payitforward wrote:Mathews only played 227 minutes. I'm not inclined to place any trust in any particular stat he posted. I'm not concluding he'll shoot 41.3% on 3-pointers or 91.2% from the line going forward. He posted a 69.1% TS% -- better than any year at Lipscomb!
More assists are good. Fewer TOs good too. I've never understood why anyone looks at the ratio, however. They aren't 2 sides of a coin, as it were. An assist doesn't have the same positive value as a TO has negative value.
In any case, however, you are right that Merrill had it all over Mathews at that end of the boxscore -- if you look at assists, blocks, steals, turnovers & fouls, they are quite different.
In fact, if you look at scoring, they're different too: both terrific, for sure -- but Mathews scored 23% more points per 40 minutes. A much larger % of his attempts were 3-pointers as well. Plus he got to the line much more than Merrill.
That leaves rebounding, where they were also very different.
IOW, QED -- these guys are not similar!
Add 440 minutes to those 227, because he averaged 2.7 rebounds per 36 minutes in those G League minutes. 667 minutes is enough evidence to show his rebounding numbers from Lipscomb aren't likely going to carryover to the NBA. And this should have been obvious - he doesn't have the physical ability to put up big rebounding numbers in the NBA. As the kids say, his archetype does not include making a difference as a rebounder.
I think assists/to ratio is usually a major indication of BBIQ and efficiency - both extremely important. Generally, when a player makes more attempts to set up teammates, both assists and to's increase. That's how they're related. And you can tell if it makes sense to run the offense through a player more frequently - yes if he has a good a/to ratio - no if he doesn't.
