Average Basketball Players

[Mcteirnenenic]

I am doing a film project on high level mediocrity and as a basketball fan and because of the availability of statistics I am interested in exploring it as a subject matter. I have been looking through stats since 2000, so far looking specifically at PER, minutes, points, rpg, apg, fg%, stls, blks, as well as considering physical attributes, length of career, salary..

Any thoughts, feedback or ideas on a good way of narrowing it down?

[Mike G]

The average NBA player -- that is, a player who produces stats at NBA average -- may be described by per 36 minute rates.
Per-36, players average 14.6 Pts, 6.3 Reb, 3.3 Ast, 1.2 Stl, 0.8 Blk, 3.0 PF, 2.1 TO

About 1/3 to 40% of players are above avg in any one of these. This is because better players get to play more minutes, so the avg is higher than the median. Most players are below average in whatever category you are looking at.

Just 70 NBA players are above avg in both Pts and Reb per 36
There are 66 who are better than avg in both Pts and Ast
Only 17 with significant minutes are above avg in Reb and Ast rates.
Just 12 players are better than avg in all 3 -- http://bkref.com/tiny/dpzch

[Mike G]

Basketballreference.com lists 462 players who have appeared in the league this year. Their mpg range from 39 down to zero, with the median just about 20.

There are 61 players who average between 18 and 22 minutes. If this is average mpg, are these average players?
Medians:
PER 11.9
WS/48 .067
Pts/36 12.6
Reb/36 5.0
Ast/36 2.1
FT% .757

Other than FT%, these are all well below NBA average rates.
Only 50-some players are above these 'mediocre' rates in Pts, Reb, and Ast
Nobody for the Hornets or Bobcats gets 12.6 pts, 5 Reb, and 2.1 Ast per 36 minutes .

[colts18]

What's the FG%,3P% and TS% like for those average guys? What about Usage%

[Mike G]

It depends which definition of average you are using.
The average Usage% of a given player on the floor is 20 by definition.

[talkingpractice]

Any thoughts, feedback or ideas on a good way of narrowing it down?

What about guys with multi year RAPM of approx 0 ?

Side note is that in the NBA, guys who can be 'average' over a high amount of MP are really really really valuable.

[DSMok1]

Any thoughts, feedback or ideas on a good way of narrowing it down?

What about guys with multi year RAPM of approx 0 ?

Side note is that in the NBA, guys who can be 'average' over a high amount of MP are really really really valuable.

Worth something like $8 million/year, I think...