tenkev

I've read from many sources about how good Olowakandi is and how he can both defend and score. Well, I've watched alot of Clippers games and he doesn't look like an above average defender at all when I watch him. So I ran some numbers and my assumption was pretty accurate.

In each game of 01/02 I took the points scored of every opposing Center in all of the games that Olowakandi played atleast 20 minutes. I then compared that to the average of each center and added up the differentials. So per game the Kandi man allowed .72 MORE ppg than what the opposing centers AVERAGED throughout the year. So, it turns out that Olowakandi is not even an above average defensive center, he is a little below average. He is also overrated on the offensive side. He averaged 2.19 turnovers per game which is alot considering he only averaged 1.1 assists per game. Pretty much he is a turnover machine. Plus, he shot a horrid .433 from the field and .622 from the charity stripe. His 8.9 rpg were ok but nothing to write home about. Everyone must think that he still has alot more upside, because last year was his 4th year in the league and I would have expected more production from him. Someone explain to me why he deserves the max.

Z6

He really turned it on in the last month of the season. Also, I'd be interested in how Ben Wallace fairs in a similar statistical test. People still view Kandi as having a lot of potential because he's still only been playing basketball for 5 or 6 years, so he's still learning. He's also huge and pretty fast and athletic.

tenkev

The thing that would be hard about doing that same thing for Ben Wallace is that its hard to tell who he guarded each game, because sometimes he would guard the center and sometimes he would guard the power forward, depending on who was better.

tenkev

Z6. For the last month he still was just average. His opponents got .01 more ppg than their averages.

Z6

.01 points more a game? That's basically them getting the average. Plus they didn't have much of a backup, so when he's not guarding them they're going to be scoring more I assume. There's really no way to figure what they scored when he was on them, but I would guess they abused the backup center, Sean Rooks I believe.

tenkev

I agree .01 is nothing, but 0 is average, and average isn't good when he is supposed to be a great defender, and that was his last month. So what that tells me is he won't ever really be better than an average defender.

Its interesting to note that I just did the same thing with Elton Brand, and opposing power forwards averaged .723 LESS points than their average ppg when they went up against Brand.