February 28, 2002
Of late, the Kansas Jayhawks have been unbeatable, taking the best shots of ISU, Nebraska and Texas, while creaming the rest. They can score at will, run the floor, play tough defense, and seem to truly enjoy themselves. I just love to watch them play. In all due respects to the 1952 and 1988 national champions and the great clubs in 1997, 1986, and 1971, I can't help but think that this may be the best team KU ever.
As
a basketball junkie and amateur statistician, I’ve found that Martin
Manley’s Production Indexes are very useful in comparing teams and players.
It’s a simple formula, where you add the statistics of the ‘good’
things players do (including points, rebounds, assists, blocked shots and
steals), and subtract the ‘bad’ things (missed field goals, missed free
throws and turnovers). The sum of
that is then divided by the number of games played to derive a Game Index (GI),
and the sum can be divided by minutes played to derive another index which shows
how effective they are when on the court (MI).
The
2002 Jayhawk’s Game Index (GI) is 117.43 through last Wednesday’s KSU game,
and its’ Production Index is .585. Previously,
Williams’ highest statistically-ranked team was in 1990, when they went 30-5
and had a GI of 112.00 and MI of .560. By
way of further comparison, the 1991 team, which played for the national
championship, had a GI of 95.80 and a MI of .484, while the 1998 team (starring
All-Americans Raef LaFrentz and Paul Pierce) had a GI of 104.71 and a MI of .522
(the third highest of Williams’ tenure at KU).
Almost a year ago, I wrote a somewhat tongue-in-cheek article contending that Kirk Hinrich was a better point guard than ISU’s Jamaal Tinsley. I backed up the assertion with a variety of statistics, including the GI and MI, which gave Hinrich an edge over All-American Tinsley. Of course, I caught a lot of hell from my Cyclone friends and acquaintances. In a subsequent article, I agreed that, while the stats showed an edge for Hinrich, various intangibles gave Tinsley the nod.
This
year, I believe that everyone would agree that Hinrich is even better than last
year, and the stats prove that to be the case.
This year, Kirk’s GI is 19.75 compared to last years 17.38, an
improvement of 13.6%. His .522 MI
in 2000-01 compares to .615 so far this season, an improvement of an astounding
17.8%.
Just
to compare Hinrich again with the best, Duke’s Jason Williams (everyone’s
pick for All-American point guard), has a GI of only 18.12 through 25 games, or
8.3% lower than Kirk’s GI. Williams’
MI is .539, 12.4% below Hinrich. I’ll
probably take some flack from Duke fans, but I’ll take Kirk anytime.
Aaron
Miles GI of 11.39 and MI of .424 compare favorably to Jacque Vaughn freshman
stats of 9.87 and .390.
Drew
Gooden, however, stands as the one of the highest rated Jayhawks since 1984, the
first year that the aforementioned formula could be used.
His GI of 25.07 is slightly lower than Danny Manning’s 27.17, but his
MI of .828 exceeds Manning’s .783.
Good
news for Raef LaFrentz (KU ’98)! He
finally got out of poisonous Denver (the Nuggets were 20 games out in the
Midwest Division) and headed to the Dallas Mavericks, who are in first place in
the Midwest Division. With Mark
Cuban’s money, the Mavs are now considered to be THE place to be now in the
NBA.
Dirk
Nowitski has a lock on the 4 position, so Raef is still going to have to play at
the center position, rather than his natural power forward position.
Nonetheless, look for Raef to finally develop into one of the league’s
stars. He’s second in the league
in blocked shots and has a 15 PPG average.
Jacque
Vaughn (KU ’97) is now getting considerably more playing time (24 mpg) this
year with the Atlanta Hawks than he ever got with the Utah Jazz, and is finally
getting his shot to fall (6.1 ppg). Scot
Pollard (KU ’97) is getting a lot of respect and PT (25 mpg) with the
Sacramento Kings, backing up PF Chris Webber and post-man Vlade Divac.
Paul
Pierce (KU ’98) is having an all-star year with the Boston Celtics, and is
currently the league’s third highest scorer with 26.1 ppg.
In a recent SLAM magazine (a ‘hip-hop’ rag), he said that the
intelligence he uses to read the floor is attributable to Coach Roy Williams,
saying, “he taught me the game”. However, he went on to say that coach O’Brien’s system in
Boston has helped him flourish to his potential, opening his game up.
For the first time since high school, “I don’t have to look over my
shoulder when I take a shot.”
Danny
Manning (KU’88) and Greg Ostertag (KU ’95), are both now bench warmers and
likely in their last NBA year.
The
Philadelphia 76’ers dedicated Friday night’s game to the 40th
anniversary of Wilt Chamberlain’s (KU ’58) 100-point game on March 2, 1962.