In 1962 Wilt Chamberlain played 48.5 minutes per game, the average number of possessions per game 129.8 possessions. Wilt was playing 130 possessions a game, he didn’t spend a single possession off the court. A lot of people have started to use this against him, saying that his scoring numbers are inflated by the minutes he played, but what they don’t realize is that Wilt is actually giving more value by playing more possessions.
Wilt playing every single minute for a bad team keeps a below average center from entering the game giving his team more value. It also accumulates more defensive value, if you put Wilt in any era on any team and he’s still shutting down the rim for 48 minutes a game. This also ties in to all time defenders like Bill Russell, not only is Bill the most “skilled” defender ever but he’s giving you that value for 45.2 minutes a game.
A high minutes player gives a lot of floor raising value. Take a player like Steph Curry, due to him constantly running around off the ball he depletes his energy meaning that he can only play a certain amount of minutes per game. On a championship level team that doesn’t hinder his value that much, obviously you’d rather have Stephen Curry in the game instead of Shaun Livingston but the supporting cast is usually good enough to keep the team afloat with their best player off the court, or in Steph’s case the team went up by so much with him on the court that they couldn’t blow the lead when they went off. Where this really impacts a team is in the floor raising department. Curry is currently playing 34 minutes a game and the team falls apart in the 14 minutes he’s off the court. If you were to put a player like Wilt into a similar situation though, he would give more value just because he can stay on the court for more possessions.
The “Per 75” method has been adopted in player comparisons too, people in the NBA community often suggest someone like Manu was better than someone like Iverson due to his numbers per 75 possesions. What people don’t realize when doing this comparison is that Manu doesn’t provide the same impact as Iverson since he played so many less minutes. In his season with the most minutes played, Manu only played 31.1 minutes per game versus Iverson who played 43.7 minutes a game as a 6 foot shooting guard in 2002. Iverson was also taking in a much higher load and was much more active than Ginobli. AI playing that much more minutes means that he can play on any team and give value versus Manu who can only give you the same value on a perfectly constructed roster like the Spurs which is why comparing his per 75 numbers to a high minutes player such as Iverson is stupid. Allen Iverson gives more global impact.
When a player can maintain a high load and play high minutes, he gives you an insanely high impact. Look at a player like KG, the most active defender of all time who led his team in every offensive category while playing 40 minutes a game. Always boxing out off the ball and going after every loose ball available. A player with that high of a motor who is also playing high minutes gives you insane value and we’ve started to underrate these types of guys through the emergence of pace adjusted stats.
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