Advanced stats are the joy of some fans and analysts and the bane of others. While the numbers reveal much, some of what they “reveal” is highly misleading. And when people use those misleading things as “evidence” in an argument, it turns the reasonable off.
The thing we need to bear in mind is that advanced stats aren’t designed to prove arguments. They simply show what things happen, not why things happen. That’s where analysis steps in.
Looking at which players “cheat” the stats and how they do it can give us fresh insight into both the numbers and the “basketball” of the conversation.
The important thing to remember is the “why” doesn’t replace the “what.” Statistics are not opinions. At their heart they are nothing more than recording events (e.g. a block, a rebound, a basket, a missed field goal, etc.). They are not distinct from what happens on the court because they are just annotations of what happened.
We can’t arbitrarily brush aside the things that happen because they don’t fit what we expect. We have to understand why they happened.Here are three examples of players who cheat the metrics and how they do it. In each case, the numbers can bring us to a misleading conclusion, but when properly understood, they make a telling point.
Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2311344-3-nba-players-who-cheat-advanced-stats-and-how-they-do-it
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