Very High TS% + Very High PPG = Superstar?

[NeilsCeltics]

If a person is averaging somewhere along the lines of 30.5 PPG on 620% TS on the NBA, would you consider him a Superstar? If not, what would you consider him? Where would you rate this player in your top 10?

[Miller4ever]

I think there's more to superstar than scoring extremely well. In fact, most active superstars (safe to say LeBron, Kobe, Wade, Dwight, Duncan, KG, Paul, Shaq) and you notice that it's the wingmen who fit your statistical requirement. But, yeah, when T-Mac and AI were doing this, they were superstars. Rick Barry? Superstar.

Here's a list and scrolling through, 99% of the 30.5+ crowd are legitimate superstars. I didn't check the TS%, but being able to score that much means that you are either a terrible chucker (and not a recognizable name on this list) or you score efficiently with a good TS%.

[NeilsCeltics]

I think there's more to superstar than scoring extremely well. In fact, most active superstars (safe to say LeBron, Kobe, Wade, Dwight, Duncan, KG, Paul, Shaq) and you notice that it's the wingmen who fit your statistical requirement. But, yeah, when T-Mac and AI were doing this, they were superstars. Rick Barry? Superstar.

Here's a list and scrolling through, 99% of the 30.5+ crowd are legitimate superstars. I didn't check the TS%, but being able to score that much means that you are either a terrible chucker (and not a recognizable name on this list) or you score efficiently with a good TS%.

Allen Iverson is quite an inefficient chucker. 500-520ish TS% over his career. Elgin Baylor's TS% is as good as Kobe's if he played in today's game, but he's not really that efficient compared to Bernard King or Wade.

Anyhow, I think that I may have found the cookie cutter way for identifying who is a definite, dominant Superstar, and who isn't. If it's a position that expects you to score in bunches, like say, the SG, SF, or the C position, then the easiest way to look at whether or not that said person is a Superstar is to look at how much they are scoring and how efficient they are at it too.

That's not to say that the only way to be a Superstar is to score extremely well, there's other factors involved as well, such as leadership/intanginbles/will-to-win/tenacity/versatility/defense/rebounding/help-defense/etc.

Too bad there's no statistical proof on leadership/will to win/intanginbles/etc, but they're every bit as important as scoring prowess.

[mysticbb]

A fan usually doesn't look up the ts%, there are more parts than only high and efficient scoring in the "superstar equation". A player like Iverson shows that your hypothesis is wrong. Not quite sure what kind of players are labeled as superstars, but Adrian Dantley had 3 seasons in which he scored over 30 ppg with a ts% higher than .58. I wouldn't call him a "superstar". Well, there is no real definition for a superstar anyway. So, if you want to start something like this, you should define first what "superstar" means. Otherwise those kind of things are pretty much useless.

[NeilsCeltics]

A fan usually doesn't look up the ts%, there are more parts than only high and efficient scoring in the "superstar equation". A player like Iverson shows that your hypothesis is wrong. Not quite sure what kind of players are labeled as superstars, but Adrian Dantley had 3 seasons in which he scored over 30 ppg with a ts% higher than .58. I wouldn't call him a "superstar". Well, there is no real definition for a superstar anyway. So, if you want to start something like this, you should define first what "superstar" means. Otherwise those kind of things are pretty much useless.

Well, in my opinion, a Superstar is basically a person that you can rely on as your first or second option or major defensive anchor to lead your team to consistent high-seeding playoff berths, they lead their teams, consistent play-off berths, Championships, Finals Trips, bringing in fan-base attendance to numerous heights, dominance against the enemy's opposition, they attract outstanding role-players that will play for them as ring-chasing vets glory, and is basically the person who's your most major anchor in the offense or defense. They're people that either "win" a lot and they're the main reason for the "wins", or they're people that "dominate" their opposition a lot.

There's many types of Superstars. The Iverson type, the Dantley type, the McGrady type, the Russell type, and the Jordan type.

Allen Iverson is a Superstar because he dominated his opposition with his scoring prowess, he attracted a lot of fans to watch the 76ers, and he looked flashy while dominating his opposition, and made the 01 Sixers overachieve and get to the Finals.

Adrian Dantley is a Superstar because he dominated his opposition with scoring prowess.

Tracy McGrady is a Superstar because he dominated his opposition with scoring prowess, playmaking prowess, and ball-handling prowess despite being on horrible teams.

Bill Russell is a Superstar because he dominated his opposition with his defensive prowess, made the most of his talent, and won a lot.

Michael Jordan is a Superstar because was the main, major offensive anchor for the Jordan-led Bulls that won 6 Championships.

I think I defined it as best as I could.

[OGSactownballer]

I think that there is a quantifiable way to measure superstardom and McGrady is a perfect example as are Jordan and Kobe. When a team with one of these caliber of players that has the ability to lead their team in WHATEVER statistical category is needed that night to win the game has a .500 or better record (I'd almost go so far as to say playoff level in the 7/8 range at least - although some of that is determined by the strength of the other teams in that particular year), I would qualify that as a TRUE superstar. These guys also are not the second option when they are on this type of team (maybe, as in with both Kobe and T-Mac, they are second option early in their carreers - i.e. Shaq/Kobe and VC/T-Mac), and there is a CANYON between them and the next guy.

[BrooklynBulls]

If a person is averaging somewhere along the lines of 30.5 PPG on 620% TS on the NBA, would you consider him a Superstar? If not, what would you consider him? Where would you rate this player in your top 10?

Statistics without context describe nothing accurately. It would be rare for these statistics to describe a non-superstar, but all that would be sufficient to do that in this case is a super high pace, a high turnover rate, and bad defense. That would turn this superstar into simply a good player who gets too many touches.

[Doctor MJ]

PPG + TS% is a good ballpark. The game is more complicated than that though, and I'm not just talking about defense, rebounding, etc. Consider the improvement of the Sixers when Wilt stopped being a volume scorer. What happened? Well, I can't give a complete answer, but when a team forces the ball to their star big man in a predictable fashion, and isn't set up for him to kick it back out to make open jumpers, there's going to be a lot of blown possessions. If a star refuses to adjust his game to make better use of his teammates, he can look very impressive by this metric but not be as valuable as a scorer as you might thing. And to be clear, Wilt was willing to change his game, if you're looking for the poster child of guys who people question the value of despite PPG + TS%, it's Adrian Dantley.

[Tim Lehrbach]

Another glaring counterexample to this equation is Kevin Martin.

[KF10]

Another glaring counterexample to this equation is Kevin Martin.

Good point.

But to be fair, Kevin Martin is an outlier in a sense that most people are trying to fit him in a fixed category of tiers. It's isn't easy to do. Most people don't understand the whole "Kevin Martin complex" to start with.

I think being a modern day outlier throws a lot of people off. The guy is averaging 60%+ TS% over his career! That's 12th ALL TIME. And he has the highest TS% average of all active players too.

Last time I check (even though it is only a five game sample): Martin was averaging 30+ ppg on 57+% TS%. At Martin's rate, that is the highest TS% while breaking the 30 point mark this season. The only person that comes close is LeBron James. Which he is averaging 29.4 (almost at the 30 point mark) while averaging a ridiculous 62+% TS%.

[Tim Lehrbach]

Yes, the purpose in my post was in no way to put down Kevin Martin. He is a fascinating player.

[KF10]

Okay. No arguments from here then.

[penbeast0]

When looking at Elgin Baylor and other stars who started their careers in the 50s, TS% grossly underestimates their dominance. Remember, the LEAGUE was averaging a fg% of .395 in Elgin's rookie year which makes his .408 actually .013 above league average. In contrast, the league in Michael Jordan's rookie year averaged .491 so his .515 is about the same percentage over league average as Baylor's rookie year.

This isn't to say Baylor was as efficient as Jordan, it does however say you have to look past the raw percentages and realize the league that he played in. Dantley in particular with his % and his foul draw comes off as hyperefficient no matter what rubric you use but Bernard King, Dominique Wilkins, Alex English, Mark Aquirre and even Bird benefitted from playing in the era of high shooting percentages (bad defense?) while a player like Baylor or Pettit who look inefficient by modern standards may be efficient by the standards of the league of their day (good defense? rule changes? lack of athleticism? pick your reason).

[Bernman]

Allen Iverson is a Superstar because he dominated his opposition with his scoring prowess, he attracted a lot of fans to watch the 76ers, and he looked flashy while dominating his opposition, and made the 01 Sixers overachieve and get to the Finals.

No, that would have been the officials. In fact another Allen Iverson-led team doesn't even surpass the 2nd round if not for Dick Bavetta and his fellow goons. Milwaukee lost 16 straight games that Bavetta reffed from 00-02 (when the Bucks didn't suck), which had literally about a 1 in a million chance of happening at random. Greater when you consider "Knick Bavetta" already had a rep of favoring the big markets. Bavetta reffed a couple games of the EC Finals series, both losses in a series which went 7 games. The Sixers' 2nd round series against Toronto also went 7 games, and in most games won by Philly they had a free throw differential advantage greater than their point differential. This was all research done by a poster named "scassell" on the Bucks' board.

Iverson never legitimately led any team past the 2nd round, even in an incredibly weak east, because of the lack of his lack of efficiency while being an extremely high usage player. Naturally, if you impose a mediocre to average at best offensive efficiency on your team, you're eventually going to face one of several teams who'll shoot more efficiently.

So if Iverson was a superstar it was due to his flash and shot making difficulty, not anything of substance like how vital he was to a team's success.

[erudite23]

Yes. AI may be the most overrated player of all time. Never did anything meaningful--unless you count making it through an incredibly diluted East to the Finals before getting curb-stomped by a legitimate league power--but looked amazing doing it and compiled a ton of empty stats, was a cultural icon, and was a sentimental figure from a racial standpoint. The dude was a liability to his team about once out of every 3 games, and a give-and-take option another third of the time. But when his shot was falling it looked dynamite.

Too bad that was only 40% of the time.

[tkb]

So basically what you're asking is if Adrian Dantley was a superstar in his prime. I don't rate him as one, but he was a fine player (he actually went higher than 62 % TSP, like 64ish on 30.5 PPG for 4 straight years). He had great shot selection for himself, but with short clocks he was more likely to give it up to a team mate than had an even worse shot at making it than take a low percentage shot himself if I remember correctly.

Like someone else mentioned, it's based on circumstances. Jordan was a superstar and he scored 30+ on 60+ % TSP, Dantley did the same but he was not a superstar in my estimations.