It’s become a bit of a cliché: It is impossible to make definitive statements about your favorite players and teams until you have a reasonable sample size.
For those uninitiated in statistics, the premise is simple: Your ability to take meaning from data is only as good as the data itself. And generally speaking, the more data you have, the more accurately you’re able to describe what actually is. If the goal is to be able to predict future performances, you ideally want as much data as possible to account for the streakiness of the NBA.
Last year, for example, DeMar DeRozan averaged 19.4 points on 39.4 percent shooting in the first month of the season. However, he averaged 24.1 points on 49.2 percent shooting in April. Neither is reflective of his overall contributions, and only through averaging his whole season can we get an accurate picture of what DeRozan provided the Raptors.
There are certainly limitations to relying on averages, though.
A common complaint is that by using only statistics— even when we attempt to level the playing field a bit with pace-oriented or per-minute stats — we strip context from what actually happened. In other words, they don’t explain why a player performed as well as they did, and instead offer merely what the player did.
And unfortunately, we don’t have a large enough sample size to depend on yet this season, and we certainly the lack the necessary context as well. Yes, we should absolutely work with what we have, but we need to be cautious about the conclusions we come to.
But sometimes, we don’t have that luxury.
Through three games, Terrence Ross is averaging 12.3 points per game with a true shooting percentage of 68. That’s undoubtedly unsustainable, and is a reminder that players regress to the mean by the end of the season. That may seem like common sense, but it’s often forgotten when discussing players’ performances in the heat of the moment.
But how much stock can you put into Ross’ performance so far this season? And more importantly, how much stock can the Raptors’ front office put into it? It’s a bit of a conundrum to be sure, and one that’s not easily navigated by any organization. At some point, you have to take a chance on what you know.
And that’s exactly what the Raptors did.
Ross has never posted a true shooting percentage higher than 55.3 in his career. That’s not bad, but it isn’t all that great either. He’s also never used more than 20 percent of the team’s possessions, which is something you typically see from players designated as role players. So this year’s marks of 68 percent true shooting and 24.3 percent usage are unlikely to reflect the player he actually is, and should be interpreted as — at least until the sample size increases — an outlier. No one likes PER as a meaningful statistic, but it’s worth noting that his mark of 25.2 is more than double his career-best PER of 12 from a couple of seasons ago.
And yet at some point, you have to believe that Ross is destined for some type of growth, as all young players are. But just how much can he grow?
Well, the Raptors believe he’s worth $11 million per year, evident in his new three-year, $33 million extension. That’s big money.
And we won’t know if he’s worth that money for quite some time. As previously mentioned, we have very little to go on right now, but there’s also the exploding salary cap. Players that would have received $5 million per year in 2012 are getting deals worth more than $10 million per year in 2015. The economic landscape of the NBA is changing dramatically, very quickly, and no one — not even the most cap-savvy analysts — know what to expect over the next few seasons. What we’re seeing is, put simply, unprecedented.
So to see the Raptors commit to Ross, at least in the short-term, is bittersweet. He could become a legitimate starting-calibre wing, making his contract a bargain. He could also fizzle out and ride the bench. We just don’t know.
But one thing’s for sure: It’s nice to see the Raptors taking a chance on the unknown.
