The “Love thy current PFs” edition:
How good is Ed Davis versus other rookies?
One of the easiest (and among the best) ways to measure his performance is Player Efficiency Rating, which was developed by ESPN’s own John Hollinger. In John’s words, PER “sums up all a player’s positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player’s performance.” This article shows us how it is calculated.
While PER is more offensively-biased, I believe we can always make the case that Davis is having a solid year defensively as well (see Arsenalist’s great post as one example.)
Notice Mr. Davis’ PER ranking versus draft order. It’s one of the best “deltas” (3rd ranking in PER vs being picked 13th), making him look like one of the best steals in the draft to date. The other big deltas are largely those picked late in prior drafts and/or are older (read: more experienced) players, including: Splitter (age: 26), Neal (26), Asik, (24). Landry Fields (age 22, 39th pick) appears to be the overall steal of the draft, but certainly Davis is proving to be an excellent choice at 13.
Rebounding – another reason to appreciate our current PFs
I like rebounding. I often have to defend (at length) how important it is. Perhaps this is a simple way to do it:
It’s pretty glaring. Obviously, the Raptors likely did more than rebound poorly in losses this year. There are many factors at play. However rebounding significantly better than our opponents give us the extra chances we need (and limits theirs). It’s quite clear.
Speaking of rebounding and our current (and former) power forwards, I dug this up last night:
While Mr. Bosh certainly has a much more rounded game than our PFs, our chart shows all of the Raptors’ PFs ahead of him in rebounding rates. My favourite “effort” statistic if offensive rebounding. Obviously you need the body and instincts to rebound, but I believe offensive rebounding is as much about heart and hustle than anything.
I know that there are players way taller than me. I am one of the smallest centres in the league. But at the same time I think that I have one of the biggest hearts in the league. – rebounding machine DeJuan Blair
On Wednesday night, when Mr. Bosh comes into town, you have a few choices. You could exhaust your energy into player that no longer plays for the home team or perhaps reward those that have pride in wearing a Toronto Raptors jersey and hustle for you every minute – trying to provide a return for that ticket that you paid with your hard earned dollars. You absolutely have the right to do either.
Do you want to send the message to current players that you’re behind them and their effort is appreciated? Or would you prefer ignore our troops and fire up an opponent to victory? The choice is yours.
Toronto is one of the greatest cities in the world. Let the players know it. Have some pride.
By forgiving and choosing to move on, one takes the power back to morph it into positive energy. – Eugenia Triputti
Questions? Email me: tomliston@gmail.com or find me on Twitter.
Sources: basketball-reference.com
