Was Telfair the Worst Starter in the NBA?

Posted Sep 15, 2008 9:21PM By Tom Ziller (RSS feed)

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In a recent post about Shaun Livingston, I tossed out a casual line which called Sebastian Telfair "one of the worst players in the league last season." This claim was made without research and is completely, 100% wrong. There were much worst players in the NBA last season. Ask Clippers fans. Ask Heat fans. Ask Knicks fans.

But let's set some parameters based on the role Bassy was asked to fill and the quality of his performance. With Randy Foye knocked out much of the season, Telfair was a starting point guard in the National Basketball Association. Heavy stuff. There are only 31* starting point guards in the league any given moment. An elite class, if you will. The same goes for NBA starters: it's a limited group of the best ballers in the world.**

And it is my opinion that last season, Bassy Telfair was the worst.

Only one player who averaged at least 30 minutes a game finished with a worse PER: Bruce Bowen, who happens to be the second best defender on a perennial top-3 defense. Raja Bell's in the neighborhood, and has a possibly undeserved defensive reputation. But Bell can also string threes at a 40% rate, a vital skill which overwhelms his lack of offensive creativity and box-score potency.

Ben Wallace, Tim Thomas and Jamaal Tinsley figure as Telfair's greatest challengers, in my book. But Wallace can still rebound like Hell. Thomas can score and rebound a bit. Tinsley's divinely awful, but even he racked up for more assists per minute than Bassy, and had similar (which is to say "terrible") shooting rates.

Sorry, Wolves fans. Your point guard sucks. Hope he's the back-up.

UPDATE: Canis Hoopus has a really great response.

* T. Jose Caldeford.
** Give or take a Josh Childress.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

9-15-2008 @ 9:39PM

Paul said...

Wouldn't Calderon+Ford=33 starting PGs?

9-15-2008 @ 9:40PM

or maybe 32.5?

9-15-2008 @ 10:34PM

Ziller said...

There are 30 teams in the NBA. If 29 teams have one starting PG and one team has two, then you get ... 31 starting PGs.

I regret making the joke.

9-15-2008 @ 11:35PM

Yam said...

Telfair is really bad.

It runs in the blood (See Marbur,S.).

9-15-2008 @ 11:45PM

LB said...

What is the point? Just to put someone down.

He makes 2 million a year. I guess when you make 2 million at your profession you are really bad. lol

I want to be that bad.

9-16-2008 @ 2:52PM

The point is that Minnesota is looking at signing Livingston, a PG. I commented on how bad the 'Sota PG situation was last year. I was a bit too strong in referring to Telfair as one of the worst in the league, and amended that with this post that Telfair was only one of the worst starters.

And yes, if you make $2 million on the open market when the average salary in your profession is almost $6 million, you are probably at the lower rungs of your profession. Which Telfair clearly is.

9-16-2008 @ 12:52PM

James Flint said...

Antonio Daniels, Anthony Carter, Delonte West, Jason Williams/Chris Quinn, Steve Blake were starting Point Guards and Bassy is better than all of them.

9-16-2008 @ 2:31PM

ManofSteelo said...

Good to see you recognized your error in slamming Telfair unjustifiably, but what are you gonna do for an encore regarding your Top 50 List thus far?

9-16-2008 @ 2:49PM

plinytheelder said...

What a bunch of crap. This guy sits on his ass taking potshots at really talented people and thinking that makes him cool. Regarding Telfair specifically, this guy illustrates the problem of having a strictly numbers-based "analysis" - the analysis of all lazy bloggers who have no real feel for the game. Anybody who watched the Wolves last season - and not just Wolves fans (watching some of their games online, I got to hear a fair number of commentators from other teams) - was to one degree or another really impressed with Telfair's game, especially in the 2nd half of the season. Some of the reasons? Smart, ball-control PG with a burst of quickness, pesky defender, and - most importantly - true PG abilities: Telfair knows the position, knows when to get the ball to whom, understands the pace of the game, etc. But this dude wouldn't understand that because he's busy looking at PER. Then he has the nerve to say that Telfair sucks, "just to put someone down," as LB correctly said. What a joke. Here's some advice: spend some more time watching games, preferably with people who know the game (do you know any coaches? maybe they'll let you watch with them) rather than sitting in your room number-crunching.

9-16-2008 @ 4:48PM

SR said...

Amen to plinytheelder. Arbitrary use of made-up stats and a severe devaluation of in-game dynamics are directly contributing to Western civilization's ongoing descent into stupidity.

Case in point provided my Mr.Ziller: A poor PER on behalf of Bruce Bowen is forgiven on account of game-impact rather than box score production (hooray!), while the analysis of Telfair lacks ZERO insights into his game and consists solely of a hasty examination of a couple random but popular blogger stats.

Let's continue this insightful analysis with further arbitrary use of box score stats.

By my calculations, last season Telfair had more APG than Devin Harris, Jameer Nelson, Anthony Carter, Rafer Alston, Rajon Rondo, Gilbert Arenas, Antonio Daniels, Brevin Knight, Jason Williams, Stephon Marbury, Beno Udrih, Mike Conley, Sam Cassell, Luke Ridnour, Monta Ellis, Jarret Jack... Now granted, if the arbitrary stipulation in this analysis is that we are comparing starting PG's from last season, and that there were only 31 of them (apparently no PG's were ever injured last year except for TJ Ford), so arbitrarly strike about 1/3 of those guys off the list, but the rest of them were starters with lower APG than Telfair. Yes, clearly Bassy is the worst of the bunch. (By the way, Bassy was 20th among all guards in APG - oh, but I forgot he sucks and was the 31st of 31 PG's.)

Oh, but wait, it's his shooting that sucks. After years of in-depth study, my research team has concluded that for the season of last year Telfair's FG% was higher than that of Jason Kidd, Rafer Alston, Gilbert Arenas, Luke Ridnour, Jason Williams, Jamaal Tinsley, and a whole bunch of other guys who are or have been starting PG's in the NBA, but I don't care anymore because it doesn't matter because Telfair is 31st among 31 PG's - oops, I mean starting PG's (I keep forgetting the arbitrary parameters of this discussion).

My conclusion? That Sebastian Telfair was last season's most effective starting PG averaging over 30 MPG while shooting higher than .400% from the field but lower than .402% and with APG close to but not quite reaching the number 6, while playing the majority of his home games in a state somewhere between North Dakota and Wisconsin. Given these statistics and the parameters of this analysis, one does not need to watch a single game to realize that Mr. Telfair is the MVP of the League.

9-16-2008 @ 4:53PM

Bill Rosewood said...

How many games did you actually watch him play last season? Exactly. Please stop writing now.

9-17-2008 @ 9:24AM

Kieran said...

I believe Yakhouba Diawara started opening night for the Nuggets last year. Not only was he the worst opening night starter, he might have been one of the worst players in the NBA last year, period.

9-18-2008 @ 1:54PM

mike said...

You're really an idiot Ziller. For someone who is supposedly crunching the numbers and researching this claim, check his assist to turnover ratio. It was one of the best in the league last year. Do us all a favor and stop writing.

9-18-2008 @ 10:28PM

Santiel said...

Mr. Ziller,
Tell me if I have got this straight. Out of the 300 to 400 NBA players that were out there last season... you have about a 150 starters. Starters are the BEST players ON THE TEAM! No question. They are the BEST THAT MONEY CAN BUY! Again, no question. So, Mr. Ziller, somehow... based on your article... your 'analysis' and 'research'... we are supposed to believe that a guy that STARTS (=one of the best players out there and best that money can buy)... so good that he is chosen by basketball PROFESSIONALS to lead their team... somehow, in your 'opinion' this guy sucks???? I don't get your point.