How good is Nick Collison, exactly?

[Krodis]

I like Collison a lot. I think he's a good player (very underrated). But I don't know HOW good he is.

The box score metrics say he's nothing special. PER is 10.0 this year (but 14.0 on his career, his rebound and USG rates plumetted this year).

However, 2 year adjusted +/- has him as the sixth best player in the ENTIRE NBA. LeBron, Durant, Nash, Wade and Dirk are the only players with better 2 year adjusted +/- numbers than Nick Collison.

Now obviously, calling him the 6th best player in the NBA is more than a little absurd, and I'm sure his +/- numbers are slightly inflated by the weakness of some of our other interior defenders, but it does make me wonder.

How exactly do you measure the worth of a player whose main value does not show up in the box score, nor is immediately obvious to the casual observer?

[wiff]

I think he is fairly underrated on these boards.

After all it's about PPG on these boards right? And that's not what Nick does best. I think he is an underrated passer. We all know he rebounds well. Never really found a solid stroke but has solid footwork in the paint when he snags an offensive rebound. I think most championship teams would love to have him coming in off the bench. With the new acquisitions of Nazr and Perkins, Nick should really better an even bigger plus for the Thunder because he won't be giving up size.

Nick is very good at what he does and smart enough to know to play with in his role. And his contract makes him a freaking steal.

[slick_watts]

How exactly do you measure the worth of a player whose main value does not show up in the box score, nor is immediately obvious to the casual observer?

It's difficult. Most casual fans are attached to the simple box score statistics.

Nick makes the offense better by setting good screens, moving well without the ball, offensive rebounding, shooting a high percentage when he does shoot. He makes the defense better by playing solid positional defense, communicating / directing traffic, etc.

His rebounding has declined the last few years and he gets fewer attempts on offense. But he's still effective and one of the better defensive players in the league.

[bbms]

One of the highest BBIQ in the game.

Very, very, very underrated. He's not far from Anderson Varejão.