APBRmetrics

[Nikos]

This guy was a monster scorer in 2001 with 29.8PPG with his team scoring at around 96ppg. True he wasn't a great passer, but his scoring was on par with most elite scorers today and some of Michael Jordan's Chicago season. He wasn't quite as efficient as Michael or some of today's perimeter studs, but probably just as talented scoring wise.

How was he able to have only one dominant scoring season while having just above average scoring seasons before and after? He did have a great year in 2000, but aside from that he began to slip in 2002. Was it being in a different system? Did other coaches not trust him enough to overshoot like in Detroit of 1999-2001? Was he not good of a enough a passer/avoider of TO's to gain coaches trust? Was he just slowing down physically? Or do some players just have an excellent 2-3 year prime, then fall off or get worse because of moving to a new team system?

How can one guy dominate in scoring one year, be excellent in another and then fall off? Does this type of thing happen often?

[Mike G]

Stack was the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd option for a team without much firepower. He was at that time ready for the opportunity, and nearly scored 30 PPG. Doing that much of the shooting didn't (as you note) cause him to shoot worse or suffer TO.

A career .300 from the arc, he managed to hit .350 that year. Just about on par with his overall TS% (.521) -- which was about league average. Maybe he fit the 'superstar' bill, such that the referees gave him more than his share of the calls. He got to the line a lot.

Since then, he's been a co-star on better teams, and lately a 'microwave' type. He doesn't seem to be fazed by pressure (in my few observations), he's rugged and durable, willing to dish it out (ask Shaq); and I haven't seen him whine about anything.

Whether he could have had 10 years in the 28-30 point range, my guess is that for an expansion team in the '70s he might have done just that. For an elite team, it doesn't seem possible.

Wasn't he one of the "next Jordan"s , once?
_________________
`
39% of all statistics are wrong

[asimpkins]

Some relevant stats:

Stackhouse had a Usage Rating of 32.9 that year, an incredibly high number, and the highest of his career by a decent margin. This year is would have ranked 3rd in the NBA, practically even with Allen Iverson and only behind Kobe's insanely high score of 35.2%.

Stackhouse also average 40.2 minutes per game that year, also the highest of his career. To top it off, Detroit was the fastest paced team in the league that year.

So Stackhouse was in a unique position to shoot more often than usual, while playing a high level of minutes on the fastest paced team in the league. All this combines to setup huge "per game" numbers. His efficiency, however, wasn't particularly impressive.

PER is designed to account for minutes/pace/efficiency, and that's why, in the end, he finishes with a PER of 21.7. An all-star level performance, but far from dominating. This year that would rank him 21st in the league, a hair behind Vince Carter.

[Nikos]

Yeah they were #1 in pace, but they scored 96ppg and Stack still got 30ppg!

Sure he wasn't efficient, but its tough to be at that usage. It still seems his other seasons weren't even really close. Plus some players above him today in PER are guys who don't have nearly as high usage rates. So Stack deserves credit for all that Usage no?

[asimpkins]

Sure, and PER gives him credit for that high level of Usage. That year was the highest PER he's ever recorded, even though it wasn't his most efficient year.

Some might feel he deserves more credit, and some will feel he deserves less credit, but PER just tries to handle this impartially by blindly adding the good things and subtracting the bad things. So this is a good example of how PER is just a starting point, but looking at the numbers that make the final score up are important as well.

A good example from this year: Nowitzki and Bryant had nearly idential PER scores. But as far as offense goes, they did it differently. Nowitzki had a lower Usage (27.5%), but a higher TS% (58.9%). Kobe has higher Usage (35.3%), but a lower TS% (55.9%). Putting aside their size, defense, and rebounding differences... which is more valuable?

PER will impartially say that they are roughly the same, but I'd imagine most basketball fans would have a preference of one over the other -- given their personal philosophies.

[Nikos]

I was mostly referring just to the scoring portion initially. Stack is an excellent pure scorer, he just isn't good at avoiding turnovers and creating assists while scoring at a high volume like Michael/Tmac/Wade and others are/were.

I wish somehow the stats could be seperated into Scoring or Offensive PER and Defensive PER. I wish I did have one equation that factored Pure Scoring Volume and % relative to team PLUS efficiency. But there doesn't seem to be a site that seperates them so clearly.

[bchaikin]

How was he able to have only one dominant scoring season while having just above average scoring seasons before and after?

How can one guy dominate in scoring one year, be excellent in another and then fall off?

here are jerry stackhouse's stats for 96-97 (phi), 00-01 (det), and 04-05 (dal):

-------team--min/g-pts/g--ScFG%-touch/min-%shoot-%fouled-%to-%pass-reb/48--%pf-%st-%bs
9697--phi-----39----20.7---.511-------1.15--------36-------16-------9------39------5.1-----7-----3---1.2
0001--det-----40----29.8---.510-------1.65--------36-------14-------6------44------4.7 ----5-----3---1.0
0405--dal-----29----14.9---.514-------1.09--------37-------15-------6------42------5.4 ----6-----3---0.4

you can see that throughout stack's career, what he did per touch has been pretty consistent, i.e. how often he shot, passed, got fouled, and turned the ball over per touch. his turnovers per touch were high his 2nd season at 9% (1 turnover for every 11 touches on offense) but dropped to 7% and 6% (1 turnover for every 16-17 touches on offense) by mid-career. also how well he shot (Scoring FG% combining 2pters, 3pters, and FTs) has stayed about the same. but what has changed has been his touches/min...

9697 was stack's 2nd year in the league at the age of 22. he was obviously a good scorer, but allen iverson was his teammate, a PG who got alot of touches (1.8 touches/min) and shot more per touch than almost all other PGs in the league that year, and iverson played 40 min/g. also derrick coleman was the starting PF and he got almost 1.2 touches/min playing 37 min/g. thus despite being a scorer stack's touches were limited because iverson and coleman were getting the most touches on that team (stackhouse led the team in total minutes played, iverson was 2nd, coleman 4th)...

0001 was stack's 6th season in the league, when he was 26 and in his prime, and thus typically a player's touches are highest at this point in their career. he led the pistons in minutes played, but the starting PG chucky atkins had 1/3 less touches/min than iverson had in 9697, and the player with the 2nd most minutes played was C ben wallace, and his touches/min were very low at 0.53. the rest of the starting frontcourt for the pistons was PF joe smith and SF michael curry, who both had touches/min of about 0.80. all 3 frontcourt starters had lower touches/min than the average starter at each of those positions (C, PF, SF) for the nba that season, meaning even more touches for stack, and those 5 players played the most total minutes for the pistons that year. thus in his prime when he would normally see his most touches stack saw even more touches than he would have on most other teams because the frontcourt starters did not handle the ball very much. in 00-01 stack's touches/min were the highest by an SG the league had seen since clyde drexler a decade earlier...

0405 was stack's 10th season in the league at the age of 30. a player's touches/min will typically decline by this time as they are usually past their prime (or just passing their prime), and also on the 0405 mavs dirk nowitzki was getting 1.21 touches/min and shooting the ball with close to 1/2 of his touches while scoring 26 pts/g...

because what he did per touch and how well he shot overall changed very little over his career, you can back calculate his scoring like this:

(29.8pts/g)x(29ming/40ming)x(1.09tchmin/1.65tchmin)=14.3pts/g, and...

(20.7pts/g)x(29ming/39ming)x(1.09tchmin/1.15tchmin)=14.6 pts/g

and he actually scored 14.9 pts/g in 04-05...

Does this type of thing happen often?

typically players' touches/min increase as they approach their prime and decrease as they pass their prime and get older, but those touches/min also fluctuate (sometimes significantly) based on who their teammates are. but what is also typical is that what a player does per touch does not change much during their career. there are exceptions, but this is typically the norm...

[tsherkin]

It's worth mentioning that he shot an Iverson-esque 40.2% from the floor... Stackhouse has always been an inefficient scorer from the field and a poor shooter from downtown; where he's made up for it has generally been at the foul line.

That year, he averaged 10.12 FTA per game and hit on 82.2%, so he was getting the bulk of his production from attacking the basket and getting calls.

It's also worth noting that he's had only two seasons over 42.8% from the floor and that in one of them he played only 22 games.

Raw FG% is a number that's not used a great deal here but he was taking about 24 shots per game that season and making under 10 (around 9.7). So you're talking about a guy putting up 14 or 15 bricks on any given night with his 10 free throws... That's got to hurt momentum for little runs, give the opposition more opportunity to go on runs of their own and build their own momentum...

It's ALSO worth mentioning that Detroit won 32 games with Stack doing that and that's WITH Ben Wallace averaging over 2.3 blocks and over 13 rebounds per game, with Joe Smith, Chucky Atkins and Jerome Williams playing well, Corliss Williamson doing well in what games he played, etc.

Stack was basically forced to shoot that much because his team had no offense and he was exposed as the poor chucker he is.

[Nikos]

Corliss only played 29 games that year.

That Detroit team was not deep at all, and even had injury problems to a decent chunk of their bench/role players. So they really had no consistent rotation, or even anyone besides Ben Wallace/ Jerry Stackhouse playing over 30mpg. It seems to me the supporting cast around Jerry besides Ben was pretty weak. Atkins was an inefficient chucker, and Joe Smith was simply mediocre and played only 28mpg.

Perhaps Stack just had a great year, but didn't have enough support to make the playoffs? Maybe Stack could have been more efficient and shot at a lower volume that year if he had a defensive supporting cast, with SOME offensive help?

It seems you are trying to downplay his scoring by mentioning his low efficiency. I think you have merit in that argument, but at the same time his usage rate is extremely high, but his offensive rating @ 104 is still almost 4 points higher than the average of his team. Obviously if you exclude Jerry from it, then the teams offensive rating is probably less than 99! So Jerry couldn't have been 'hurting' the team. It seems something else is missing? Like good offensive role players and more defense besides Ben Wallace? It seems injuries to role players also killed any kind of hope of rotational roster stability for the season?

Just some thoughts. What do you think? What should Jerry have done in terms of offensive rating or efficiency to warrant his 32+ Usage? Maybe needed an Off rating of 108+ to be truly legit? To me it seems he did an excellent job and was probably in his prime in 2000-02, and was in the right system, but didn't have the right supporting cast at the right time to make some playoff noise?

[asimpkins]

I don't think Stackhouse did anything wrong. Or that it was his fault the team failed. He was on a weak team and he did his best to carry the load.

I just think all 30ppg performances aren't the same. There's a difference between Stackhouse finding himself on the fastest paced team in the league with the opportunity to shoot as much as he can, and Jordan shooting over 60ts% for a season. They shouldn't be held in the same esteem.

There is definitely some talent in being able to create and convert such a high volume of shots. But there's also a whole LOT of opportunity in finding yourself in a situation where you're allowed to do so.

Maybe the question from here should be: how many other players in the league, if they found themselves on the fastest paced team, and were allowed to play for 40 minutes per game, and were given the green light to take a third of their team's possessions, would average near 30ppg?

[tsherkin]

[tsherkin]

[KD]

Not statty, but George Irvine was trying to keep his job that season, and getting on the good side of your team's highest-paid player usually helps that cause.

[tsherkin]

[Nikos]