It's About The Journey- Don't Stop Believing

I love statistics. I have always loved statistics. I loved statistics so much as a kid that in fourth grade I bought a Fantasy Football magazine with leftover birthday money and created a two-man league. I calculated the weekly scoring with box scores from the Monday newspaper and, armed with the knowledge of experts at draft time, assembled a team that went 16-0-1 against my dad. It was clear in my nine-year-old mind that I had quickly and thoroughly mastered the intricacies of football statistics and, emboldened by my success, I began branching out to other sports. I soon came across the basketball book The Experts Picks: Basketball’s Best 50 Players in the Last 50 Years. There were charts, career statistics and organized rankings of the greatest players of all-time. As a child, I could not imagine a player superior to Michael Jordan and the book validated that opinion with a number one ranking for His Airness. Satisfied with the opinions of these “experts”, I devoured the book and its’ statistics and was later inspired enough to make my own attempt at ranking every starter in the league by position with a very simplistic version of PER (okay, really I just totaled points, rebounds and assists per game). I adjusted the list for defensive contributions (or for my own personal whims and completely arbitrary reasons) where necessary and thought myself the undisputed authority on everything about the NBA. And among the other pre-teen boys on the playground, I certainly was. How little did I know…