JH, name 1 player your evaluation helps the most and 1 it hurts the most. Somebody has to slip through the cracks right, in a good way and a bad way.
I tend to agree with the guys who think Iverson's PER is about right. He not only averaged 9 FTA/game, he averaged > 6 APG and > 2 SPG for his career. His PER is right there with Melo's which is pretty fair, IMO.
The problem with PER is it doesn't take into account the opposition. One of the articles quoted talks about comparing Jordan Farmar and Derrick Fisher. Well, Fisher generally played against teams' first stringers and at the end of Q4 with the game on the line, and Farmer put up his stats against 2nd stringers. You might consider this when talking about Batum and his 24 MPG, some against starters some against 2nd stringers. Like any stat, you can't take the one as the end-all. You have to consider multiple stats to get a good picture of a guy's skills. Like the 24 MPG and PER taken together says "something."
I feel the same way about PER, at least in terms of mpg. It's why I take Oden's 23 PER with a grain of salt. I hope he puts up those numbers over 70 games/32 mpg, but I certainly don't expect it.
Obviously it helps the guys with fewer minutes. If you get fewer minutes as a starter (like Oden) you can get a true measure of where you'd be if you get over the foul situation and see about where you really line up with the guys plugging away 35-38 mpg. Then to the extreme it helps the guys with nearly no minutes like Patty Mills, who go in at garbage time and make a few lay ins against some scrubs who aren't playing defense, all in the matter of a couple minutes. It boosts those guys to actually look good, so they slip through the cracks unless you filter. The guys it hurts are guys that either share a lot of touches (see Boston with Rondo, KG, Piece, etc. all sharing the stats, see Kobe having to share with Pau, while both are likely better than Wade or Bosh, Wade and Bosh being the only decent players on their entire rosters have inflated stats and thus their PER gets pushed way above what it would be if Kobe were to change places with Wade, or Pau to exchange with Bosh, etc. Also defense specialists get the shaft as they literally change the shots of opposing teams, and that doesn't get factored in. So guys like Dwight Howard and Yao are probably much lower as a single "value" put on them compared to guys that really aren't impact defenders and thus have a higher PER but much less value to the W/L record for a team.
HOF, you got so many stat sites from me over the years, you probably got that, too. http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/per.html HCP, you want defense in a rating. PER includes blocks & steals, but does not integrate in a defensive rating, while the Roland Rating does. Both adjust for per minute and for possessions. http://www.82games.com/0809/ROLRTG8.HTM
IMO, the Roland Rating is biased toward players on good teams in terms of assessing value. Too much emphasis on +/- at this stage, so in reality, it's more a value-to-team matrix than a head-to-head matrix. I like the Roland rating, because I value performance on-court in terms of winning, but I still believe PER is a more objective analysis.
Study this and get back to me when you understand it. Then I'll have some intermediate things for you. http://www.powerbasketball.com/theywin2.html
PER is a solid catch-all quick look at players. It's not sufficient to make conclusive determinations between players that are close to one another in ability, but it's quite a lot better, in my opinion, than looking at a PPG/RPG/APG line for getting an idea of where players stand.
