Unconventional statistics becoming more accessible

Gregg Popovich says he relies on feel in coaching the Spurs and uses stats as a "helpful icing-on-the-cake sort of thing." Darrell Walker/UTHM/Icon SMI

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"Statistics are like bikinis,'' noted San Antonio humorist Brent Barry said the other day. "They're nice to look at but they don't tell you the whole story.''

With that, Barry, the Spurs' witty backup shooting guard, gave a quick smile and a nod as he headed to the court, confident that in sharing that little bit of wisdom from an old coach, he more or less had nailed the topic at hand.

Statistics in sports are what you make of them, based on the validity of the data collected, the general acceptance of their worth by a specific user group, the means to compare the material not only within the current sample but also against those from the past in a historically accurate way ... and the ability of a player, coach, team executive, agent, sports journalist, fantasy-league operator or bookie to make a buck off of them.

(Bet you thought we were headed into some tweedy, snooze-inducing, statistical analysis "think'' piece, didn't you? Nah, we'll leave that to the wonks and all the Billy Beane and Bill James wannabes infiltrating the basketball world these days.)

Look, stats are great. Stats are fun. Stats span the ages, helping little kids learn long division courtesy of their favorite players' batting averages and helping big kids calculate the risks vs. rewards of that second cocktail or slice of pumpkin pie.

It's cool that Wilt Chamberlain scored precisely 100 points in that 1962 game in Hershey, Pa., not 98 or 99, and even cooler that he averaged 50.4 over an entire season. That same year (1961-62) -- back when Magic Johnson was 2 years old -- Oscar Robertson essentially invented the triple-double by averaging one, start to finish. Heck, add up Robertson's points (11,620), rebounds (3,993) and assists (4,076) from his first five seasons (384 games) and you realize he averaged a triple-double from Eisenhower's last term into LBJ's first full term.

The NBA, like the NFL, the NHL and every other league or sport, can't touch Major League Baseball in its dazzling array of gaudy, astounding or otherwise memorable statistics (or at least couldn't, until baseball blindly or willingly put the credibility of its numbers in jeopardy in the so-called Steroids Era). Still, it is worth remembering that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 38,387 points over 20 regular seasons, this sport's equivalent of Pete Rose's 4,256 hits. It's neat to know that all-time assists leader John Stockton (15,806) set up 53 percent more baskets than No. 2 man Mark Jackson (10,334), a Gretzky-like dwarfing of the competition.

And you probably could win a few bar bets by realizing that Michael Jordan would have had to average 11.1 points or worse in his final forgettable 2002-03 season in Washington to drag his career scoring average below 30.0; as it was, Jordan averaged 20.0 points that year (never falling below that over a full season) and finished at 31.123 points per game, best all time ahead of Wilt's 30.066.

What, after all, is the scoreboard if not a measuring tool of the most important stat? Points matter, more rebounds are better for a team than fewer, Dikembe Mutombo's finger wag was his way of marking an imaginary tote board and, if you're Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, a low defensive shooting percentage combined with a high deflections total can be a beautiful thing.

"Deflections is a really good indicator of how active a team might be defensively,'' Popovich said. "It probably speaks toward steals and stops and those types of things. So yeah, I think deflections is pretty good. All coaches talk about those. And contested shots.''

The bad news for NBA fans is that deflections and contested shots are stats traditionally kept behind the curtain, counted up by coaching staffs and used to educate and inspire players defensively but rarely, if ever, made public. The statistics that are readily available to the average fan are the familiar old box scores, team stats and league leaders, based on decades of newspaper agate type that has changed little since, well, George Mikan roamed the lanes.

The good news is that, just like media options, stats are changing. A sterling example: At NBA.com, box scores for the 2007-08 season now include plus/minus ratings for each player and a category labeled "BA'' for blocks against. Even better news is that deflections and contested shots are being studied this season to see how trackable and reliable they would be, as two more stats worth adding.

"Statistics tell stories that lead people to understand the game,'' said Steve Hellmuth, executive vice president of operations and technology for NBA.com.

The league's official Web site, headquartered in Secaucus, N.J., has far more on its plate than statistical testing and recording -- it is not to be confused with the Elias Sports Bureau or Stats, Inc. -- but it is well-positioned to incorporate the sorts of numbers and trends that players and coaches find most valuable.

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