A little history on Corey Maggette. He grew up playing basketball on the Chicago playgrounds before taking his game to Duke University. He was one of the first Dukies to leave college before his senior, thanks to his incredible build(6'6") and physic(225LB). Spending most of his career playing for the Clippers in LA, he has been the model of consistency. Though never the best player on his team, nor the team leader, his career output of 17/5/2 with .457/.321/.821 makes you a lot of money in the NBA. He has always been an underrated player who's efficient style of play gets overlooked in the numbers driven league.
At age 30, he is enjoying the best season of his career. Despite taking a modest 12 shots per game, he is averaging 20.6 points per game. A shot efficiency difference of 8.6, would rank as the best differential of all time, and even more impressive given extremely low shot output. He has been able to accomplish this great season by shooting an unheard of 55% from the guard position to go along with 84% on the 8.6 free throw attempts he puts up each game. You may be asking yourself what the big deal is? A lot of players should be able to do that. Well, no. 55% from the field is probably equivalent to a baseball player hitting .360, while 8.6 FTA is like walking 100 times in a season. Both incredible achievements. Let alone both in the same season.
However, those season stats aren't even in the same statosphere when compared to what Maggette has accomplished in the month of January. He has increased his shot total to just under 15 per game in the 10 games he has player this month, while his point total has soared to 29.2 per game. That is an unimaginable scoring efficiency difference of14.4!!!! He has averaged nearly 2 points for every shot he takes from the field. Imagine if Kobe Bryant had that type of efficiency. Considering his 23 shots per game, that would equate to about a 45 point per game average. In reality, Kobe only averages 28. So Maggette is scoring 1 more point, while taking 8 less shots than the great Kobe Bryant in this month. Sure this is a tiny sample size of 10 games, with no chance of Maggette extending this production through the entire season, but this accomplishment cannot be overlooked. I would equate it to Sammy Sosa hitting 20 homers in June of 1998.
So how has Maggette been able to pull of this Wilt Chamberlinian performance you may ask? His triple slash lines are a good start, 29/7.5/4 and .588/.375/.906, but the biggest thing is his free throw proficiency. He has attempted at least 10 free throws in all 10 games this month. In comparison, Kobe has only done that twice this month, and Derrick Rose's career high is only 9. So he's averaged 12.7 FTA and hit 90 percent of those for a sweat 11.5 "free" points each game. So the combination of a crazy high field goal percentage and a dozen free points equals the single most efficiency scoring month I have ever seen.
Maybe Corey Maggette can start getting some love around the NBA
can you rephrase this post in terms of wOBA, xFIP and FRAR?
ReplyDeletenope, sorry, they dont play defense in the NBA
ReplyDeleteI actually enjoyed reading this post. But A.I. is totally better than Maggette b/c AI is an all star
ReplyDeleteImagine Maggette on a team with other high-efficiency shooters -- Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, and Amare Stoudemire come to mind.
ReplyDeleteEssentially you'd have a starting line-up of guys who can score 20+ points with 12-13 shots apiece, and an insane number of free-throw attempts.
The offense would be unstoppable, but there would be some defensive questions, along with the biggest question: This works on paper, but would it work in practice?
I would love to see a basketball GM who sees points-per-shot and efficiency the same way MLB GMs now view OBS and OPS in measuring a player's offensive potency.
I think it could work.