Looking Past the Numbers

Put a bunch of scorers on the same team and you will win an NBA championship. Chemistry is overrated and all that matters is having as many superstars as possible. This is the blueprint for NBA success, right?

Well I say that’s a big load of crap. Just ask former Knicks GM Isaiah Thomas who thought he was running a fantasy basketball team rather than a real NBA franchise. The aftermath of bringing in star players with big pay checks like Eddy Curry, Zach Randolph, Stephon Marbury, and Steve Francis: It set the once prestigious Knicks back years after inflating team salary to such an extent, it handicapped the team financially and cause quite a few strokes among the New York fan base.

Dictating whether a player is of high value is not all about the numbers. Fans are obsessed with statistics, as is the media. Fantasy sports have taken over the sporting world and since the only measure in fantasy sports is statistics, then that is the only thing of significance. This has translated over to reality.

People think that because a guy had 30 points and 10 rebounds last night he is a stud since he will get a highlight reel on sports center to prove it. After all, if you have a bunch of plays on sports center, you are star, aren’t you? Well, what if that player took forty shorts to get his thirty points?. What if both teams shot so poorly from the field that there were an unusually high number of rebounds to be had?

People look at numbers in dictating success because it’s easy. You don’t have to watch a minute of any game and use statistics to decide whether a player is deemed valuable.

Ask any average fan about the most important individual statistics in basketball and the likely reply is  “points, rebounds, and assists”. Well those categories are meaningless.

Without taking shooting percentages into account, the points do not matter. Think about it.

Would you rather your team score 30 points on their first 15 shots or on the first 20? If you chose the latter, you either A) cannot do elementary math or B) your name is Allen Iverson. Eefficiency is more important than offensive output when it comes to looking at a specific player’s statistics.

Iverson notoriously would score 30 on a 12 for 27 shooting night, anything but efficient. His career shooting percentage comes in at 42%, well below other star guards like Lebron James (47%), Dwyane Wade (48%), and Kobe Bryant (46%); all players who have won or will win (Lebron) a championship.

I’ll take an Anderson Varejao or Udonis Haslem over an Iverson any day of the week. Give me a guy who hustles, defends, and will do anything for the sake of the team. You need ‘team’ guys to win in this league. They are just as important as ‘stars’.

Throw statistics in the garbage. Yes, you need a couple of stars to have a chance, however, anymore than a few and there aren’t enough balls to go around and too many egos to be fed.

“Glue guys”, as I like to call them, are so critical to team success. They are the type of players who know their role and do anything and everything for the sake of the team. These guys often go unnoticed because of their lack of impressive statistics.

Picks, charges, great on-the-ball defensive plays, the passes that leads to assists, and dives for loose balls are examples of critical plays that do not come up on the stat sheet. Still not sold that these guys could be the difference makers, that they aren’t that critical in winning a championship?

Here is every championship team’s “glue guys” from the last five years, who averaged at least 15 minutes a game in the playoffs during the year they won it. These are players who might not have had great statistics, but were integral to their team’s success.

2005 Spurs: Bruce Bowen, Brent Barry, Robert Horry

2006 Heat: Udonis Haslem, James Posey, Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning

2007 Spurs:  Bruce Bowen, Michael Finley, Robert Horry

2008 Celtics: James Posey, Kendrick Perkins, P.J. Brown

2009 Lakers: Lamar Odom, Trevor Ariza, Derek Fisher

Every championship team of the last five years had one thing in common: They all had at least three guys who put the team above themselves, who contributed in any way possible to get wins.

Are you going to try to tell me that the 05’ Spurs don’t win game 3 and eventually the series without Horry’s three with five seconds left to give them a one point lead? How about Mourning giving everything he had emotionally and physically every second of every playoff game for the 06’ Heat? This is a guy who shouldn’t have been even playing with his kidney condition. But he brought heart and will-power to a team that needed it when they were down 0-2 early on to the Mavs.

It is no coincidence that James Posey and Robert Horry have won a couple championships each the last few years. They’re guys who aren’t afraid to take and make the big shot, and guys who defend with a level of ferocity unmatched.

• A perfect example of a team that had the star power but not enough glue guys was the Trail Blazers of seven and eight years back. The Blazers at the beginning of the decade was one of the most talented teams the league has ever seen… on paper. Rasheed, Steve Smith, Damon Stoudamire, Wells, Pippen, Sabonis, Kemp, Grant…. On paper, that team should have won two or three titles but they didn’t because they had a bunch of guys who cared more about legacy and individual achievements than winning.

Sure the championship teams aforementioned had some of the best players in the history of the game in Duncan, Shaq, Wade, Kobe, Garnett, Allen, Pierce. But without those “role players” there are no championships. And after all, isn’t that all that matters in the NBA. Not points. Not rebounds. Not assists. It’s all about the ring.