RealGM

the good stats on a bad team argument is how subjectively it is used. People like to throw it around all the time on here, talking about hollow stats, and oh, he puts those up on a bad team, seemingly making the assumption that there are no good players on bad teams.
And this gets mentioned for a LOT of players on bad teams. Pretty much every comparison on the board, if it is done between someone on a good team, and someone on a bad team, it will be brought up.
What bothers me about the use is, I have never, ever seen it used for Elton Brand. He has a career record of 251-413. Awful. And really, he has been on some awful teams, especially in his early years. I am not faulting him at all, and not trying to say he should be used in those discussions. Just pointing out that if you are going to say that oh, he's on a bad team, his stats don't matter as much for some random player, like for example, Zach Randolph, or Al Jefferson, would you say the same about Elton Brand??
And this, again, is in no way trying to compare him to those players, nothing like that. Basically my rant about the hollow stats argument used, and how dumb it is. I like Elton Brand, and recognize he is a very good player.

I'm not a fan of the argument either. I think if a player can play then he can play. It doesn't matter what team he plays for. It's not his fault that the management blows and has no complementary players around him.

^There is some merit to it, intuitively. Kevin Martin (a very good young player), on a weak Sacramento team, put up some great stats. Put him on, say, Utah or Houston...he becomes a 3rd option and his scoring numbers drop.

The problem is twofold: (1) it gets taken waaaay too far in most cases, and genuinely talented and productive players get sold short, and (2) as the OP pointed out, it gets applied very selectively. There are certainly cases where it may be true, but not ALL good-players-on-bad-teams should be diminished.

Well sometimes there is some level of truth behind the good stats on bad teams... Look at the carrers of SAR, Juwan Howard, Danny Manning but I do agree with you with Elton Brand.

There's something to be said for efficiency.

Randolph shoots a career 46.5%
Brand shoots a career 50.5%, and plays defense

Juwan Howard is a 46.8% career shooter

16.5 pts, 8 rebs, 3 assists, 3 blks, 2 steals.

Andrei Kirilenko on the 03-04 Jazz team.

Now he's about a 12, 5, 3, 2, 1 guy.

He's a very good player still, but his stats were clearly elevated by the fact that the second best scorer on that team was Carlos Arroyo.

Like he said a ton of times he wasn't comparing the players.

As for the OP really can't disagree with you, but hey this is a message board and people will pull whatever they can can attempt to prove themselves right. Like others have mentioned the statement can and does have merit to some players. Again its a subjective statement that can't really be proven or dis proven since its base on option rather then fact. IMO it can be flipped around when marginal players are put on good teams that allow them to maximize there ability without the pressure.