Since there's a bit of a break here in the preseason, I thought I'd post some player preseason stats. First of all, how predictive/useful are these numbers? In Kevin Pelton's recent BP article "Preseason Stats: Information or Noise?", he concludes that we shouldn't "throw out preseason stats altogether. The evidence indicates there is some predictive value to how players play even in seemingly meaningless games." Of course, a huge difference between preseason and regular season is how the minutes will be distributed. Therefore, I think looking at per-minute stats is particularly more useful in the preseason (if we're to take anything from these numbers, that is). We could perhaps combine our expectations for the minutes break down with the per-minute numbers from the players, and get a rough idea of what they'll do during the season. Of course, we'd also have to keep in mind that the lineups on the floor would be different, and that could impact scoring opportunities. First, here are the per-game numbers for the Rockets through 6 preseason games: And here are the numbers per-36 minutes: I've included a GS column, which is the Game Score rating devised by John Hollinger that is a composite box score stats rating (think of it as an alternative to NBA EFF from NBA.com). That roughly tells us who's played the best just based on the box score. Very little about defense can be gleaned from any of this, though. What the per-minute table suggests is that Landry's surprisingly high per-minute numbers last season may not have been a fluke. While he hasn't had the same stellar FG%, he's still giving the team 19 points and 11 rebounds per 36 minutes (he produced 17.5/10.5 against regular season NBA competition as a rookie). The numbers also suggest that people going gaga over Von Wafer may want to settle down. He has certainly shot well, but it appears he's done little else to "fill the boxscore". Strawberry's stats look pretty good, he may be getting underrated by some fans. He's done the following pretty well: gotten to the free throw line and made them, gotten steals, kept his turnovers low. Brooks has shown some strong scoring and playmaking, certainly superior in that regard to Rafer who seems to be scaling back his shot attempts (without any apparent improvement in efficiency). Yao's numbers are about what we'd expect; his scoring figures to decrease this year with a greater emphasis on fast breaks, Adelman's motion offense, and the inclusion of Artest. Scola's production has been way down, for whatever reason. Barry has led the team in per-minute assists, so we could expect him to be something more than a sharp shooter. He may be a real playmaker for this team. Artest has played hard, but offensively he's been up and down throughout the preseason. I like those steals, though.
