I’ve written recently about how, overall, the advanced stats suggest the Cavs - especially in terms of the starters - have been a whole lot of LeBron and not much else.
But then a quote from the head coach of the Eastern Conference All Stars, Stan Van Gundy, got me thinking. Once it was confirmed that Allen Iverson wouldn’t attend the All Star game because of personal reasons, Van Gundy had to come up with a new starter. When asked who he’d start in place of A.I., Van Gundy made a (pretty hilarious) crack that he might start, just to see if LeBron was capable of creating a shot for him.
It was a funny line, but also evocative of a deeper truth - LeBron is really, really good at creating shots for other players.
The one metric we haven’t spent much time looking at is PER, for reasons that I wrote about here (interestingly enough, PER-creator John Hollinger has introduced a new stat called “Estimated Wins Added” (EWA) that tries to correlate PER to wins … certainly a reaction to JMID criticism, of course).
Having said all of that, and in light of Van Gundy’s comment about shot creation, I wanted to take a few moments and examine the PER numbers on the Cavs’ roster. Why? Because PER emphasizes shot creation. The more field goal attempts a player has, the higher his PER will be.
The two metrics we’ve been looking at - Adjusted +/- and Wins Produced Per 48 - emphasize different elements. In the case of APM and Regularized APM, the key is efficiency differential, as it relates to who the player is playing with and against. WP48 places a large importance on high efficiency scoring, rebounding, and turnovers/steals.
Ostensibly then, if LeBron is super f’ing great at creating shots for his teammates, then that should show up in the PER numbers. And, therefore, if we judge the Cavaliers on PER instead of on APM and WP48, maybe we’ll find more evidence of above average play.
Here then are the PER numbers of the entire Cavs’ team. A PER of 15.0 is average.
LeBron: 31.5
Shaq: 18.1
Danny Green: 17.7
Mo Williams: 16.3
Varejao: 15.0
Hickson: 14.3
Delonte: 13.4
Z: 12.9
Moon: 12.6
Boobie: 11.6
Jawad: 10.4
AP: 9.2
Darnell Jackson: 2.6
Cedric Jackson: -6.6
PER then puts four Cavaliers in above average territory.
Comparatively speaking, WP48 (through 54 games, courtesy of Holland, who emailed me while I was writing this) shows five Cavs playing above average: Bron, Andy, Moon, Shaq, and Delonte.
Adjusted +/- now shows Bron, Andy, and AP in above average territory.
In other words, my hypothesis was wrong. The Cavs actually have less above average PER players than they do WP48 players.
