"Basketball is the only sport where numbers lie"

[Marchesk]

people lie. numbers are just facts.

Jordan was 1/9, Kobe was carried 3 times, Lebron has 2 asterisk titles, and Wilt chucked 1 mountain lion.

[RoundMoundOfReb]

Football and basketball mostly.

[dreamwarrior]

depends on what you mean. baseball stats are pretty black and white. with the exception of rare errors and of course juicing

today's football era is obviously VERY different. in the past every team tried to force a running game in order to control the clock. just like in the nba in the past all the big men got passes down low. now days midgets like drew brees passing for over 5000 yards but in the past 3000 yards was the yard stick. john elway only had one 4000 yard season. philip rivers won comeback player of the year after throwing for only 3600 yards the previous year. so numbers are inflated because teams dont rely on the run anymore.

in basketball the stats are bogus to begin with. phantom assists and rebounds. probably because the pace is so fast. they need to have a method where you have 3 guys keeping score and say all 3 need to score an assist for that assist to be official.

[J Shuttlesworth]

Generally great performances are backed up by great stats

[SouBeachTalents]

It's football and it's not even close, especially with all the rule changes now that prohibit defense

[Height Freak]

Numbers lie in pro surfing too (judge scores)...

[pauk]

If you know the CONTEXT of it all (details) numbers will speak only the truth, whether its bad or good..... context explains to you in every detail why/how something happened and then you will know how significant/non-significant it is (if the numbers "lie" or dont)....

[nathanjizzle]

If you know the CONTEXT of it all (details) numbers will speak only the truth, whether its bad or good..... context explains to you in every detail why/how something happened and then you will know how significant/non-significant it is (if the numbers "lie" or dont)....

nah, there is no context to lebron scoring 26 while playing passive and the heat losing in the finals. thats a poor performance.

[SouBeachTalents]

nah, there is no context to lebron scoring 26 while playing passive and the heat losing in the finals. thats a poor performance.

Just like there's no context for Rose averaging 23 ppg on 24 shots per game in the ECF

[avonbarksdale]

hockey they lie, doesn't account for intangibles such as 2 way play and +/- is extremely misleading due to it being more of a team stat

just because a guy has more points and a higher +/- does not make him a better player

[outbreak]

Numbers lie in every sport. In cricket you see cases of players making runs on flat decks but they can't do shit on an even pitch, same goes for players who bowl well and create a lot of chances or even bowl a supporting role for the strike bowler up the other end who's figures won't look nearly as good as their contributions or batsmen who come in playing a role like being told to hit out before a declaration or just see out the new ball on a tough pitch. All sports have this.

[SugarHill]

Just like there's no context for Rose averaging 23 ppg on 24 shots per game in the ECF

Numbers lie unless he's talking about Rose's 2011 stats against the top 8 teams.

[InfiniteBaskets]

Numbers are usually much more misleading in team sports opposed to individual sports. Usually in assigning blame/value to individual players on a team.

Tennis, Boxing, Golf... Who cares if Roddick led the ATP in aces by 100+? If you ain't winning Slams you ain't good.

With team sports, you can be good and lose. Probably why media loves to write about individuals within team sports.

[AussieG]

Numbers lie but it depends on how you interpret them and if you know all the variables or not.

When I was young, I thought that 20ppg meant you were a good player. I thought if only you could have one 30ppg player and 3 20ppg players, you could win it all.

I didn't know anything about basketball.

Over the years it all starts to make sense. It's not that numbers aren't important, just that they need to be viewed in the right way. There's a few different things.

One.. you can't use stats to predict the future. Numbers are the past and are static and the future is unpredictable and dynamic.

Two.. numbers are very robotic and don't take into account the human element. They are emotionless and basketball is usually played with emotion.

Three.. it's impossible to keep track of them properly especially defensive stats. Seems like most of the time, people just rely on that players reputation. And there is no distinction between one on one iso D and team D. The simplest example in basketball would be the way assists or steals are recorded and how they don't take into account if that was the actual person who initiated the play, or just the one who touched it last and took credit for it. And it doesn't even really matter who initiated it as long as the 5 guys on the floor are executing the play together. A lot of plays come from the coach and even if it completely fools the D and makes it easy for the 5 on the floor, he gets no credit for the assist.

Four.. that you don't need 3bpg to be a good defender, or 10+ assists per game to be a good PG, or 10 rebs per game to be a good rebounder. Or that you need 20ppg to be considered a good scorer.

There's many ways to judge a player and ppg is just one of them. There's many good players who haven't averaged over 10 or 12 ppg. Unless a team is stacked, it's really hard to win without team chemistry. Team chemistry and basketball IQ, and role players etc are a big part of winning in team sports and they aren't tracked anywhere in stats. And even if they were tracked, the stats on a players profile would be so long and confusing, most people still wouldn't understand them. At some point you just have to go with your basketball knowledge and your gut, as opposed to listing out 40 different stat categories to show scientifically that one player is better than another.

You know that stats are a problem, when you have someone with ball in hand ready to take a 40 ft buzzer beater and then don't shoot because it could decrease their FG%. If stats weren't recorded, he'd take that shot everytime, because there'd be nothing to lose. The ones who get it, would shoot anyway.

It's the difference between wanting to be perceived as being good and caring too much about the image of being good, vs wanting to actually be good and just trusting that people would be able to recognise it, whether the stats show it or not. A good simple stat that they don't have now that'd help improve would be the boneheaded play to awesome play ratio. Anything they do that causes bad things for those around them (even if it isn't a TO or missed shot) would get 1 point for the boneheaded column. Anything that makes those around them better would get 1 point for the awesome column. If they take a good shot selection shot, even if it missed they'd get a point in the plus column because it came in the flow of the offense and to pass up that shot would be worse. 2K had something similar to this with C+ and B and B+ etc etc in the my player part, not sure if it still does.

All of this stuff is too boring or complicated for the average joe, easier just to market the players off of highlight reel dunks or 20ppg or 10 apg. Offensive over defense etc.

[LAZERUSS]

Numbers lie in football too. I think the only stats that can pretty much taken at face value is baseball.

Baseball is BY FAR, the WORST sport for comparing eras, and even current players. We have seen specific eras which put up unfathomable stats. The "dead-ball" era, WWII ('42-45), "the Year of the Pitcher" ('68), and of course, the "Steroid era" (1990-2005.)

Furthermore, there are a TON of examples where a players stats are "inflated." Everyone knows about "pitcher's parks", and "hitter-friendly" parks. For years Dodger Stadium was considered "Cavernous." Atlanta was called "the Launching Pad."

Then, there were special circumstances, as well. Maris slugged 61 HRs in 1961, but upon closer examination, he not only hit them in a park with a 296 ft right field fence, he had Mickey Mantle hitting behind him. How about this? In a year in which he hit 61 HRs, he was not intentionally walked ONCE all year. Furthermore, the entire league's homerun totals took a huge jump. Why? Because it was an expansion year.

How about this...I have long maintained that Willie Mays' 52 HRs in 1965 is perhaps the greatest HR season of all-time (at least post-Ruth.) Why? Because the next highest HR hitter, in either league, was Wilie McCovey at 39. Or a 13 HR differential...which is the highest in baseball history, post-Ruth. BTW, the AL leader hit 32. Furthermore, Mays hit his homers in the cold and winds of Candlestick Park. Few people probably know this, but when the Giants moved to SF, Mays completely changed his swing because of the winds at Candlestick.

I'm sorry, but a pitcher with an ERA of 1.50 in 1916 is not the same as Pedro Martinez's ERA of 1.74 in 2000, or Greg Maddux's 1.56 in 1994 (or 1.63 in '95.)