http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ba...t=AqhdB.SXLbsc0e_z2KcUBCy8vLYF?urn=nba-271574 Jagged little pill.....
Check out #7 and especially #1. Helps the pill go down a tiny bit. [video=youtube;_E2QwDxqokw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E2QwDxqokw[/video]
Seems like Groundhogs Day around here regarding Durant. Luckily, KD has the easiest argument of all "great" players: Come back and tell me he's great when he's actually led his team to a playoff series victory. Enough said. He can put up 50/20/20 next season and win the MVP, but if he has a 16.6 PER in the playoffs and leads a fully healthy team to a one-and-out yet again in the first round, he's still Fools Gold.
I'm all down to say "Durant can't lead his team to a playoff series win." But everytime I try to say it I just think the same thing about Roy. Next year should answer a lot of questions regarding both teams. I don't want to be saying the same thing next year I did last year "How can you win a playoff series when your best player is injured your starting center is injured and your best defender is playing one armed?"
I wouldn't disagree with that. But then again, that's why we have Oden. I'd love to see anyone outside of a 7'6 experienced Yao Ming stop him in a playoff series. I think by the time we get to the playoffs, Oden will finally be a rolling machine as far as learning the mismatches and the other guys on the court running the ball through him at least once on every normal walk-up possession up the floor. That will be the difference.
I almost forgot that 'PER' is the one thing that prevents the Kevin Durant ordeal rendered catastrophic. If only this tell all stat never existed. Hmm.
If that and other advanced stats never existed, we'd make a lot of mistakes, agreed. Thank goodness people keep advancing knowledge as years go by. And PER thinks the world of Durant. I know it's sad that PER also thinks Oden is pretty damn good when healthy. Just take the good with the bad, guy.
Wait a minute...is that right? Do you have a source for that? Because that just seems wrong. If you're right, it really changes things.
haha, 'guy'. and FWIW, I have no problem with PER; in fact, I actually think it's a good stat. Just not a measuring stick.
PER is an awesome stat, and many fans here like it, except when tit doesn't tell the correct story. <cough>Wesley Matthews</cough>
Here's the kicker though Although the Blazers didn't draft Durant, he was actually AVAILABLE if the Blazers wanted to draft him, which would mean he could have been a Blazer. This news has certainly not been brought up by anyone. Instead they drafted Oden, which made him a Blazer and not Durant, because Durant wasn't drafted by the Blazers, and instead was drafted by, get this, a team that doesn't even exist. Wow....wow. All of this leads me to one question: Who exactly drafted Kevin Durant? Does he even exist?
No stat is a great measuring stick all by itself. I think PER is one of the better ways to get quick overview of a player's productivity while on the floor, but it's not a precise tool. If one player has a 23 PER and one player has a 21 PER, I don't think that's terribly conclusive as to whom is better. Plus, PER doesn't account for defense in any significant way. There has to be a mix of metrics as well as some observation, especially for defense.
