Xatticus wrote: Firstly, I want to preemptively apologize for all of the xenophobia in this post.
No. Six games is rather meaningless.
Minnesota had a better record as recently as March 17. At that point, Orlando was one game behind Miami for the 8th seed, while Minnesota had already been effectively eliminated with 13 games left in the season.
Assuming conference win percentages hold, Orlando is a 38-win team with a Western Conference schedule.
I get it. Orlando won 42 games because of Vucevic. Minnesota lost 46 games because of Towns. Hooray for analytics!
But this is all a distraction from the debate at hand. The tried-and-true stuff doesn't work here, so the crux of your argument is that Vucevic was better than Towns because Orlando won more games? What does this sort of logic tell us about the D'Angelo Russell versus Nikola Vucevic debate?
As an aside, I don't know what your fascination is with touches.
points per touch:
Wiggins - .377
Towns - .333
Remember when you were trying to convince me how important that particular statistic is?
Minnesota was really banged up this year. The rest of the team (sans Towns) had a combined TS% of .536 (only the Knicks were worse). Wiggins and Okogie played the 2nd and 3rd most minutes for them this season and combined for a .493 TS%. And yet Minnesota finished T-11th in the league in offensive efficiency. This is because Towns is REALLY good.
A veiled personal attack isn't covering up that defense and making those around you better matters...Vucevic was superior at both than Towns and offensively he wasn't far behind.
Now, about this comment...
First, six games is absolutely meaningful. It was literally the difference between a 6/7th seed playoff team and one in the mid lottery.
Second, the season is 82 games, it DOES NOT end on March 17th. That use of that cherry picked date is absolutely hilarious. The Magic had a better record on November 26th...the Magic had better record on January 2nd...the Magic had better record on March 3d....see how that works? The record that matters is the record on April 10th.
Third. Touches gives insight as to how dominant or passive a player is on their specific team.
You used the wrong part of the touch stat to try to prove a point. You used Total PPT, instead of Front Court PPT. To establish what you think your are trying to say, you would use Front Court Touches for obvious reasons. That is unless you are trying to prove that Wiggins is better full court heaver than Towns
.
Using the correct elements from that stat, its: Towns .544 PPT vs Wiggins .519 PPT.
Remember when you thought you were discrediting that stat, but it was really just that you were using it wrong?
...and now you are using injuries as excuse for Wolves? Funny how you didn't give Vucevic and the Magic that benefit last year...and they actually were ravaged by injuries to all their key players. Towns played 77 games and Wiggins played 73, their two top players were healthy.
Oh and about poor Towns not having any help...if you take away their scrub half of the roster that never played you get a totally different picture than what you are trying to sell. Their actual top 10 rotation had a .551 TS%. And that's not counting Covington (.580 TS%) who played 22 games before getting injured or Jimmy Butler (.579 TS%) who also played part of the season.
