There are two reason's I'm very glad I don't write a daily column about the Sonics. Because of their inconsistency, I think that daily columns would tend to fluctuate significantly from one day to the next. Sample three day stretch of headlines:

Day One: "Sonics -- Will They Ever Win Another Game?"
Day Two: "Sonics Lock for Playoffs Thanks to Heady Play and Hustle"
Day Three: "Hey, When Does Spring Training Start?"

Secondly ... well, sometimes I run out of Sonic thoughts. In fact, between my weekly column here, my weekly (or sometimes more often) column at www.bskball.com, posting in message boards, and writing recaps of every game, I'm running low on thoughts as it is.

For that reason, I'm going to cop out and give you some statistical analysis instead of thoughts today.

Last week, I was looking at a site I use for stats on a regular basis, and I briefly read through their statistical articles. One that particularly intrigued me discussed the relation to victory of leading the opposition in various statistical categories.

I recall hearing some member of the Sonic organization -- perhaps Billy McKinney while in his role as color commentator? -- commenting on the importance of the Sonics getting 20-25 assists per game. This, therefore, is a statistic I'm going to pay particular attention to. I had a thought that related to this last year when I was pouring over box scores, thinking that the winner of any game could be determined by looking at who had more assists.

As I remember from my statistics class last quarter, correlation does not necessarily imply causation, and this is a case where that is true. Having more assists quite naturally implies that a team has made more field goals. Making more field goals is almost always a guarantee of victory. On the other hand, however, it is true that teams have different assist rates.

I don't have the time to look up the best and worst in the NBA at these rates, but the difference between a good passing team -- the Utah Jazz -- and one that does not pass so well -- the Washington Wizards -- is striking. The Jazz, led by John Stockton, get 0.73 assists per field goal. The Wizards get 0.53 assists per field goal. If both team scored 35 field goals during a night, that's 7 more assists for the Jazz. The Sonics, incidentally, are near the low end in this category, with 0.59 assists per field goal, which doesn't surprise me much at all.

So, the numbers. I've looked at each game thus far this season. A 1 indicates the Sonics won that game, or in the case of statistics, mean they had a higher number in that statistic than their opponent. The 'when W' category indicates whether the Sonics won or lost only in games where they lead in the particular statistic. The 'when L' indicates that the statistic is one in which it is better to have less than the opponent (fouls and turnovers), but is otherwise the same. The 'matching' category has a 1 if the outcome in that statistic result matches the game result (ie the Sonics win the game and have more assists) and a 0 if the results are opposite.

I used to have the summaries in nice charts as well, but, alas, they don't seem to have survived the transition from Excel to a .gif file.

For which statistics is it most important to lead (or trail) your opponents?

Assists: .800
FG %: .667
Steals: .667
FGA: .500
3P%: .500
TO: .500
Tot. Reb: .400
3PA: .333
Off. Reb: .250
Blocks: .200
FTA: .000

Which statistics most closely mirror the game's outcome?

Assists: .900
FG%: .818
Steals: .800
3P%: .636
FGA: .600
TO .600
FTA: .545
Off. Reb: .500
3PA: .455
Tot. Reb .444
Blocks: .333

What surprises me about this list? The first thing that really surprises me is how low turnovers are. I've always been someone who has hated turnovers, but perhaps they're not really as important of a statistic as I'd like to think. The low location of rebounds doesn't particularly surprise me, though I suspect it might be more so for some of you reading at home. A point made in the article I read was that offensive rebounds could actually be an indicator of poor shooting, which makes them a negative.

As I postulated from box score observation, assists do appear to mirror remarkably well a team's overall success. Why they do so well ... I can't particularly say, but they do. Field goal percentage? That should be pretty obvious. I think beyond the universally critical things like assists and fg%, factors are dependant on a team's style of play.

The Sonics have historically been a team that is dependant on running based on steals, and forcing mistakes by the opposition. Thus, I'm not surprised at all that steals rank so high up on the list. On the other hand, the Sonics -- at least with Calvin Booth playing sparingly -- don't expect to get a lot of blocked shots, so I'm again not surprised to see them rank at the bottom of the list. The third example of this I see is three point percentage. The Sonics take a lot of threes, so of course making them is very important to their success or failure.

Hmm, well I don't think that was so bad for a filler column, now was it?