It’s easy to fall in love with the statistics of certain players in the league, but numbers don’t always tell the whole story.
Sometimes numbers don’t do certain players justice. Take Draymond Green, for example. He is a walking triple-double threat on a nightly basis and you might say his ability to collect them like few in the league can explains what he does on the floor. However, his versatility on the defensive end – switching back and forth from power forward to center – and the ability to defend and switch on screens when necessary to stop just about anyone coming towards the basket isn’t something 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks can explain.
Other times, though, numbers can distort how valuable (or not valuable) players are.
Take Brook Lopez, for example. His ability to score the ball is apparent when you look at the 19.9 points per game, but it doesn’t explain his lack of awareness when a double team comes (to be fair, he’s been better at finding the open man this season). You might see 24 points, 10 rebounds, two blocks and four turnovers and think he had a tremendous game. Statistically, he did. But two blocks don’t explain all the failed coverage of pick-and-rolls possession after possession, and a block can be pretty useless if you block a player’s shot but he gets the rebound and puts it right back for a basket anyway. 10 rebounds might look nice, but it doesn’t mean that much in an actual game if most of them went straight to him uncontested.
You also have a guy like Hassan Whiteside, who leads the league in blocked shots with 3.9 per game but is actually known as someone who hurts the Miami Heat’s defense when he’s on the floor. Here’s a more in-depth article about this particular issue.
Numbers tell a general story, but it usually never tells the full story. That’s what Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert had to say on Tuesday when the Heat were on the verge of losing against the Milwaukee Bucks:
You can have good stats but hurt your team… numbers do lie sometimes. #onlypeoplethatknowthegameunderstandthat
— Rudy Gobert (@rudygobert27) January 20, 2016
In came Orlando Magic center Nikola Vucevic, who wanted to know who exactly Gobert was talking about:
@rudygobert27 I think you should tell us who you’re talking about like a real man would — Nikola Vucevic (@NikolaVucevic) January 20, 2016
Gobert’s response? A sarcastic remark about his friend and Vucevic’s teammate Evan Fournier:
@NikolaVucevic Your teammate i think he had that ugly ponytail
— Rudy Gobert (@rudygobert27) January 20, 2016
Of course, Gobert was not being serious about the criticism of Fournier given that they were teammates back in 2014 for the France national team. In fact, they all appear to be great friends if you look at the photo Gobert posted earlier in the season:
Squad? pic.twitter.com/Wgtk4JLAqq — Zach Harper (@talkhoops) January 20, 2016
As it turns out, Fournier had the answer to who Gobert was referring to:
@rudygobert27 @NikolaVucevic Blancoté ?? lool
— Evan Fournier (@EvanFourmizz) January 20, 2016
Blancoté literally translates to Whiteside in French (h/t Jordan Orndorff), and it’s fair to assume Fournier knew exactly who Gobert was referring to.
The Heat lost the game 91-79, but Whiteside had dominant numbers with 28 points on 8-of-9 shooting from the field to go with a whopping 18 rebounds and two blocks. Clearly, though, Gobert saw some bad things out of Whiteside that the numbers don’t indicate and may have a point, given the overall outcome.
For whatever it’s worth, here is a clip of the two battling it out about a little over a week ago:
The Jazz have already played the Heat twice this season so unfortunately, we won’t see the two centers go at each other again this season. As for whether Whiteside will have a response to what Gobert had to say? Stay tuned…
Jim Park is a blogger and Tweet of the Night author of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog.