Are big numbers on bad teams meaningless? Are good players on bad teams overrated? Well, it depends on what numbers you mean. Points per game is a very misleading stat, but people only seem to understand this if the player is on a bad team.

Let's consider two players, both former Timberwolves. One is Tony Campbell; the other is Kevin Love. In the Timberwolves inaugural season, there were things that my young basketball mind couldn't quite understand. How on earth did Tony Campbell get so good!? He never scored very much before, but suddenly he was scoring 24 points a game while playing for a coach who's offense was notoriously slow! And how is he not getting any All-Star votes? TWENTY FOUR POINTS A GAME, FOLKS!

Of course, the answer is pretty simple. Tony wasn't really any different as a player. He was just getting to play starter's minutes for the first time. And he was allowed to take a few more shots than before (and wasn't much better at making them). And it turns out that it is pretty easy (relatively, for an NBA player) to take lots of shots. Especially when they aren't very good shots -- NBA defenses will generally let players take lots of mediocre or bad shots.

And when we look at Tony's other contributions...well, he wasn't a great passer and had low assist totals. He certainly didn't handle the ball well, and had high turnovers. He was, at best, an average rebounder. So here we had a shooting guard/small forward who chucked a lot, wasn't good at much of anything else, and we have the classic "big numbers on a bad team" example.

Kevin Love is another player who has put up very big numbers on very bad teams. Is this also an indication that he's overrated? Well, let's look at what Kevin Love does well:

• Love gets a lot of rebounds. He is without doubt one of the best in the NBA at this.
• Love shoots very well from three
• His 2-point FG% is a bit low, but Love gets to the free throw line extremely often, so his actual shooting efficiency on 2-point field goals is very high, especially because he is a good free-throw shooter.
• Love has a very low foul rate (Glen Taylor might want to actually watch a few games before speaking on this subject). Some have criticized his defense, but there's no doubt that, in a vacuum, fouls are bad, and avoiding them is good.
• In his most recent season, he has developed into a very good passer, averaging nearly twice the assists of the average power forward.

Notice that I didn't bring up point totals. Those were, of course, high, but his efficiency is what matters. When we look at each of those skills, there appears to be more to them than just "big number syndrome." NBA defenses might allow players to jack up lots of shots, especially if they are mediocre or bad shots. However, opposing players generally don't go out of their way to put good free throw shooters on the foul line, or let good three-point shooters shoot threes, or just allow rebounds to bounce into the hands of the opponent.

In other words, if you ignore point totals, you can zero in on whether a players numbers are repeatable or sustainable. Now, I picked Kevin Love because he is an easy example. There are still some folks who think Kevin Love was only playing fantasy basketball, but their voices aren't very loud and they aren't taken very seriously. There are also plenty of other "big numbers on bad teams" players to watch. Isaiah Thomas is one; Jordan Hill is another. Both were good players stuck on bad teams. Evan Turner and OJ Mayo provide counter examples; both had Tony Campbellesque seasons.

The idea that players on teams bereft of talent can inflate their numbers is absolutely true. However, the trick to inflating your numbers is to get more hollow numbers -- more shots and more minutes. Being on a bad team doesn't keep you from playing real opponents. Your enemy won't take pity on you for being on scrub team and just give you easy shots or let you get rebounds, steals, etc. To put up solid numbers in the NBA requires being a good player, and that's typically true regardless of the team around you. And it's why we'd like to put the notion: "they're just a good player because their team is bad" to sleep.