbers dialed up time and time again.

5) Tony Parker, SAS - The first Spur, and surely a surprise. Tony's a fine player, sure,  but I don't have a clue what kind of shoes he wears. He's certainly not the sole option like the players above him in the list are for their teams. So why such a high PER? He must be pretty damned efficient if he can rank this high while sharing the rock with stars like:

7) Tim Duncan, SAS - And...

8) Manu Ginobili, SAS - Wow. Two more Spurs - a total of three in the top ten. I wonder how far down we'd have to go to find the next team to get three players on the list?

10) Kobe Bryant, LAL

21) Pau Gasol, LAL

24) Andrew Bynum, LAL - Yup, it's the Lakers who put up the next-best Big Three. Should they feel bad that their top-ranked player scores lower than our third? Sure, why not. But what about the other 'Big Three', the Boston Boys?

27) Kevin Garnett, BOS

36) Ray Allen, BOS

38) Rajon Rondo, BOS - Huh? Rondo's the third most efficient player on the Celtics? Where'd Pierce go, anyway?

97) Paul Pierce, BOS - Oh. Awkward.

But enough talk about the competition - let's get back to the Spurs. Obviously, our Big Three (being the *actual* Big Three) are at the top of the heap. You certainly wouldn't expect us to field anybody else in the top 50. That would just be greedy.

47) Matt Bonner, SAS - Huh. Well then. And who is Red Rocket better than?

48) Baron Davis, LAC - Like we didn't already know that. So, who else is ranked where?

88) George Hill, SAS - Qbitz! To the rescue! That's five Spurs in the top 100, all of them more efficient than...

99) Carmelo Anthony, DEN - Now there's a shock. Okay then. Where's everybody .else at?

158) Roger Mason, SAS - Okay, that's not an exalted ranking, but bear in mind - it's a deep league, and he's still outdoing the likes of J.R. Smith and Lamar Odom. Anything over 200, however, and they're probably best off playing limited minutes in highly specialized situations (or, ideally, being traded).

221) Michael Finley, SAS

240) Anthony Tolliver, SAS 

266) Kurt Thomas, SAS

288) Fabricio Oberto, SAS

291) Jacque Vaughn, SAS

295) Ime Udoka, SAS

303) Bruce Bowen, SAS

What can we say? Findog we knew about, and we don't even pretend to be asking Bruce to play the same sport as everybody else in the league. Still ... that's a little worrisome, right? Can we afford to have seven active-roster players in the bottom third of the league? If not, we can always get rid of them. Check out the very bottom of the barrel, the last page of the rankings, players 301-317 on the list:

305) Francisco Elson, MIL

313) Brent Barry, HOU

314) Nazr Mohammed, CHA

317) Malik Rose, NYK

Yup - just as three of the top ten players are Spurs, three of the bottom ten players are former Spurs. And all of them have rings.

I don't know what this means. But it must mean something.