As a follow up to Linsanity By the Numbers, I’m going to take another snapshot of Jeremy and the Knicks using the Player Efficiency Rating (PER) developed by John Hollinger of ESPN. Jeremy’s PER ranking has fallen a bit since the game against the Miami Heat, where opponents LeBron James and Dwyane Wade have the top two ratings in the entire NBA respectively. While a single bad game may diminish the Linsanity hype, it’s still only a single data point in the realm of statistics. Here are the top 10 point guards in the league with their overall rankings (*edit* added Rondo by popular demand):
| Rank | PLAYER | GP | MPG | USG | PER |
| 4 | Chris Paul, LAC | 27 | 36.3 | 24.0 | 26.36 |
| 5 | Derrick Rose, CHI | 27 | 35.5 | 29.1 | 24.88 |
| 12 | Russell Westbrook, OKC | 35 | 35.2 | 30.8 | 23.26 |
| 13 | Jeremy Lin, NY | 22 | 24.5 | 29.3 | 22.99 |
| 18 | Steve Nash, PHX | 31 | 32.1 | 22.8 | 22.52 |
| 22 | Tony Parker, SA | 34 | 34.4 | 27.6 | 21.83 |
| 23 | Stephen Curry, GS | 22 | 30.6 | 23.0 | 21.72 |
| 27 | Kyrie Irving, CLE | 30 | 31.0 | 26.8 | 21.21 |
| 30 | Lou Williams, PHI | 36 | 26.4 | 26.7 | 21.05 |
| 33 | Deron Williams, NJ | 35 | 37.4 | 30.1 | 20.93 |
| 64 | Rajon Rondo, BOS | 24 | 36.7 | 23.2 | 18.26 |
GP = Games played
MPG = Minutes per game
USG = Usage rate (relative measure of how often they handle the ball)
PER = Player Efficiency Rating (league average is 15)
As we’ve seen in the past with various measures, Jeremy’s performance is in the top tier, though his numbers are more volatile than others since he only has 13 full games under his belt (hence the seemingly low MPG). Even with good, but not “Linsane”, performances like yesterday’s victory against the Cavaliers, his PER can easily maintain its top 20 ranking for the rest of the season.
Here are the PER numbers for the rest of the Knicks (Baron Davis, J.R. Smith, and Jerome Jordan are not included due to limited minutes/games):
| Rank | PLAYER | GP | MPG | USG | PER |
| 40 | Tyson Chandler, NY | 36 | 33.4 | 11.4 | 19.77 |
| 50 | Carmelo Anthony, NY | 26 | 34.2 | 29.2 | 19.37 |
| 72 | Steve Novak, NY | 24 | 15.6 | 15.9 | 17.61 |
| 103 | Amare Stoudemire, NY | 30 | 33.6 | 23.4 | 16.12 |
| 194 | Landry Fields, NY | 36 | 31.8 | 14.8 | 13.12 |
| 213 | Josh Harrellson, NY | 16 | 18.5 | 12.6 | 12.36 |
| 254 | Jared Jeffries, NY | 26 | 22.1 | 11.0 | 10.69 |
| 257 | Iman Shumpert, NY | 29 | 29.9 | 19.5 | 10.56 |
| 300 | Bill Walker, NY | 30 | 20.3 | 14.2 | 8.46 |
| 323 | Toney Douglas, NY | 26 | 20.8 | 23.1 | 6.32 |
| 326 | Mike Bibby, NY | 21 | 13.9 | 13.2 | 6.11 |
For the Knicks fans that had to watch Toney Douglas and Mike Bibby be the primary point guard, I feel your pain through the numbers. The other big disappointment from projections at the beginning of the season has been Amare Stoudemire, who is heralded as one of the stars of the team, but is currently barely cracking the league average in PER. Jared Jefferies and Tyson Chandler have both been producing better than their initial predictions, in no small part due to Jeremy’s ball handling for the past 13 games. Jefferies is still undervalued in that the number of offensive fouls that he draws from opponents is one of the best in the league, but doesn’t appear on any stat sheet (should be counted as steals in my opinion).
It will be interesting to see how the PER of each individual Knicks player shapes up throughout the season as their point guard troubles seemed to have been solved.
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