The internet is dominated by short and very short articles, but my full game reports are extremely long, averaging about 4500 words these days. I know some people will never have the time to read articles that long. Short articles on extremely important topics are great for fans without a lot of time to check out and to give their opinion on. So from now on, as time permits, I will extract a very small number of very important parts of game reports and post them as separate reports. I am NOT going to extract substantial chunks out of the reports, only a very small number of outtakes of stuff I consider to be extremely interesting or important There will still be alot of important stuff that you would have to skim through the long report to find. One of the things I did to show why J.R. Smith should never be completely benched is show which Nuggets, and then which NBA players in general get the most points per unit of time. 48 minutes was used, but keep in mind that the ranks remain exactly the same no matter how many minutes you use. NUGGETS POINTS PER 48 MINUTES First 32 games of the 2007-08 season Player and Points per 48 Minutes 1 Carmelo Anthony 32.91 2 Allen Iverson 31.18 3 J.R. Smith 25.88 4 Linas Kleiza 22.65 5 Bobby Jones 17.77 6 Kenyon Martin 17.76 7 Nene 14.67 8 Anthony Carter 13.87 9 Von Wafer 13.29 10 Eduardo Najera 13.22 11 Yakhouba Diawara 12.58 12 Marcus Camby 12.33 13 Chucky Atkins 11.44 14 Steven Hunter 7.58 15 Jelani McCoy 4.50 Here you can see that J.R. is the third most productive scorer on the Nuggets per unit of playing time. Smith remains ahead of Kleiza despite Kleiza's big year so far and despite Smith being at least as inconsistent in 3-point shooting this year as last. A player who gets more than 24 points per 48 minutes, or more than a point every 2 minutes on the court, is relatively rare in the NBA, and represents real talent that will in almost all cases earn that player a starting slot and playing time of 22-38 minutes a game. Smith's playing time for the 2007-08 season is now in the high teens and is dropping, of course, with every game he is benched. Let's see how Smith stacks up in the NBA as a scorer: NBA PLAYERS WHO GET 24 OR MORE POINTS FOR EVERY 48 MINUTES OF PLAYING TIME-2007-08 SEASON AS OF JANUARY 7, 2008 Player, Team, and Points per 48 Minutes 1 Kobe Bryant, LAL 35.18 2 Lebron James, CLE 34.81 3 Amare Stoudemire, PHX 33.73 4 Carmelo Anthony, DEN 32.91 5 Carlos Boozer, UTA 31.97 6 Manu Ginobili, SA 31.19 7 Allen Iverson, DEN 31.18 8 Tracy McGrady, HOU 31.04 9 Dwyane Wade, MIA 30.79 10 Richard Jefferson, NJ 29.93 11 Kevin Martin, SAC 29.79 12 Michael Redd, MIL 29.77 13 Dirk Nowitzki, DAL 29.30 14 Shaquille O'Neal, MIA 29.21 15 Chris Bosh, TOR 29.01 16 Kevin Durant, SEA 28.77 17 Yao Ming, HOU 28.35 18 Tony Parker, SA 27.95 19 Chris Paul, NO 27.71 20 Dwight Howard, ORL 27.62 21 Corey Maggette, LAC 27.62 22 Leandro Barbos, PHX 27.52 23 Josh Howard, DAL 27.32 24 Gilbert Arenas, WAS 27.19 25 Tim Duncan, SA 27.00 26 Baron Davis, GS 26.95 27 Vince Carter, NJ 26.94 28 Al Jefferson, MIN 26.55 29 Wally Szczerbiak, SEA 26.46 30 Kevin Garnett, BOS 26.42 31 Rashad McCants, MIN 26.37 32 Paul Pierce, BOS 26.28 33 Antawn Jamison, WAS 26.19 34 Andres Nocioni, CHI 26.09 35 T.J. Ford, TOR 26.07 36 Ben Gordon, CHI 26.02 37 Caron Butler, WAS 26.00 38 J.R. Smith, DEN 25.88 39 Jason Richardson, CHAR 25.79 40 Stephen Jackson, GS 25.46 41 Al Harrington, GS 25.45 42 LaMarcus Aldridge, POR 25.38 43 Richard Hamilton, DET 25.34 44 Rudy Gay, MEM 25.29 45 Eddy Curry, NY 25.22 46 Gerald Wallace, CHAR 25.14 47 Hakim Warrick, MEM 25.13 48 Joe Johnson, ATL 25.06 49 Zach Randolph, NY 25.00 50 David West, NO 24.87 51 Pau Gasol, MEM 24.84 52 Deron Williams, UTA 24.79 53 Brandon Roy, POR 24.72 54 Josh Smith, ATL 24.69 55 Nate Robinson, NY 24.66 56 Mike Dunleavy, IND 24.54 57 Chauncy Billups, DET 24.40 58 Luol Deng, CHI 24.34 59 Hedo Turkoglu, ORL 24.25 There are only 37 players in the NBA who score more points per 48 minutes (or per any number of minutes) on the court than JR Smith does.
I appreciate your long written posts. Big fan. It would be interesting to chart the consistency and efficiency of the top scorers from game to game. For example if JR Smith averages 30 per 48 minutes one night, but only 10 per 48 minutes the next night should he really be touted as a 20 point per game performer or just a streaky player? You might also want to consider players being benched during blow out games. During the Lakers win streak where they were beating teams by an average of 23 points, Kobe didn't even get on the court in the 4th quarter. I'm not sure if that has a negative impact on his scoring numbers.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shapecity @ Jan 15 2008, 01:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I appreciate your long written posts. Big fan. It would be interesting to chart the consistency and efficiency of the top scorers from game to game. For example if JR Smith averages 30 per 48 minutes one night, but only 10 per 48 minutes the next night should he really be touted as a 20 point per game performer or just a streaky player? You might also want to consider players being benched during blow out games. During the Lakers win streak where they were beating teams by an average of 23 points, Kobe didn't even get on the court in the 4th quarter. I'm not sure if that has a negative impact on his scoring numbers.</div> Smith is both a great scorer and inconsistent, and that is one of the things that make it complicated to estimate how much time he should play. As for garbage time, I'm glad you brought it up, because that is one of the things that make the per 48 minute measure better than the simple per game measure. Whenever Kobe goes out, that will never change his per time number or rank at all.
