Why do we need a SF?

[andalusian]

I'm not sure that aligns with reality, though. Looking at the top 150 (which is 30 * 5) players in the NBA, as sorted by PER, gives us an average PER of 17.78. The 75th highest PER (which is half of 150) is right at 17.

I don't see how 15 could be considered an "average" starter when 128 players in the NBA had a PER of over 15 last year...

You will have to take this with Mr. Hollinger, not with me. He invented PER and I am using his definitions, copied from his site.

As for how this makes sense - the clear answer is that there are enough starters in the NBA that have a below 15 PER (Portland had 2 last year and they are among the better teams in the NBA, both teams in finals right now have at least one starter with a below-15 PER) and there are enough players in the NBA with good PER that see very limited time - which tells you that PER really makes very little sense with small sample sizes...

For example - our friend IKE Diogu had a higher PER than Joel Pryzbilla - but it is clear that Joel is a starter level player while IKE is not.

Again,

The important thing is that the average is normalized to 15 using average per minute production - not average per player production - and because the better players will mostly play a lot more than the bad players - it balances out this way.

I asserted that if we had a better small forward, we would have won more games, and I still believe that our small forward rotation would have been markedly improved with an average small forward starter playing more minutes a game last year.

.. and I agreed with it - but the issue is that it is true for every position - if we had a better PG we would have won more games, if we had a better SG (and yes, there are only 2 in the league that are better than what we have) - we would have very likely won more, same with PF and same with Center.

The implication of the question "why do we need to upgrade SF" made the wrong assumption that Webster is what will get us over the hump (we already seem to be over the hump as is, without Webster) - but the implication is correct - SF is not a real problem for this team. We do not NEED to make an upgrade in SF. It would be nice if it happened - but for all practical purposes - this is not a real problem for this team.

 

[Sinobas]

Webster? So far in his career, his play has been mostly limited to standing around, waiting for a jump shot...which he has NOT converted at a great rate, even though his shot looks good. He has all the tools, but hasn't shown it yet. Batum shows up about once every 6 games...I think he'll be good, but we could sure use some production out of the SF position.