Better scorer Kobe Bryant or Adrian Dantley

[shawngoat23]

Kobe.

Dantley might have put up comparable numbers on far great efficiency, but as much as Kobe deserves criticism for hogging the ball, Dantley was worse.

Dantley was a better scorer than Kobe only in the sense that Charles Barkley was a better scorer than Michael Jordan--one which looks too narrowly at the statistics, and one that relies too much on an artificial concept of "efficiency" at that, with no regard for the context of how baskets were scored.

[AIRTIGHT]

Kobe.

Dantley might have put up comparable numbers on far great efficiency, but as much as Kobe deserves criticism for hogging the ball, Dantley was worse.

Dantley was a better scorer than Kobe only in the sense that Charles Barkley was a better scorer than Michael Jordan--one which looks too narrowly at the statistics, and one that relies too much on an artificial concept of "efficiency" at that, with no regard for the context of how baskets were scored.

I think I hear what you're saying, but analysts need to contain their judgment in the overall context of what is "effective". I think we'd have to break this argument in a few different segments and then piece it back in order to really get a better understanding here.

My first question is 'Why so obviously Kobe'? -People without even thinking about it seem on automatic to say Kobe here. Why is that? Esp. when most people here don't even remember Dantley playing. It seems obvious simply from that observation that these rash answers need to be taken with their due salt. I personally think these numbers and highlights and boxscores are too far removed from the tangible for people to get a good grasp on them. So real quickly, lets talk about street ball; something we're all more familiar with.

>> Say we're scoring 2's and 3's, and the game is timed at 30 mins. You have Kobe clone on one team and Shaq clone on the other. Kobeclone is shooting at a 1.12 pts per attempt (.560 TS) yet has crazy handles, can hit fadeaways and threes, can cross people up and can hit the spot up shot. -- however Kobeclone is obviously not consistent with his abilities and cannot be relied on to hit any particular shot at will (as explains his relatively low efficiency scoring). Shaqclone is a low post dominant scorer who has virtually no range, no quick handles or anything of the sort.. however he is able to establish position consistently on call and for every 2pt attempt he scores about 1.32 points (.660 TS). Say we control the other players on the team and we give to our hotshot player 6 out of every 10 offensive possessions. Say there are 100 offensive possessions in our game. So I give the ball to Kobeclone 60 times in a game, and you give to Shaqclone 60 times in a game. Assume again that 10 possessions are lost by each player (maybe due to a turnover or the player couldn't find a good shot etc..) so now we have 50 possessions for each star player where they are able to get a shot attempt. Shaqclone with his 50 2pt attempts (100pts possible total [3pointers worth 3]) converts 1.32 points for ever 2pts attempted ultimately ending up with 33 points for the game. Kobeclone- as exciting and versatile as he is- converts 1.12 points for ever 2pt attempt, ending at 28 points.

Now we can debate until our systems become antiquated but there is still no space on this earth where the value 28 is greater than that of 33. Now maybe Kobeclone's offensive talent allowed the team overall to score better (as by him being able to score within and around teammates and defensive ridgitity), but in this example there is no debate that among Shaqclone and Kobeclone, Shaqclone was the better individual scorer, simple as that.

[NO-KG-AI]

AIRTIGHT,

in that case, Dantley is on Jordan's level or above during all the years MJ averaged 30ppg because Dantley did so at a TS% of 65% compared to MJ who was at 62% for his peak.

MAn, these haters are RIDICULOUS. Anything. Any stat. Any metric. Any quantitative measure to somehow discredit Kobe. It's amazing you guys aren't paid for the work you guys put in.

Where does the good LORD find these people.

How much does Kobe pay you to make new user names to protect him?

[Warspite]

as someone who has an autograpghed Dantley jersey hanging in office let me tell you a little about my fav player.

It was very hard to double team him as he was alwasys on the wing in a triple threat stance. he was very quick and and had a great midrange game. He had the ability to go by his man on teh dribble and most of the time he was fouled it was by the weakside defender. Dantley was also very strong and for the most part was a great finisher and scored on many 3pt plays. AD played on the weakside of the offense and in many cases was the release valve for when the offense would break down. He was also a great cutter and with Isiah he was able to score off of many passes that normal PGs couldnt make. When AD set up his man he had some of the best head fakes you will ever see and many times the defender would freeze not wanting to bite a pump fake and allow AD to go around him. Ad had a great jumpshot from 15-20 ft and many times he would be dared to shoot and he took many wide open shots that the defense would give him. One of ADs trademark moves was to purposefully get his shot blocked by the weakside help. He then tempted the help defender to continue and would get him in foul trouble as he attempted to duplicate the block.

In todays rules AD would have many FTAs (Im guesseing 14-16pg) and be even more effective. Today AD is the personal coach of Melo and has taught him alot. If Melo had a better midrange game and more effective jumpshot and 1st step he would be Adrian Dantley. Still with the zone defenses of today and the def rules Dantley would have to alter his game.

Kobe may be able to score more but he cant score at the same eff of Dantley. Im not sure theres a player alive with the ability to score 30ppg on as few FGA as he has.

Ill be very interested to see if Kobe can maintain his PPG avg above Dantleys and if he can reach his total pts. IMHO Dantley as a scorer is very underrated and his ability to put the ball in the basket is superior to any player playing today.

[NO-KG-AI]

as someone who has an autograpghed Dantley jersey hanging in office let me tell you a little about my fav player.

It was very hard to double team him as he was alwasys on the wing in a triple threat stance. he was very quick and and had a great midrange game. He had the ability to go by his man on teh dribble and most of the time he was fouled it was by the weakside defender. Dantley was also very strong and for the most part was a great finisher and scored on many 3pt plays. AD played on the weakside of the offense and in many cases was the release valve for when the offense would break down. He was also a great cutter and with Isiah he was able to score off of many passes that normal PGs couldnt make. When AD set up his man he had some of the best head fakes you will ever see and many times the defender would freeze not wanting to bite a pump fake and allow AD to go around him. Ad had a great jumpshot from 15-20 ft and many times he would be dared to shoot and he took many wide open shots that the defense would give him. One of ADs trademark moves was to purposefully get his shot blocked by the weakside help. He then tempted the help defender to continue and would get him in foul trouble as he attempted to duplicate the block.

In todays rules AD would have many FTAs (Im guesseing 14-16pg) and be even more effective. Today AD is the personal coach of Melo and has taught him alot. If Melo had a better midrange game and more effective jumpshot and 1st step he would be Adrian Dantley. Still with the zone defenses of today and the def rules Dantley would have to alter his game.

Kobe may be able to score more but he cant score at the same eff of Dantley. Im not sure theres a player alive with the ability to score 30ppg on as few FGA as he has.

Ill be very interested to see if Kobe can maintain his PPG avg above Dantleys and if he can reach his total pts. IMHO Dantley as a scorer is very underrated and his ability to put the ball in the basket is superior to any player playing today.

That's writerman-like defense.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I'm not a big fan of Dantley, for what I've seen about him, but the guy's numbers are unreal as he has arguably the best combination of volume/efficiency EVER, they can't be dismissed with a one line post.
There are several ways to argue pro Kobe, but the question is definetly legit.

[tsherkin]

In todays rules AD would have many FTAs (Im guesseing 14-16pg) and be even more effective.

Definitely not. 12, maybe, we've seen that from Wade, but 14-16 hasn't been done since Wilt averaged 17 per game back while scoring 50 per game. There's no way Dantley would be getting that many in the modern game.

Today AD is the personal coach of Melo and has taught him alot. If Melo had a better midrange game and more effective jumpshot and 1st step he would be Adrian Dantley. Still with the zone defenses of today and the def rules Dantley would have to alter his game.

Melo's got a great first step and shot 45% on shots between 15 and 23 feet this past year, shots he took 28% of the time (roughly 5.5 times a game). His mid-range game is as money as it gets, he's a high-post scorer, which is definitively mid-range. His problem is less "mid-range" as "short range."

Melo shot just under 36% on the roughly 3.3 shots a game he took just short of the rim (so low left and right block and in the bottom of the circle), which represents less than a quarter of his overall shot attempts. So yeah, I wouldn't call it a real problem in his game. I'd note that Lebron didn't shoot any better, only 33.3% on 2.48 shots per game... and he was noticeably worse in the 15- to 23-foot range. He got to the rim more and to the line more.

Just wanted to throw that in there, because attacking his jumper, mid-range game and first step aren't really accurate criticisms of Melo. He's a FINE mid-range shooter, one of the best in the game, and his entire scoring game is devoted to scoring from the mid-range. Too, he just threw down the best 3P% of his career.

I think his biggest problems are those quick pull-up Js he takes from long-range and the fact that he's not as efficient in the low post as he'd like to believe; he takes too many fades from the right block.

[Warspite]

In todays rules AD would have many FTAs (Im guesseing 14-16pg) and be even more effective.

Definitely not. 12, maybe, we've seen that from Wade, but 14-16 hasn't been done since Wilt averaged 17 per game back while scoring 50 per game. There's no way Dantley would be getting that many in the modern game.

Today AD is the personal coach of Melo and has taught him alot. If Melo had a better midrange game and more effective jumpshot and 1st step he would be Adrian Dantley. Still with the zone defenses of today and the def rules Dantley would have to alter his game.

Melo's got a great first step and shot 45% on shots between 15 and 23 feet this past year, shots he took 28% of the time (roughly 5.5 times a game). His mid-range game is as money as it gets, he's a high-post scorer, which is definitively mid-range. His problem is less "mid-range" as "short range."

Melo shot just under 36% on the roughly 3.3 shots a game he took just short of the rim (so low left and right block and in the bottom of the circle), which represents less than a quarter of his overall shot attempts. So yeah, I wouldn't call it a real problem in his game. I'd note that Lebron didn't shoot any better, only 33.3% on 2.48 shots per game... and he was noticeably worse in the 15- to 23-foot range. He got to the rim more and to the line more.

Just wanted to throw that in there, because attacking his jumper, mid-range game and first step aren't really accurate criticisms of Melo. He's a FINE mid-range shooter, one of the best in the game, and his entire scoring game is devoted to scoring from the mid-range. Too, he just threw down the best 3P% of his career.

I think his biggest problems are those quick pull-up Js he takes from long-range and the fact that he's not as efficient in the low post as he'd like to believe; he takes too many fades from the right block.

Im sorry but I was in no way talking bad about Melo. I was simply trying to paint a picture of what Dantley is like to current fans who didnt see him play. Melo and Dantley are similar players its just that Dantley is better at everything except rebounding.

I think Dantley can shoot Wilt type FTA in todays league.
No handcheck rules
poor fundementals yet awsome physical atheltisism of defenders
Playing vs Dantley would be like playing someone from Mars as what he does isnt practiced, seen, studied or copied or even known about by current players.


Put Dantley on one of Sterns pet teams and give him a cell phone and shoe commercial deal and hes going to break records for FTA.

[shawngoat23]

Once again, I went with Kobe over Dantley, but I thought the legions of Kobe fans screaming "no contest" warranted a response.

Adrian Dantley was not a scrub. He's certainly not as good a player as Kobe, but it's not because of lack of scoring. The man twice led the league in scoring, and moreover, did it on astounding efficiency.

Consider how impressive his achievements were statistically. No one's ever matched his combination of scoring (as measured by points per game) and efficiency (as measured by TS%). Four straight seasons over 30 ppg. Only Wilt and Jordan can also claim that. During those seasons, he had a true shooting average ranging from 62.2% to 66.1%. Excluding low-volume scorers, only Artis Gilmore and Charles Barkley can claim more than one season of such efficiency, and neither did it on comparable volume.

[tsherkin]

I think Dantley can shoot Wilt type FTA in todays league.
No handcheck rules
poor fundementals yet awsome physical atheltisism of defenders

I disagree, I don't think he'd be rewarded with a volume of FTAs greater than the peak averages of Jordan or Shaq. 10+, I can see, even 12, but he's going to be starting his offense down low, so he's going to have to contend with the refs simply not seeing a lot of the stuff that's happening and not getting calls as a result.

Put Dantley on one of Sterns pet teams and give him a cell phone and shoe commercial deal and hes going to break records for FTA.

Amusing, but doubtful. Again, he'd probably be hanging in the 10-12 range at his peak, but you can call a foul on just about every play in the paint, so there's going to be some scale-back at some point.

[tkb]

^ It's possible he was on Jordan's level-- it's simple mathematic logic, I didn't base it in any way to favor my own argument or biases. However Jordan averaged more ppg than. .. Kobe ON TOP OF higher efficiencies for those points, so I would argue that Dantley was still slightly under Jordan in scoring effectiveness.

Look at the three career highs of each player in True Scoring PPG (PPG gauged to 50% TS)
Kobe
06'= 39.57
07'= 36.65
03'= 33.00
Dantley
83'= 40.58
84'= 39.90
81'= 38.19


How am I a hater? Why can't Dantley be a better scorer than Kobe Bryant? Why isn't that possible?- because Jack Haley and Mark Jackson say so? Logic and reality are a hazardous combination around die-hard Kobe fans.
(also note the rule change in todays league which affords perimeter players the opporunity to get many more fta/g with less driving to the basket. - does anyone really think Kobe should garner 10 ft/g 3 years in a row, 9 this year?? The guy fades away on ever shot, how often does he drive to the basket?)

Those statistics aren't meaningful unless they are adjusted for minutes and pace IMO.

If you adjust Kobe's 2006 season for the pace in say 1986 which easily was the season Dantley scored the most per minute per possession, Kobe's average per 36 minutes jumps up to over 35 ppg compared to Dantley's 29.7, so there is a significant volume discrepancy at their respective peaks.

[Jordan23Forever]

tkb, I notice that you constantly advocate adjusting individual ppg for league average pace, but this isn't proper since players playing in a faster-paced league or on a faster-paced team aren't necessarily using more possessions. You have to look at how many possessions each player is actually using (either as an absolute # or as a percentage of their team's possessions). For example:

- Player A's team plays at a 100 pace factor
- Player B's team plays at a 90 pace factor

- Player A takes 18 shots per game and 9 FTA/gm (~22.5 possessions used)
- Player B takes 21 shots per game and 10 FTA/gm (~26 possessions used)

You would have us simply increase Player B's ppg average by ~11% because his team plays at an 11% slower pace. WHat you fail to account for is that Player A was not using any of the extra possessions afforded by the faster pace his team played under. In fact, he used fewer possessions, both as an absolute number and (especially) as a percentage of team possessions per game. This is why such reasoning is faulty imo.

[tsherkin]

That's not entirely accurate; some of the value in pace is the added efficiency of transition baskets, which are more common in a faster-paced environment. 11% (in the given example) is not the accurate number but there's definitely more than just the raw possessions-used to be factored into the equation.

[Jordan23Forever]

Tsherkin, sure, I agree. I was just trying to show that it's nowhere near a 1:1 correlation (i.e., 10% more team possessions wouldn't necessarily equal 10% more ppg for an individual player).

[AIRTIGHT]

To review, real quickly, what was the argument for Kobe being a better scorer than Dantley?

*btw, for an insight on pace adjustments on the stats of individuals check out Magic's playoff stats for 87' where the Laker's pace was 101.6 and 91' where their pace was 94.1
Magic playoffs
87' 18gm 21.8 ppg .607%TS 7.7r 12.2a 2.83TO 1.72s Pace 101.6
91' 19gm 21.8 ppg .598%TS 8.1r 12.6a 4.05TO 1.21s Pace 94.1
Hakeem regular season per 36 min
89' 82gm 24.2ppg .552%TS 13.2r 1.8a 3.4b 2.5s Pace 101.2
90' 82gm 24.0ppg .541%TS 13.2r 2.7a 4.3b 2.0s Pace 101.8
93' 82gm 23.8ppg .577%TS 11.9r 3.2a 3.8b 1.7s Pace 94.4 (age 30)

Now these are examples of the same guy playing equally as well and as such getting comparable stats under widely different pace factors (while a few here were arguing Dantley's higher team pace to afford him advantage over Kobe) [unless you feel these players purposely worked even harder to raise their stats in those low pace years in effort to make them comparable just to help our argument]. Those stats look fairly similar- even with such a large change in pace. Considering Hakeem's age and the traditional drop in athleticism seen in players around age 30, I'd say there was no statisticall drop off all contributed to that decreased pace.

What's also worth looking at is the expanded scoring leaders (top 20) from a few years in the mid 80's and compare them with a few in the late 2000's. Now if pace played such a big role in the statistics of players, you'd expect the effects of wide increases in pace to be noticably displayed among the top 20 scorers for given years- with the years of higher pace to have higher mean averages for their top 20 or so scorers. From looking at the league logs however, this turns out not to be the case at all.

[AIRTIGHT]

^ It's possible he was on Jordan's level-- it's simple mathematic logic, I didn't base it in any way to favor my own argument or biases. However Jordan averaged more ppg than. .. Kobe ON TOP OF higher efficiencies for those points, so I would argue that Dantley was still slightly under Jordan in scoring effectiveness.

Look at the three career highs of each player in True Scoring PPG (PPG gauged to 50% TS)
Kobe
06'= 39.57
07'= 36.65
03'= 33.00
Dantley
83'= 40.58
84'= 39.90
81'= 38.19


How am I a hater? Why can't Dantley be a better scorer than Kobe Bryant? Why isn't that possible?- because Jack Haley and Mark Jackson say so? Logic and reality are a hazardous combination around die-hard Kobe fans.
(also note the rule change in todays league which affords perimeter players the opporunity to get many more fta/g with less driving to the basket. - does anyone really think Kobe should garner 10 ft/g 3 years in a row, 9 this year?? The guy fades away on ever shot, how often does he drive to the basket?)

Those statistics aren't meaningful unless they are adjusted for minutes and pace IMO.

If you adjust Kobe's 2006 season for the pace in say 1986 which easily was the season Dantley scored the most per minute per possession, Kobe's average per 36 minutes jumps up to over 35 ppg compared to Dantley's 29.7, so there is a significant volume discrepancy at their respective peaks.

^^cont..
Even still tkb, if you want to look at and adjust the possession numbers (and I do agree in theory that a change should be noticed at some point- and a 13 possession difference a game is huge) and look at how many possessions a team had a game as an indicator of how many possesions a player was afforded to score his points, you should also look at the usage afforded and taken by the particular player per possesion by the team. In this case

Dantley
86' Pace 103.3 x UsgR 30%= 30.99 total estimated use per game
Bryant
06' Pace 90.9 x UsgR 38.7%= 35.17 (39.97 if adjusted for 103.3 Pace to get the 35pts/36min number you stated - and we didn't adjust for Dantley's large TS% advantage[.629--.563]) Incidentally, Dantley's #'s at that usgR and pace would be..
Kobe's pts(per36min)/possession (at 38.7%usgR)= 31.1pts(per36min)/35.17posspergame = .884 pts/poss
Dantley /possession (at 30.0%usgR)= 29.8pts(per36min)/30.99posspergame = .961 pts/poss
..Dantley
.961pts x 39.97 posses (Kobe's possession # at 103.3 pace and 38.7usgR)= 38.41pts/36 min (at Kobe's .387 usgR @ 103.3 pace..damn )

.. so even if you want to adjust for the full value of the pace discrepancy Bryant still used more estimated possessions in which to score his points than did Dantley. So Dantley's greater PPminute@TS% still came at a lower amount of possessions used than Bryant's as well.

[TrueLAfan]

Well, I'd say Kobe. But the question is pointless. You can't just look at scoring in a vacuum and ignore the other effects of the person shooting the ball on pace, passing, chemistry, offensive style...so many different things.

Like most statistics, TS% is a relative term. Adrian Dantley is, perhaps, the best example of this and being a chemistry killer. (Okay...maybe second to Reggie Theus.) On paper, Dantley gets a decent amount of assist and scores with remarkable efficiency. AD is in the top 5 of all time in TS%, a remarkable achievement for a volume scoring G-F. But it doesn't matter. He was not nearly as good of a scorer as his numbers show.

We often forget the most valuable statistic. They're called "wins." If a player puts up fantastic numbers on a team that gets 30-35 wins, one of two things must be true.

1) The supporting cast is epically bad and might not win 20 games with an "average" player replacing the fantastic-numbers player.
2) The fantastic-numbers player is not really that valuable.

There is no #3. And #2 happens a lot. It's a good example of player value. A valuable player gets their team to win. His numbers are usually relevant to this...but, ultimately, they are secondary. The prime example for me is Kareem in 1977. Without him, the Lakers were truly lousy. They had no real point guard. Other than Kermit Washington--who played barely 1300 minutes in the season--they had no other low post defenders or scorers. Really, they didn't have much in the way of perimeter backcourt D either. The two decent players on the team other than Kareem were on the downhill slide and would be out of the league in two years or less. That team won 52 games. It's incredible. Put an "average" C on that team, and I'd be amazed if they won 30 games. Kareem was worth more than 20 wins that year; maybe 25. He was the MVP.

(This, incidentally, points out why MVP voting is generally good. People that dislike MVP voting often point out that players on sub-40 win teams rarely get into the top 3. That's because they shouldn't. If you're a top 3 player in the league, you should be making a 20-25 win team into a 40 win team. If that doesn't happen, the odds are that the player is not that valuable, despite great numbers.)

That #2 happened all the time with Dantley. Dantley's scoring never seemed to help his team much. When he was a "good" (18-22 ppg) scorer, teams didn't want him. When he was a "great" scorer, with Utah, the teams did poorly. When Dantley was hurt in his peak period, the teams did just as well without him. The 1981 Jazz without Dantley were probably better than the 1977 Lakers without Kareem. The Jazz had Darrell Griffith that year. They had Wayne Cooper and Allan Bristow, who were okay players (and were young and improving). They won 28 games. The next year they lost Cooper, but Rickey Green blossomed into a good player. They added Jeff Wilkins and Danny Schayes, who were okay out there. They dropped to 25 wins. The next year, Dantley was injured for most of the year, missing 60 games. The missing court time was taken up by a combination of John Drew and Jerry Eaves. The Jazz went up to 30 wins.

My conclusion is that Dantley's scoring--he averaged about 30 ppg while in Utah--was meaningless. His efficiency is irrelevant. His TS% is irrelevant. His scoring did not help his team. Looking at a "system," or counting possessions shows that you are spending a lot of time crunching numbers and not so many watching basketball. If you are scoring a lot of points to the detriment of the rest of your team, you are not ever going to be a great scorer. Efficient, possibly. High volume, certainly. but "good"--and I am thinking good means "something good comes from it"--no.

In that sense (which is a real world sense), Kobe Bryant's scoring is always better than Dantley's. Which is not to say that Kobe's scoring has always been "good" either. Personally, I am of the opinion that the 2005 Lakers were a decent team without Kobe. Plenty of talent there and a good coach. I think the chemistry of the team was horrible, and I think Kobe was the primary cause. His statistics in 2005 are really about the same as in 2004. But the 2004 Kobe was a better scorer. It's because his scoring helped his team more (even if the 2004 Lakers had chemistry issues, they did win 56 games and go to the finals).

Now, if we're trying to set this up as a "well, we're talking about pure scoring" or something like that...nonsense. Ridiculous. It's like asking how fast a car is in a laboratory rather than on a track. What's the point? Scoring is a function of offensive play; the byproduct of scoring and ultimate goal is victory. Adrian Dantley scored about the same amount of points of points per game as Kobe Bryant. He did it with less shots. Anyone who looks at those two statistics in a vacuum, out of the real world context, will try to argue that Dantley should be talked about with Kobe as a scorer, perhaps placed ahead. It's completely wrong. Dantley was the more efficient scorer. But that efficiency meant very, very little in the actual games. The better scorer was and is Kobe Bryant.

[AIRTIGHT]

TrueLaker- I disagree with you on the semantics and I'll tell you what I'm talking about in a minute. Right now I still want to see a couple of the guys dispute the hard stats I pointed out in this argument on the per possession talk (as to get it out of the way for a future topic).
>>I may agree that Kobe is the better scorer, but it seems as if fans here are trying to justify him being better by ANY means they can conjure- regardless of the validity of the claim. Due to this, I find it difficult not to consider him one of the more overrated stars in league history (as good as he is).

[TrueLAfan]

First--close reading. Not a Laker fan. Not particularly a Kobe fan either.

The hard stats/per possession talk are spurious; they essentially are pointless digressions. The title of the topic asks for the "better" scorer. You want to make that into a technical aside based on efficiency and usage. The statistic that you fall back on (rightfully, because it's Dantley's strong point) is TS%. TS% does not equate to being a "great" scorer. Adrian Dantley scored a lot of points with high efficiency. But he was an offense killer on the court; the Jazz were only above the league average in team offense rating once when Dantley was there despite AD's gaudy efficiency. If a player chucks in a lot of points but doesn't let others get their shots and makes his team's offense bad, it's counterintuitive to think of him as a good scorer.

Basically, it comes down to this. It is not possible to be a good scorer when the points you produce lead to a lack of overall production. Individual stats in a complete vacuum are worse than pointless; they're actively misleading. Adrian Dantley scored a lot of points at the expense of his other players and his teams' offense. Trying to twist that into "...but he was a great scorer anyway" is everything that is wrong with statistical analysis.