Lost in the Hype

With the New Big 3 going to Miami, Big Shaq going to play with the Old Big 3 and Big Baby, and the excitement surrounding the soaring Thunder and Blake Griffin's arrival in LA, a couple exceptional players have fallen under the NBA's hype-radar. There are many measures of players' success, but one that has become more accepted (especially in international basketball) has been the player efficiency rating. Click on the link if you want the details but it basically rewards players for doing something right and penalizes them for doing something wrong. (So, for the Ricky Davis and Wally Szczerbiak's of the world the PER exposes those 19 shots to score 15 points as not that impressive.)

Currently the top 3 PER players are Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, and Pau--I don't need the "l"--Gasol. Superstars, of course. But, DBSF would like to call your attention to numbers 4 (Al Horford), 6 (Luis Scola), and 8 (Paul--thank you very much, I will use that "l"--Millsap). To give you some perspective DWade is 5, Kobe is 7 and Bron Bron isn't even in the top 15.

Look at it another way. Horford, in 30 minutes a night, is shooting over 65%, scoring over 17 points per game (ppg), and grabbing over 10 boards per night (rbg). Not to mention, he's averaging 3 assists (apg) as a center. Paul Millsap is shooting a pathetic 60% but is making up for it with 20.3 ppg, 11.2 rbg, 3.3 apg, and more than a steal a game. Luis Scola, who suffers from "the 3rd Kardashian anonymity because he plays in Houston and his game is so hustle-technical that he makes Tim Duncan look like JR Smith" is averaging 22.5 ppg, 12.3 rpg, and is shooting 52% from the floor. The seasons still young but all three are putting up numbers that merit a starting PF spot in the All-Star game.