ESPN has taken a poll off all of its Hoops writers on the
best players under 23 years of age in the league. You can see their results here. No surprises in the top ten, really, but if you take a look at the individual ballots from
Henry Abbott and
John Hollinger you'll see a pleasant surprise at the bottom.
They both picked Thad Young as their wild card. Here are the quotes from each ballot:
Abbott:
He can guard 3s and 4s, he can score on anyone at the rim, and his
outside shooting shows promise. He's already a top NBA player by the
measure of adjusted plus/minus. You can bet against him, but I won't.
Hollinger:
Few people are talking about him, but he's the same age as Oden and
Durant and he's been very good for the Sixers as a rookie. With an NBA
body supporting an MBA head, he could be the third superstar of the '07
draft.
For the most part, I think Hollinger is wrapped up in PER his analysis is useless, but I'll give him props for this selection. Abbott is great, and it's good to see him recognize Thad.
One thing I would add to Abbott's appraisal: Thad can guard 2's as well.
Isn't PER just a per-minute measure of points and rebounds and assists and turnovers and field goal percentage, more or less? What's wrong with that? I generally find that it identifies the best players. For instance, currently his top ten is LeBron, Paul, Amare, Ginobili, Garnett, Dirk, Duncan, Bosh, Kobe... and Carl Landry. Okay, Landry's an outlier, but by all accounts he's been incredible, so I'm not that bothered by his high score.
I don't have a problem with the stat itself. My problem is that he lives and dies by it, and pretty much never references anything else. Landry's been good in his limited minutes, but if you heard Hollinger talk about him you'd believe he really is the 10th best player in the league.
It's not the only stat out there, and in a lot of cases it isn't even the best stat to use. Efficiency is important, but it isn't the be all, end all of statistics.
Certainly not the 10th best (and I don't think Hollinger thinks that), but maybe he's the 10th most productive/efficient player per minute? I mean, is that impossible? The guy's shooting 63%, which is obscene, and averaging 9 and 5 in 17 minutes. Multiplied out to 40 minutes that's 21 and 12 or so, which is comparable to what superstar power forwards do in their 40 minutes... I think it's a solid stat. I mean, if PER identifies Thad as an outstanding player, that says something for it right there.
awesome. Thad is only 19, too. Sometimes I forget. Henry Abbott said it best.
Thad just looks like a kid having fun out there. It's so refreshing.