NO Soup For YOU!!!

As the 2009-2010 NBA season comes to a close it’s always interesting to see which players finished atop each statistical category.  The Celtics aren’t a team that’s been constructed around one superstar that gets all the individual numbers.  For the most part, lots of the stats are spread out throughout the team.  Rajon Rondo is most likely to win the steals title in both totals (182, Jason Kidd is second with 138) and per game average (2.4, Monta Ellis is second at 2.2 SPG).  Kendrick Perkins is most likely to finish in second place in FG% next to Dwight Howard while Ray Allen is just a tick ahead of Dirk Nowitzki for second place in FT% (Steve Nash is first).  Rasheed Wallace is tied with Dwight Howard for the league lead in technical fouls with 17 (Perk is close with 15).  Despite his penchant for mouthing off at high rate, Sheed does not hold the distinction for the most impressive statistical league leader on the Celtics.

The winner of that award goes to none other than Glen ‘Big Baby” Davis.  No, I am not referring to his solitary position as the only player averaging more offensive (2.0) than defensive (1.9) rebounds per game.  Unless Chuck Hayes eats a record number of Spalding burgers in the final regular season game, Big Baby will cruise to the “% of Shots Blocked” title.  I doubt that David Stern will hold a press conference and hand out a trophy to him for this, but if he did, the venerable ex-New York Knick Charles Smith should be the mold of it (see the video below).  Ask Doc Rivers, he was on the court when Jordan, Pippen and Horace Grant owned Smith.

While Big Baby won’t rank first in terms of overall shots blocked (that’s when HIS shot gets blocked, not when he blocks a shot), he will easily lead in percentage of shots blocked.  This magnificent yet disconcerting stat is calculated as: (Times Blocked / Field Goals Attempted).  The NBA doesn’t recognize this as an official stat, so there is no minimum games played qualifier either.  The NBA minimum requirements for blocks are 70 games or 100 blocks.  Going by these standards, Davis lucks out and would not qualify.  If the minimums were brought down to just 50 games, Big Baby would lead the league at 18.3% (according to hoopdata.com).

If we were to extrapolate that out over the required minimum games played of 70, his rate would increase to 19.2%.  This is remarkably impressive considering Davis averages just a shade over 17 minutes per game.  Here are the top 10 players in the NBA based on the following criteria: 40+ GP, 15+ MPG, All Teams, All Positions

So the next time you see Glen Davis hustle for an offensive rebound don’t scream at your TV for him to put it back up because there’s a good chance he’s going to be rejected.  Conversely, it should be noted that under the same criteria, he ranks tied for 7th (with Anderson Varejao) in the NBA for And 1%.  That is, the amount of “And 1’s” divided by Field Goals Attempted.  “And 1’s” are typically defined as “Times scoring a basket while also drawing a shooting foul.” (all stats are per:www.hoopdata.com).

Here’s how that breakdown shakes out:

The main point to keep in mind here is that these are all percentages.  If you base the data on totals, you’ll find the usual suspects.  This is why you don’t see LeBron James ranked first in And 1%.  But if we look at totals, the league leaders seem more logical to the naked eye.

Total Shots Blocked League Leaders:

Total And 1 League Leaders:

Interesting to note that Zach Randolph and Carmelo Anthony have nearly twice as many shots blocked as they do And 1’s.  Amare Stoudemire and Carlos Boozer are the only other two players to make cameos on both lists.  I think the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld summarizes everything up quite nicely for Glen Davis’ put-back efforts: NO SOUP FOR YOU!