This post is purely about stats. It's not about my personal opinion, or what I think everybody else's personal opinion is. You guys probably already know my opinion about Melo's injury from my comments. However, since I see a lot of comments regarding Melo's on-court impact, I decided to head over to 82games.com and see exactly what the splits are. Since I was there already, I'll add in some other related stats too.
Here's the table, directly copied form 82games.com:
On Court / Off Court stats
Many stats are shown on a 'per 48 minute' basis
|
Stat |
ON Court |
OFF Court |
Net |
|
Minutes |
1440 |
878 |
62% |
|
Offense: Pts per 100 Poss. |
115.0 |
110.1 |
+4. |
|
Defense: Pts per 100 Poss. |
108.0 |
106.5 |
+1.5 |
|
Net Points per 100 Possessions |
+6.9 |
+3.6 |
+3.3 |
|
Points Scored |
3254 |
1882 |
+1372 |
|
Points Allowed |
3057 |
1820 |
+1237 |
|
Net Points |
+197 |
+62 |
+135 |
|
Effective FG% |
50.7% |
51.5% |
-0.9% |
|
Effective FG% Allowed |
49.0% |
50.5% |
-1.5% |
|
Assisted Field Goals |
55% |
56% |
-1% |
|
Assisted FG% Allowed |
55% |
54% |
+1% |
|
Own Shots Blocked |
6% |
7% |
-1% |
|
Shots Blocked |
6% |
5% |
+1% |
The part we've mainly concerned about is the top part. The Nuggets are 4.8 points per possession better offensively when Melo is on the court, but also 1.5 points per possession worse defensively. The latter can be contributed to the fact that he usually plays against the opposing team's starters, which generally generates more offense for the other team. Do a bit of math, and that comes out to being 3.3 points per possession better when on the court as opposed to being off the court. Only Nene and Birdman have a better points per possession difference (by the way, Birdman's is a whopping +11.6 points per possession better. I might do a post about that). Take whatever you want out of these stats.
via c2.api.ning.com
Some other Melo tidbits from 82games: Melo's foul-drawing rate of 15.5% is very average, despite the fact that his FTA per game is one of the top ones in the league. This is probably attributed to his very high usage rate, which I have no problem with since he's the best player on the team. Melo's Win% is 70.3%, which is slightly better than the team's record of 34-16 (68% of the games played were won). Now, I have no clue what Win% is, but I'm assuming that it would be the team's winning percentage if the player played all 48 minutes. Melo's eFG% decreases by 10% on jumpers and nearly 20% on "close shots" during clutch time. However, his per-48 minutes scoring average is at 42.4, and I have always thought that Melo is one of the league's best performers in the clutch. Sometimes, stats are really weird.
I just love how the ref is in the background ready to call some stupid foul (via www.sneakerfiles.com)
Steven Hunter Sighting!!!!! (via americansportsblog.files.wordpress.com)
OK, I'm having some MAJOR formatting issues putting that chart on here.
