Scalabrine was named Boston Least Productive Regular Player of All-Time

Sorry I couldn't post the link to the article as it is in ESPN Insider. I copy and pasted Boston's 5 Least Productive Players below:

Share24Updated: September 16, 2010, 4:35 PM ETThe Feeble FiveRanking the least productive five regulars for every NBA franchiseEmailPrintComments16By Tom Haberstroh
Special to ESPN Insider
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Brian Babineau/Getty Images
Don't worry about your personal ranking, Scal, you've got a ring! As does Adam Morrison. Nevermind.

Picking a franchise's five best players is a wide-open layup compared to identifying the most detrimental players of an organization's history. But we've accomplished the feat with a little help from John Hollinger's player efficiency rating (PER), which provides a handy productivity measure using a player's box score statistics.

It's pretty obvious that the worst NBA player is the one who never plays, but such a list would be no fun to read or write. We're targeting guys you actually might remember but wish you couldn't (Nikoloz Tskitishvili, anyone?). So, in order to qualify for this list, a player needed to have played at least 10 minutes per contest over the course of at least 100 career games with the franchise. Furthermore, we've added the "Bruce Bowen Corollary" to exempt players who started for championship teams.



As you can see below, the results aren't pretty, no matter who you root for.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Boston Celtics
Fan favorite Brian Scalabrine has a lot of heart, but it's tough to ignore that, with the Celtics, he had more fouls than rebounds as a big man who can't score.

PLAYER YEARS PER PTS TRB AST G MPG PF FG%
1 Brian Scalabrine 2006-10 5.9 2.7 1.5 0.7 264 13.1 1.7 0.380
2 Lou Tsioropoulos 1957-59 7.8 5.8 4.8 1.1 157 19 2.9 0.315
3 Andy Phillip 1957-58 8.1 3.9 2.5 2.1 137 19.3 1.8 0.367
4 Jim Loscutoff 1956-64 8.3 6.2 5.6 0.7 511 18.5 2.9 0.345
5 Acie Earl 1994-95 8.8 4.6 2.8 0.1 104 13 2.1 0.402


The Lakers list:

PLAYER YEARS PER PTS TRB AST G MPG PF FG%
1 Howie Jolliff 1961-63 7.9 2.8 4.2 0.8 138 12.6 2.0 0.367
2 Howie Schultz 1952-53 7.9 3.4 3.1 1.2 106 16.7 2.5 0.279
3 Kareem Rush 2003-05 8.2 4.3 1.2 0.8 162 13.6 1.2 0.417
4 Willie McCarter 1970-71 8.4 7.3 1.8 1.9 116 19.2 1.9 0.403
5 Josh Powell 2009-10 8.4 3.4 2.4 0.5 123 10.4 1.4 0.409

Stats, stats, stats. What a bunch of crap, at least as far as the Celtics go. (I have no idea about the Lakers.)

I won't sully my keyboard by going into all the details, but:

1. Andy Phillip is in the hall of fame, and he was with the Celtics at the end of his career, as a backup for Bob Cousy at a time when Cousy was playing 39 MPG. In the Celtics' first championship season, Andy played 22 MPG (so they obviously played together a fair amount, and guess who did the shooting). But, for the record (for all the stat gobblers), Andy had a higher shooting %
than The Cooz that season. Ooooooohhhhhh, Bob Cousy really sucked, huh?

2. Jim Loscutoff was honored by the Celtics by raising his name (instead of his number, which Cowens had) to the rafters. The idiot stat guzzlers overlook the fact that he was the Celtics' tough guy for a number of seasons and performed that duty quite well. For the stat hacks, he averaged as many as 14 rebounds per game (in his very first season for the Celtics, which showed what he was capable of before Russell came along), and he averaged nearly 6 RPG in his career, playing 18 MPG as he won seven (that's 7) championship rings as a solid contributor (not a hanger-on) except in one season when he was injured and played only five games.

This dung now stands as the most stupid piece of media junk I've ever heard of. Only because I have to go to work do I not bother to break out the really big guns, and I don't have time to deal with the many ways in which Scal helped this team.

I'm not on your case, TJ, because you submitted something you found of interest and it included both Celtics and Lakers. I simply think this is the most ill-devised piece of media sh_t I've ever encountered. And a great example of over-reliance of stats to try to prove a point.

To put it in perspective, it's even worse than some of Hollinger's stuff.

Other than that, it's fine.

Sam

tj

No offense, but who cares? All this really proves is that Hollinger's PER is a crock.

At the least, thanks for proving that stats don't tell the story and that Hollinger isn't the only ninny at ESPN who doesn't have a clue.

Productivity? If a player contributes in ways that can't be measured, such as boxing out or covering his man like a glove, what difference does it make who scores or gets the rebound? That player did his job and contributed to his team's success. That's not productive?

Towards the end of every close game when the Celtics are ahead, I find myself repeating over and over, 'we need a stop, we need a stop'. Nothing is more productive than a stop in those circumstances, whether it be a steal, a tipped ball, 24 seconds of lockdown team defense, whatever. . . . How come Hollinger doesn't use those in his calculations? Shouldn't a stop in the final moments of a game count for extra, if you're talking productivity?

For all that, how productive is the basketball analyst who knows nothing about the Russell-Cousy era Celtics, the greatest basketball team of all time? Because that's what this list shows. File under the dumbing down of ESPN.

Andy Phillip was a tough defender and one of the best playmakers of his time. He wasn't asked to do much when Red picked him up at the end of his career, just back up Cousy and provide insurance. Until he joined the Cs, Sharman hated him and Cousy considered him the best assist man after himself.

There's something wrong with an analytical tool that puts a player like Andy Phillip on a list like this. You have to wonder if any of these ESPN guys ever played the game.

For the record, Jungle Jim Loscutoff averaged a double-double in the 1956-57 season and made two gutsy, crucial free throws in the closing seconds of Game 7 of the 1957 NBA Finals. Unproductive? This is either a joke or incredibly embarrassing to whoever at ESPN thought it up.

Regarding Scal, his contributions can't be measured in numbers. If you don't think there are players like that, then you're not much of a Laker fan. One of my all-time favorites in this category of intangibles is Michael Cooper. I'm guessing his PER was awful, but I know from watching and cringing every second he was on the floor that his productivity was awesome.

Sam,

This is an article that was written to keep someone busy during the slow off-season.

Spike,

This 'analysis' does not factor in defense, hustle, intangibles, game intelligence, etc. It only factors in the players offensive stats. Was Scal such a good defensive player that it would have helped him to any great degree?
By the author mentioning the word fun in talking about writing or reading this, we should all take this piece as entertainment and not to get too worked up over it.

TJ,

I have to add my voice to the detractors of this 18-wheeler filled with horse dung (not you, though, you gave Celtics and Lakers and that's fair).

I'm going to let Sam etal shred the Loscy myth perpetrated by Mr. Shit-for-Brains, but add my voice to Spike's on Scal.

Brian Scalabrine was slow of foot, an unreliable shooter and not an aggressive rebounder. All of this is also completely irrelevant to his role on the team.

Scal was the best perimeter defending BIG on the Celtics not named Garnett. When Scal drove back a point guard trying to turn the corner on a high screen and roll (and was still able to get back to his man before he was able to roll), where's the stat for that? When other players didn't do that as well, where's their stat for that failure to do their job?

When Scal overplayed the inbounds pass (after the Celts made a basket), forcing the inbounder to pass to a forward instead of the point guard, which took a couple seconds off the shot clock as the slower forward dribbled up court or had to wait for the point guard to get free to receive his pass, where's Scal's stat for that? Where's the stat for taking away at least one, if not two, of the opposing offense's options since they didn't get into their set offense until only 14 seconds left instead of 17? When another player let's the opposing point guard get the ball without contest and then just paces him as he runs up court without slowing him down and taking time off the clock, where's their stat for putting more pressure on their defense because they now have to defend 17-18 seconds instead of only 14?

Scal only creates 1.3 TO per 36 minutes of play. Compare that with some other quality bench players who are/were also power forwards. Joe Smith, #1 pick in the draft, 1.7 TO/36mpg; Phil Jackson, 12 year career as a very solid 6th man, 2.5TO/36mpg; Mitch Kupchak, 13th pick, 2.9 TO/36mpg. Coaches often fear going to the bench because the quality is lower and they're coming in cold. Coaches like it when they can send someone in and that player does NOT make unforced errors and put the returning starters into a hole.

I'm not shooting the messenger, TJ. As I said at the top, you provided Lakers too, so I don't see this as a cheap shot. It's just crap analysis and reporting by an idiot with a word processor.

I mean, for Pete's sake, Hollinger admits his PER doesn't take defense into account unless it's a stat like steals. That's half the freaking game his horseshit can't compute. I wonder how anybody can put a lot of weight into the analysis of someone who admits his claim to fame is even minimally effective only when it considers one side of the court.

bob
P.S. I'm glad Sam's biz is picking up again, but I wish he would find the time to slice-and-dice this mofo. Nothing is more fun than watching a professional statistician dismantle an ESPN wannabe.

.

bob,

I won't disagree with you because I found this statistical data list almost completely worthless.
The one thing that did come to mind about Scal and his low turnovers is that I hardly ever remember him with the ball in his hands other then to shoot an open shot.
If the ball is not in a players hands, they can't generate turnovers.
I never saw Phil Jackson play but Joe Smith and Kupchak were much better players then Scal.
In 19.4 mpg Kupchak averaged 10.2 ppg and 5.4 rpg.
In 13.8 mpg Scal averaged 3.3 ppg and 2.1 rpg.

I'm just glad Acie Earl made the list... hated that draft pick when they made it and my hatred of the pick was pretty much justified.

and to think Sam Cassell was drafted after him. Heck even the other Earvin Johnson woulda been better than Earl.

tj

It is fun knocking the dungbrains at ESPN and thanks for the laugh, because that's what I did when I saw Andy Phillip's name there. Anyone with half a brain should have thought, gee, there's a HOFer on the list: something must be wrong here.

Also, putting Loscy on a list purporting to be "the most detrimental players of an organization's history", while it isn't funny, is incredibly revealing. It shows that the PER is flat out wrong. No ifs, ands, or butts.

I judge a post by the responses it evokes. This one brought out bob's keen analysis and gave me and Sam a chance to praise two old-time Celtic heroes. So kudos to you.

As an irrelevant aside, Loscy was the coach at Boston State College when I went there. To this day I regret not having the time to play for him, no small reason being that BoState played two games a year against UMass Amherst and it was the same time when Dr. J and then Rick Pitino were there.

Sherman, fire up the wayback machine.

When he played for the Celtics, primarily as a PG, Andy Phillip averaged more assists per 36 minutes than the starting PG for the current champions of the NBA. Geez, I feel like the gorilla in the Samsonite commercials, and whoever wrote that alleged article is the suitcase. And I didn't have time earlier to mention Andy's defensive credentials. However, quoting more stats to debunk the article (which they do) is rather silly. The more serious (and sad) thing is that, when people set out on their ridiculous player-vs.-player missions, they immediately default to "judgment by stats," with absolutely no thought (NONE) to the fact that many players are given roles not designed to produce big stats, and their productivity therefore should not be judged on the basis of stats.

For example, early in Scal's career, his main role was to help the bench maintain some kind of parity while the Celtics' starters were resting. He was never going to be an offensive juggernaut, so he focused on very good defense (I'll never forget the time he just plain stuffed Paul Gasol, although his defensive forte was positioning and bodying up people, not blocking shots), moving the ball, spreading the floor, protecting the ball, and being a bench leader.

After they united the Three Amigos, his role became more productive because, during the times when he played with the starters, those skills meant a lot more because the better the teammates he played with, the more his skills put them in positions to succeed. People who worship stats and, in particular, offensive stats, wouldn't have any conception of what I'm speaking about.

Seriously, there are times when this board has the earmarks of a statistical playground. It's okay with me, if that's what floats people's boats, and as long as they don't mind hearing and rehearing the new song I just wrote: "A Whole Lotta Debunkin' Goin' On." And I'm happy to start with that PER joke of Hollinger's.

Hollinger has a habit of issuing disclaimers that people readily overlook in misusing his "pop" stats. PER is chief among them. Hollinger has admitted (how could he not?) the vast offensive bias of the stat, with steals and blocks being the only two defensively oriented factors. Yet how many times do we see PER used in an attempt to prove the worth of a given player, without the inclusion of any disclaimer? Hollinger appeals to selective intellects...people looking to win arguments, even at the expense of using ersatz stats.

And Hollinger (or perhaps it's someone else using his formulae) even has the gall to calculate PER for players from eras before half of the stats in his formula were even kept. Then, because he figures an empty gesture will be sufficient to mollify the selective intellects out there, he proposes some ludicrous, roundabout way of "estimating" how the old-timers WOULD HAVE fared in those relatively newer statistical categories. It is to barf!

Following is a list of career PERs for selected centers. (I can be selective too.) Does anyone notice anything at all strange in the rankings?

20.0 or Higher PER:

1. Shaq (26.6)
2. Wilt (26.1)
3. Kareem (24.6)
4. Yao Ming (23.0)
5. Pau Gasol (21.9)
6. Elton Brand (21.8 )
7. Dwight Howard (21.7)
8. Patrick Ewing (21.0)
9. Al Jefferson (20.3)

Distant also-rans in a cluster between 18.0 and 18.9:

Bill Russell (18.9), Zydranas Ilgauskas (18.8 ), Andrew Bynum (18.5), Jermaine O'Neal (18.4), Marcus Camby (18.1)

I'm about to look on Craig's list for a porcelain bus that's school bus size, because right now I could fill it.

The pure and simple fact is that Hollinger's PER is severely biased against older players. (Cousy suffers the same fate.) The only reason Wilt looks so good is that the PER bias against older players is outweighed by the PER bias in favor of off-the-charts offensive stats.

Please spare me the old bromide about "It may not be the best measure but it's the best we've got." It is NOT the best we've got. The best we've got is not to depend nearly so heavily on flawed stats.

Sam

P.S. to Bob Heckler: Actually, the company has made a little comeback, but my wife and I now work part-time in the Information Booth for our town's Chamber of Commerce. Schmooze with people about the town we love. What could be the more perfect job? We should be paying THEM.

Of course, there are pitfalls. I was in such a rotten mood after reading about that excuse for an article this morning that I bagged three visitors before they even entered the booth. The cops let me off because they said it was pretty good shooting for an old bastard.

Sam

Sam wrote:... Schmooze with people about the town we love. What could be the more perfect job? We should be paying THEM.

Of course, there are pitfalls. I was in such a rotten mood after reading about that excuse for an article this morning that I bagged three visitors before they even entered the booth. The cops let me off because they said it was pretty good shooting for an old bastard.

Sam

Sam,

What's this? You promised to stick to the stun gun!

Make sure to leave the live ammo home for Oysterfest.

Regards

Aw shucks! Looking forward to the Oysterfest shuckoffs. Serious competitions. Wish you guys could make it.

Sam

Sam wrote:Aw shucks! Looking forward to the Oysterfest shuckoffs. Serious competitions. Wish you guys could make it.

Sam

Sam,

We would sincerely like to come out for that one; perhaps in the next year or two.

This fall I've got what's turned out to be almost a second job. Michael wanted to play football so of course I ended up coaching. Coaching the spring and summer baseball teams apparently didn't teach me enough of a lesson. Practice two nights a week and games on Saturdays; and this is for six and seven year olds playing flag football.

Regards

NYC,

You guys are having a lot of fun together. Best thing in the world!

If and when you decide to come to Oysterfest, our two guest rooms are waiting for you. You'd be amazed how few accommodations are left for that event, which draws 20,000 to a town with a winter population of 2,000.

Sam

On further reflection, maybe somebody else besides Sam is having fun with us:

"Furthermore, we've added the "Bruce Bowen Corollary" to exempt players who started for championship teams."

Trivia quiz: who were the five starters on the 1957 Boston Celtics championship team?

Cousy and Sharman at guard, Russell at center, Tommy at one forward position, and – no, not Togo Palazzi, it was Jim Loscutoff at the other forward position. With Frank Ramsey, Andy Phillip, Arnie Risen, Jack Nichols and Dick Hemric off the bench.

I suppose the ESPN guy who put this together may have been playing a little joke, he did write that it was supposed to be fun, so I suppose he can be pardoned for not knowing how to find his anal cavity with a flashlight and a GPS locator.

Sam wrote:NYC,

You guys are having a lot of fun together. Best thing in the world!

If and when you decide to come to Oysterfest, our two guest rooms are waiting for you. You'd be amazed how few accommodations are left for that event, which draws 20,000 to a town with a winter population of 2,000.

Sam

We'll bring the Harpoon!

Regards

Spike,

I think you've got it right; this article was all in fun.

Plus, how can any thread with an Acie Earl mention in it not be entertaining?

Regards

Acie Earl drops 40 against the Cs! What ever happened to him you ask?

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:sx3F1t4X3T8J:www.celticslife.com/2010/01/what-hell-happened-toacie-earl.html+acie+earl+drops+40+on+cletics&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Interesting article from celticshub.com that breaks down Scal's production when he is on the floor.

http://celticshub.com/2010/01/04/what-is-wrong-with-brian-scalabrine/

tjmakz wrote:Interesting article from celticshub.com that breaks down Scal's production when he is on the floor.

http://celticshub.com/2010/01/04/what-is-wrong-with-brian-scalabrine/

TJ,

This article only proves that Celtic fans can be narrow-sighted as well. He breaks down Scal statistically as an individual player and that is a flawed vision. When KG was out in 2008 for 9 games we were 7-2 with Scal starting in his place. That was approximately the same winning percentage we had when KG was in. When you can lose that year's DPOY for 9 games and keep up with your winning ways, that's pretty freaking good. He cites Hollinger's PER, which is flawed since it is blind defensively. Glen Davis' PER at SF is 16.0 (15.0 is league average, so this means that ACCORDING TO HOLLINGER, Davis is slightly better than the average), Ron Artest's PER at SF is 13.7. Do you swallow that, or do you sense there's a hole in the statistical model? The author of this article doesn't see it. With Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Eddie House (for all but the last half of 2010) being fed by Rondo, we didn't need Scal to shoot. Gunners we had by the boatload, effective perimeter defenders not so much.

If one is to do an analysis of Scal, I'd do it in the context of 5-man units. 82games.com does this. http://www.82games.com/0910/09BOS16.HTM. Notice that his worst winning % came with "the playoffs are the only PT that matters" Wallace and/or JR Giddens in the lineup.

Ever see the movie "Rudy"? In one scene, Ara Parseghian says to Rudy "I wish I could put your heart into my other players' chests". I'd love to put Scal's brains and basketball IQ into some of our other players' heads. Our team-wide perimeter defense would be a thing of beauty. Look at D-Fish. A solid, albeit not great, NBA player for most of his career, now on his last legs (literally). His value to the Lakers, however, transcends his individual stats (which would probably put him #30 out of 30 for starting NBA point guards) and PER (10.4).

bob

.

Bob,

You can't look at one stretch of games and give credit to a player like you did with Scal when Garnett missed those games. As a coincidence when Garnett returned, they lost the next 3 games. Scal averaged less then 2 ppg in those 9 games. When Kobe missed 5 games in a row this past February, LA went 4-1 and their only loss was a 1 point loss to Boston.

This article on celticshub.com made a strong argument for Scal's futility.

Good point, Bob. Scal made a major difference in those games by (1) his defense (I'll always remember how he made Pau look like a paw paw) and (2) his ability to help keep the offense moving smoothly without having to be a scorer himself. Points, and stats in general, are not the defining aspects of all players' lives. I believe that was among Scal's finest moments.

Another was when he wasn't expected to play in the 2008-09 playoff against the Magic because of his dual concussions; but he was one of only three Boston "big" men who played, and he acquitted himself quite well. I wish some of the alleged media experts would spend less time on hero and stats worship and more on actually learning the game. Maybe Scal could hire out as a media tutor.

Sam

Sam wrote:Good point, Bob. Scal made a major difference in those games by (1) his defense (I'll always remember how he made Pau look like a paw paw) and (2) his ability to help keep the offense moving smoothly without having to be a scorer himself. Points, and stats in general, are not the defining aspects of all players' lives. I believe that was among Scal's finest moments.

Another was when he wasn't expected to play in the 2008-09 playoff against the Magic because of his dual concussions; but he was one of only three Boston "big" men who played, and he acquitted himself quite well. I wish some of the alleged media experts would spend less time on hero and stats worship and more on actually learning the game. Maybe Scal could hire out as a media tutor.

Sam

sam,

If Scal could be an effective media tutor, then we wouldn't be seeing blogs like the one TJ provided, would we?

I remember the way Scal shut Nowitski down during that stretch.

DJ made his bones by shutting down the opponent's top scoring backcourt player. He didn't do it for 40 minutes, he did it for maybe 2-3 minutes here and 2-3 minutes there and definitely for the critical 2-3 minutes where the game hinged. The overall effect, however, was an extremely frustrated and ineffective offensive cog. Holding Nowitski to 2 free throws in a 5 minute period makes a big difference in a game that may only be decided by a handful of points. Makes for a lousy PER though. Oh well...

I wonder what a defensive freak like Dennis Rodman's PER must have been? I'd love to see that number. I'll bet you, with all the unquantifiable intangibles Rodman brought to the table, but minimal offense, it's not impressive. Let's see how Hollinger and the rest of his amen chorus defend that.

bob

.

Well this has been fun. As soon as I saw the subject heading I was looking for Sam's response. Great job all and thanx to our favorite troll for making all this possible.

Bob,

Rodman's PER was 14.6. You can find anyone's PER by googling the player's name and adding the word "reference." The first listing will be the one you want. Just go to the "Advanced" section under that player's name, and you'll be "treated" to Hollinger's PER. I believe he even shows them for the original Celtics....the ones in Ireland.

I think the secret to why Wilt's PER is so high is that the term really refers to "Performance Erectosis Repetitio."

Sam

mulcogiseng,

Instead of calling me a troll, why don't you for once bring something constructive or informative to this board?