Wednesday, June 7, 2017

How to read the back of an NBA Basketball Card

Sports love statistics. Sports fans loves statistics....but unless you have been in the game a long time, you may not know what each statistic means or how to read the back of a card. I'm going to change that for the NBA and NASCAR, I don't have enough knowledge to do that for other sports.
 G is Games Played. If you get onto the court at any time during the game it counts as one. Each NBA season is 82 games long.
Average Minutes a game is a rarer stat to see on cards and is the average time spent on the floor. Mitch Richmond was the best player on the team and spent a lot of time on the court. Each game is 48 minutes with the possibility of a 5 minute overtime, overtimes are unlimited which means as many will be played as needed to not result in a tie.
Field Goals made and Attempted means how many shots he scored on and how many he tried to.
3 Point Made and attempted is for shots beyond the arc. The NBA introduced the 3 point line in 1979, the ABA had it as well. It continues to increase in importance as time moves along.
FT means Free Throw and that is the shots taken by a player after a foul. They count for one point.
Offensive Rebounds is how many times you grabbed the ball when you or your teammates missed a shot, Defensive Rebounds is when your opponent missed a shot. These stats are usually combined into simply "Rebounds"
AST stands for Assist, which is when you pass to a teammate that immediately leads to a scoring basket. Assists are not counted for missed baskets and only one player per play can get an assist.
STL stands for Steal, which is when you take the ball away from the opposing team. It does not count if the opponent looses control of the ball out of bounds, that's a turnover but those never appear on cards. (balls lost to steals also count as turnovers)
BLK is Block, which is when you stop the ball from scoring while it's on an upward arc. Blocks are the hardest major statistic to accumulate and they can also be quite spectacular. There are some players who have built careers almost solely on their ability to block shots.
PTS is Points, which is the major statistical category in the NBA. Points can be accumulated in 1, 2 and 3 as noted above, and the better you are at scoring points the more likely you will stick and be a star in the NBA. Mich Richmond eventually became the 12th all-time leading scorer in NBA history.
AVG is average points per game, which is what the NBA uses to determine the leading scorer, which is a shame, because the person who actually scores the most points is not always considered the league leader. Some sets will use averages for Rebounds, Assists, Steals and Blocks as well, which I personally hate. Averages mean nothing, actual totals are what's important.
Upper Deck added the HI stat, which is the highest single game points total of a player's season or career. I really like this stat and it's one of the things I miss the most that Panini doesn't include. The record is 100 points in a single game, set by Wilt Chamberlain in 1962. The highest game I've seen was Devin Booker's 70 earlier this season, a marker that has been reached only 6 times in NBA history. Reaching 40 in a single game is a major accomplishment, many players don't do that. Put up 20 on a regular basis and you are considered a star, put up 30 on a regular basis and you are considered a superstar. As you can see, UD chose to use percentages for field goals and free throw percentage, and didn't bother to include 3s at all (although Elton rarely attempted them anyway)

Panini gives VERY limited statistics and uses an odd combination of averages and real stats.

Not shown on any of these cards, but appearing rarely, is GS, which means Games Started. The 5 players who start each game are generally considered the best players on the team, and being named a starter is a career accomplishment. With 450 players in the NBA, only 150 can be starters.

I think that covers all the stats that appear on cards. though the NBA does keep other stats. Turnovers, how many times you were blocked, how many times you had the ball stolen, all are recorded by the league, but none of those stats have ever appeared on a card or are likely to.

Thanks for reading, and if I missed any, please feel free to point it out in the comments.

14 comments:

  1. Thanks for the info Billy. I had a general idea of what the numbers meant but I wasn't for sure until now. Very informative.

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  2. Panini's stats have always bothered me. I wish Upper Deck could get back into basketball

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    1. Me too. They just added 5 more years to the exclusive contract with Panini though.

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  3. Thanks for the info, especially about rebounds.Offensive and defensive always confused me.

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  4. I don't buy many basketball cards anymore so I hadn't noticed Panini was skimping in that department. Do they do that will all of their releases?

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    1. Unfortunately yes, this is pretty much the norm. Hoops gets 4 years of stats but most other sets get one year or nothing, just text.

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  5. Thanks for the rundown. James is getting ready to break 40 points in Game 3. Fun to watch no matter who you are rooting for.

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    1. That's for sure! Even though this has been the "year of the blowout" I've still enjoyed watching.

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  6. I agree the NBA scoring champion should be determined by who scored the most points, not average points per game. Can you imagine baseball's home run champ being determined by home run average per game? Or football's rushing leader by rushing yards per game?

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    1. Exactly! I couldn't have said it better myself.

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    2. Help me with the math.....if everyone plays the full season isn't the average points per game and total points per game winner the same person? In the same vein, if someone kicked butt at the beginning of the season and got injured the last 1/4 of the season, should they still be the scoring champ even if they had the most? Playing devils advocate....the only reason I can see of the average per game stat is how it relates to fan satisfaction and how consistent they are for the fans.

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    3. The thing is though that very few people play the full season, and as time goes on the number will be less and less as resting becomes more of a "thing". The average can also be thrown off if you have a poor streak but have some incredible outburst games. If you play several games and score 6 points, but have multiple 40+ point games in the same season, that is going to mess with the average...and then you have the outliers like Kobe's 81 point game or the 70 point game Devin Booker put up that I mentioned. It IS pretty rare for one person to lead the league in actual scoring but not get the average, but it has happened.

      I think they should be the scoring champion if they scored the most points, regardless of how many games they played.

      A similar situation is actually in play this season...Joel Embiid was clearly, far and away the best rookie of this season, but injury limited him to only 31 games. Even though he was so much better than anyone else, he probably won't win the Rookie of the Year title because the voters don't think he played enough. I think he should, but the awards like Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man, and MVP - especially MVP - are often awarded politically anyway. It's stupid because there was absolutely zero question that he was the best rookie- nobody questioned that. There is no rule for ROY saying that you have to play a minimum number of games, so the best guy should win...and yet he almost surely won't. For scoring and other statistical leaders, there is a minimum number of games played, but I can't remember what it is. I think 40 games but don't quote me on that. Malcolm Brogdon is probably going to win simply because he played in 75 games and his team made the playoffs.

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