I proudly present to you “I GO CHART NOW”, a (hopefully) weekly review of statistical things and the like in the NBA. And, duh, there will be a chart or two here or there as the name suggests.

Let’s get this party started….

Going Streaking

So, you wanted to trade this guy, Mr. Ainge?

Rajon Rondo has not had a game where he dished out under ten assists since March 9th, and his streak of 10+ APG is standing at 23 games in a row. Rondo’s previous best streak of 10+ APG was 9 back in the 2010-2011 season.

As far as regular season records go, Rajon won’t be able to break Stockton’s record of 29 games as there aren’t enough regular season games remaining. It is, however, quite likely he’ll end up the assist per game leader this year in large part thanks to this streak — he is currently at 11.6 APG, leading Nash (10.9) and Chris Paul (9.0) by a decent margin.

I really don’t care if this guy has a “big three” or whatever the hell you want to call them anymore, 11.6 APG is impressive, and so is his APG streak he’s got going on.

What?!

Charlie Villanueva has an insanely high usage rate. 33.2%, good for second highest in the league (behind Kobe Bryant’s 36.1%). Sure, that’s fairly skewed by the fact that he’s only played several games (7 as I write this) with very few minutes (59)…somehow in that time Mr. V has taken 39 shots and handed out just two assists. Seriously though, 39 shots in 59 minutes of play over seven games for Charlie. Let’s break that down a bit further– that’s 0.66 shots per minute for a guy who’s a career 44.7% shooter at the power forward spot…Gross.

(Note: I took the above stat before Detroit’s manhandling of Cleveland on Tuesday night. Afterwards, Charlie has a usage percentage of 30.4%, moving him down to 9th highest. I understand this little rant about Charlie is based on a small sample size and all, but I just don’t care much for the guy…and his 39 shots in 59 minutes says something–mainly that he sucks.)

PERsnickety

So we all know Kenneth Faried has had a nice little rookie season. The Manimal is averaging 9.8 points and 7.5 rebounds in just 21.9 minutes per game, which is pretty damn great, regardless of his freshman status. You know what else is awesome? He’s 18th in the league in PER right now at 21.9 (ignoring minutes played, just straight up PER standing). Yep, that’s right, ahead of guys like Dirk, Gasol (both of ‘em) and Garnett. It’s also higher than likely rookie of the year recipient Kyrie Irving (21.2).

The following chart lists players in the top 20 for PER (lowest PER to highest PER).

(Yeah, this chart also shows LeBron is far, far ahead of anyone else for PER in the league this year, but I suppose this stat isn’t particularly surprising.)

To put Faried’s frosh PER into perspective (and yes I understand it’s a shortened season that’s not quite over yet) — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan both posted a rookie PER of 22.6. Oh, and Blake Griffin’s mark was 21.9 in his first campaign. I’m not saying Faried = Griffin or any of those guys, but he’s shown he can have quite an impact in just his first season in the NBA.

I think it’s safe to say that he was a steal in the draft going 22nd overall to the Nuggets…I gotta think quite a few teams are kicking themselves in the crotch for not picking up Mr. Faried because they thought he was too old (22), too short to play PF (6’7.5” in shoes) or some other stupid reason.

Fieldin’ Goals n’ Fillin’ Holes

Tyson Chandler is by far in the lead for FG% this season at .680. That is a ridiculous number. “Yeah,” you say “but all he does is dunk in New York!”…Close, but not quite. Jump shots have accounted for 32% of his shots. And what, you might ask, is his eFG% on jumpers? .591 — with 100% of those assisted. His eFG% shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise though; in Dallas last year, 43% of his shots were jumpers where he shot an eFG% of .634.

If Tyson were to finish off the year with the same FG% of .680, he would end up in third place all time in FG% for a season, behind Wilt Chamberlain (‘72-’73, ‘66-’67). Good company.

It looks like he’s working out pretty well for NYK after all and might be able to fill that hole at center for them nicely going forward if he can keep his play up (i.e. not get injured).

Technically Awesome

This isn’t really stats related, but I’m putting it here anyways…. Delonte West gave Gordon Hayward a willy (not sure if it was wet or dry). Of course, the refs didn’t see it as it happened and had to watch it on a replay after being alerted by many Utah folk that Delonte put his finger where it shouldn’t go.

I wish I could read lips better to figure out what Delonte was saying whilst administering the willy. I’d like to think it was something along the lines of “never on the left cuz my right’s [inserts willy] my good ear”.

That’s all for this week’s inaugural IGCN installment. And thank you to Basketball Reference and 82games for the majority of the stats compiled/mentioned here.

Remember, whatever it is you’re looking for…It’s right there in the stats, man.