Today’s Sports Stat: January 25, 2018
LeBron James earlier this week became the seventh NBA player to amass 30,000 points in a career (he is the eighth player if you add Julius Erving’s ABA point total to his NBA numbers).
James and Dirk Nowitzki are both members of the 30,000-point club and are still active. There are ten active players (in addition to James and Nowitzki) who have 18,000 or more career points. Whether or not any of these will join James and Nowitzki is up for debate, but here is a look at those 10 players (their age in years and days in noted after their career points totals).
Carmelo Anthony, 24,970 (33 years-240 days)
Vince Carter, 24,687 (40-363)
Dwyane Wade, 21,782 (36-007)
Pau Gasol, 20,491 (37-202)
Joe Johnson, 20,221 (36-209)
Kevin Durant, 20,157 (29-117)
Jason Terry, 18,735 (40-131)
Tony Parker, 18,716 (35-252)
Jamal Crawford, 18,529 (37-310)
Zach Randolph, 18,299 (36-192)
If I was a betting man, Durant is more than likely to reach 30,000 in his career… Anthony has an outside chance… other than those two, I don’t see another of the other 10 players listed above reaching the 30,000-point mark in their careers.
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Milwaukee Bucks: Success and failure of previous drafts
Sports Stats ‘on Tapp’ is a sports statistics blog published daily that focuses on stats that go beyond the numbers.
Considering that the University of Kentucky and the University of North Carolina had one-sixth of the 60 collegiate players drafted in yesterday’s NBA draft, it’s not surprising that the Bucks decided to select one player from each of those schools for their two 2012 draft choices. North Carolina’s John Henson was the team’s first round selection and Kentucky’s Doron Lamb was the second round choice.
It will be some time before we can determine if these selections were the right choices, or if these players were worthy of being chosen among the 60 picks. Like many NBA teams, the Bucks have had their share of hits and misses with the draft. For some drafts, a player chosen spends a good portion of their career with the team that selected them; for others, a player may be drafted by a team and find success in the league with another team after a trade or after departing via free agency.
In the Bucks 44-year history, they have chosen a handful of college players in the draft who have gone on to have great NBA careers. Some have had long careers in Milwaukee, others had only a short stay with the club, and others were drafted and never put on a Bucks uniform.
Using points scored as a measuring stick, here’s a look at the players who had the most success in the NBA after being drafted by the Bucks. Following are the players drafted by the Bucks who scored 10,000 or more points in their NBA career.
Player, NBA career points (draft year by Bucks)
Lew Alcindor, 38,387 (first round, first overall pick of 1969)
Alex English, 25, 613 (second round, 23rd overall pick of 1976)
Dirk Nowitzki, 24, 134 (first round, ninth overall pick of 1998)
Julius Erving, 18, 364 (first round, 12th overall pick of 1972)
Stephon Marbury, 16,297 (first round, fourth overall pick of 1996)
Bob Dandridge, 15,536 (fourth round, 45th overall pick of 1969)
Glenn Robinson, 14,234 (first round, first overall pick of 1994)
Marques Johnson, 13,892 (first round, third overall pick of 1977)
Michael Redd, 11,972 (second round, 43rd overall pick of 2000)
Sidney Moncrief, 11931 (first round, fifth overall pick of 1979)
Vin Baker, 11839 (first round, eighth overall pick of 1993)
Three of the players above, Nowitzki, Erving and Marbury never put on a Bucks uniform in their career. Nowitzki was a draft day trade to Dallas (with Pat Garrity) in exchange for Robert “Tractor” Traylor. Erving decided to begin his career in the ABA and didn’t enter the NBA until 1976. Marbury was a draft day trade to Minnesota in exchange for Ray Allen and a 1998 first round draft choice.
On the other extreme, there have been players drafted by the Bucks in the first round who have not panned out; not only with the Bucks, but also as NBA players.
Following are the 10 players who were drafted by the Bucks in the first round that played less than 200 career games in the NBA.
Draft Year: Player, College, NBA games
1968: Charlie Paulk, Northeastern State University, 120
1970: Gary Freeman, Oregon State, 52
1971: Collis Jones, Notre Dame, o
1972: Russ Lee, Marshall, 97
1984: Kenny Fields, UCLA, 184
1991: Kevin Brooks, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 126
1994: Eric Mobley, Pittsburgh, 113
2000: Jason Colllier, Georgia Tech, 151
2002: Marcus Haislip, Tennessee, 89
2008: Joe Alexander, West Virginia, 67
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Greatest NBA playoff ‘pure shooters’ in the three-point era
Sports Stats ‘on Tapp’ is a sports statistics blog published multiple times weekly focusing on stats that go beyond the numbers.
Your team is down by one and has the ball with 10 seconds left. Who do you want to take the last shot?
Your team is up by two with five seconds remaining. Who do you want to get fouled and sink two free throws to ice the game?
Your team is down by three and needs a three-pointer to tie. Who do you want to shoot the three?
One final question: Who would you rate as the greatest “pure shooters” in the NBA playoffs during the three-point era?
I know, a lot of questions to answer. But here’s a little help. To try to answer the last question of the greatest “pure shooters” in the NBA playoffs in the three-point era, I established a few guidelines. First, a player had to have played in 40 or more playoff games in his career. Secondly, to qualify for the best “pure shooter” label, a player had to have a career playoff shooting percentage of .450 in field goals, .300 in three-point attempts, and a .850 free throw percentage.
Here are the players who qualified for the list (minimum of 40 shots attempted in each category to qualify)
Player, playoff games, FG pct/3-pt pct/FT pct
Larry Bird, 164, .472/.321/.890
Jeff Hornacek, 140, .470/.433/.886
Dirk Nowitzki, 128, .463/.380/.893
John Paxson, 119, .494/.369/.867
Steve Nash, 118, .473/.409/.899
Ray Allen, 113, .453/.415/.893
Joe Dumars, 112, .462/.358/.855
Ricky Pierce, 97, .466/.355/.866
Antonio Daniels, 80/.461/.353/.863
Hersey Hawkins, 74, .455/.396/.907
Chris Mullin, 71, .495/.409/.859
Kiki Vandeweghe, 68, .510/.345/.907
Mark Price, 47, .464/.337/.944
If we use these same criteria for this year’s playoffs, and drop the minimum attempts to 10, we have only two players who qualify as the best “pure shooters” in this year’s playoffs. They are:
Chris Paul, 5 games, .469/.389/.882
James Harden, 4 games, .500/.462/.871
What do you think?
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