https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/zion-williamson-is-the-best-college...
One way we can assess a player's contributions to his team is Box Plus/Minus, a metric that estimates the number of points per 100 possessions a player contributes above (or below) average using stats found in the box score. BPM has never seen a college player like Williamson. Among players who qualified for the points per game leaderboard at Sports-Reference.com and appeared in at least 10 games since 2010, the first year for which data for all players is available, Williamson's mark of +20.4 ranks first among 25,793 individual seasons.
Another way to evaluate a player's contributions is using player efficiency rating. Williamson's PER of 41.9 is the best mark by any player who saw action in at least 10 games since 2009, the earliest year for the data.
I look forward to seeing how ACC teams defend him.
Comments
Sure would be nice if ESPN would come up for air every once in a while when it comes to this kid and Duke.
You can't watch a basketball game over the air right now without them throwing a 1/3-1/2 screen graphic up there with the Duke starting 5 in the middle of play during a completely unrelated game. Its nauseating. Did you know Zion likes anime?
Then they'd have to deal with the withdraw from their Trae Young addiction last year. Newton's 4th Law: Best way to avoid a hangover is don't stop drinking.
How dare they forget about Zach LeDay.
And yet, he might be the second best player on his team.
opposing coaches hate him!!!! click here to find out why
Zion Williamson Is The Best College Basketball Player In At Least A Decade...
which is crazy because its been exactly a decade since they changed the rule forcing highschool kids to go to atleast one year of college. imagine how many kids would have jumped to the pros, got paid, and never been heard from again.
but ill argue buddy hield was a pretty good college player, Anthony davis, KD, blake griffen, steph curry, heck even jimmer fredette, they are basing this on HYPE and HYPE alone. how can he be the best college basketball player in a decade after 10 games?
uh they used stats to make their claim...the sample size is problematic but they are using more than hype
Yeah I'd like to see this after ACC play.
lol its 10 games in bro. you cant claim someones stats from 10 games make him better than someone who played a full season or full college career. that's like claiming Blake LaRussa after his first start is the greatest college football player in the last decade. the same ratio of games played as zion and anyone who played less than 2 full years of college basketball.
^i already addressed this, with the following
but in general, just watching a few games will show that zion williamson, a future top 5 pick, is better than jimmer friddette
being "better" than someone doesn't make you the best college basketball player in the last decade. your on court performance does. its pretty clear to me that tom brady was better than tim tebow. but when you talk about who was the "better" college football player everyone would pick tebow.
did you just try to say that being better than everyone doesn't make you the best?
sometimes you can win and you really lose, and sometimes you can lose and really win, and sometimes when you win you really win, and sometimes when you lose you really lose. don't be a loser. be a winner.
accomplished =/= better and is a different discussion. you're also now referencing a different sport which is a different animal
im sorry im just not on the zion is the best college basketball player in the last decade after 10 games. i know hes more than just a dunking youtube sensation but hes got to do more and play more than 10 games before he can be crowned to me.
Agreed...it is just 10 games in. But, to be fair, if you look at Duke's out of conference early season schedule, outside of Hartford and Stetson, it's pretty challenging. Strength of Schedule - 32nd thus far, out of 353 teams. The kid has seen some real action...albeit just 10 games.
The Hokies come in 225th to date.
I LOL'd, its an article from FiveThirtyEight, a website that is founded and run by statisticians, one that spends most of their time checking hype against the numbers, which is probably why they did this. On the chart below, even if he regresses toward the mean as expected, he will likely finish the season at the top of the pile.
What's great is in the "Best Mark" link from that article, #2 is Brandon Clarke from Gonzaga...this year! Zion is only 10% higher than him. But that makes him way more dominate an off the charts!!!
And looking at the chart vs the stats, it seems that the likes of Anthony Davis (35.1/18.7) Xavier Tillman (27.3/17.6) Karl-Anthony Towns (31.4/17.3) Victor Oladipo (28.9/17.0) as well as 9 others above a BPM of 15 were left off. Way to really skew the results.
At this point, it seems like 538 made a prediction and then arranged the stats to fit it
538's list...
Ah, as one of the comments points out, the chart just shows DUKE's players in the past decade...hahahahaha.
"Something, something, narrative, bogus chart, see we were right."
-538
correct. the chart shows only Duke's players (which has been a pretty notable bunch). My guess is this was a way of keeping the graphic a little cleaner. While I am not ready crown Zion the best player of all time, I think the numbers show he is on track for a historic season.
Lets wait to see how they do in conference play before we crown them
Lol I get it he's good but he's played like 10 games damn
I like his game a lot more than Barrett's. Coach K needs to pull the reigns in a touch on that kid.. 7 or 8 blue chippers wearing the same jersey and kid is putting shots like it's an oxygen source. Zion is much, much less selfish it seems
I believe whoever said that Willamson will foul out Kerry Blackshear during warm-ups. I don't know how we will keep him from scoring 30. He will make PJ Horne look like his kid brother.
I wonder if this will go better or worse than when we had Malik Mueller d up Jahlil Okafor on the block after Satch fouled out in 2015. I still can't believe we took them to overtime with that team.
Was at that game. Still astounded that we ended up with THAT
Anthony Davis is the best college player I have seen in the last decade. He wasn't a finished product on the offensive end, but he was still really good and he is the best college defensive presence since Olajuwon. Williamson couldn't guard GrandMaMa.
Davis is still a complete rarity. A guy who grew up playing the point, has a freak growth spurt that forces him into the post with a guards skill set.
I am somewhat upset at the lack of props for the GrandMaMa reference. I wish I could get a new pair of those Converses with the react juice.
https://www.ebay.com/i/302979969397?chn=ps
Was gonna post Grandma a dunking but the quality was for ish. I got it tho. Never had the Converses but loved that campaign.
When I was a kid, I was a big hornets fan, being from central Illinois, I was a huge Fighting Illini fan from the time they bought me my first basketball. Everyone was in love with mj and the bulls, and I definitely was not.. I was raised as Celtics fan but the Illinois side of me was drawn to the hornets. I was huge Kendall Gill fan, and when the Hornets took Gill with the 5th pic they became my team. They were also my first introduction to Curry and Bristow, even the head wahoo Tony Bennett. I tired of LJ and Alonzo rather quickly though..
Steph Curry doesn't believe Zion Williamson even plays basketball for "Duke University" (if that's even a real place), so there's really no way to tell if he is actually the best.