Fantasy, NBA - Tuesday, June 9, 2009 1:10 - 31 Comments

Not So PERfect

“At shooting guard, 6′6″ out of Lower Merion High School, Kobe Bryant!” When you hear that introduction, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?  That 81 point game against the Toronto Raptors?  The impossible shot he hit against the Portland Trailblazers? The fact that he’s about to win his 4th NBA Championship?  Or if you’re not a fan, how he helped run Shaq out of town and how he threw the entire team under the bus after the 2006-2007 season?  Well, whatever you think about him, one thing fans rarely question is that Kobe Bryant is the best player in the NBA. Or is he?

Just as was true for baseball until a short time ago, it has always been difficult to accurately measure a basketball player’s true performance on the court.  In baseball, a man named Bill James revolutionized the way fans looked at a player’s true effectiveness through sabermetrics.  And now, a man named John Hollinger has done the same thing for basketball, forever changing how fans will view the game’s traditional statistics.  Combining these traditional statistics, which you see in every box score, with underlying statistics that aren’t as highly publicized, Hollinger discovered his groundbreaking statistic, which he dubbed “PER” -  Player Efficiency Rating. This is how Hollinger described his new system:

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