Basketball Stats

• Jeremy Lin is a point guard. And a point guard plays an important role on the basketball team. In some ways, the point guard is like the quarterback in football. Let’s look at this in more detail.

Basketball Stats

The point guard manages the movement of the ball on the court. On offense the point guard has several choices for managing the play.

Basketball Stats

He can make a shot to the basket, attempting a field goal.

Basketball Stats

He can also pass the ball to another player on the team and have that player make a basket. This is known as an assist.

Basketball Stats

• Throughout a game a point guard generates the following statistics:– Points scored– Field goal percentage– Assists– Rebounds

Basketball Stats

One of the best point guards in NBA history was Magic Johnson.

Basketball Stats

This table shows his career-long statistics from 1979 to 1991 for the statistics previously noted. These statistics are based on nearly 1000 games. (Source: nba.com.)

Year Games Played

Field Goal %

Rebounds per Game

Assists per Game

Points per Game

79-80 77 0.53 7.7 7.3 18

80-81 37 0.532 8.6 8.6 21.6

81-82 78 0.537 9.6 9.5 18.6

82-83 79 0.548 8.6 10.5 16.8

83-84 67 0.565 7.3 13.1 17.6

84-85 77 0.561 6.2 12.6 18.3

85-86 72 0.526 5.9 12.6 18.8

86-87 80 0.522 6.3 12.2 23.9

87-88 72 0.492 6.2 11.9 19.6

88-89 77 0.509 7.9 12.8 22.5

89-90 79 0.48 6.6 11.5 22.3

90-91 79 0.477 7 12.5 19.4

Basketball Stats

Let’s analyze these statistics from Magic Johnson’s career. We’ll also compare the comparable statistics from Jeremy Lin, keeping in mind

that Lin’s statistics represent a much smaller data set, one that is

still growing.

Basketball Stats

This box-and-whisker plot is for Magic Johnson’s average field goal percentage. The median percentage is 52.8%.

Lin:45.8%

Basketball Stats

This is the box-and-whisker plot for the average points scored per game. The median is 19.1.

Lin:14.6

Basketball Stats

This box-and-whisker plot is for the average number of assists per game. The average is 12.05.

Lin:6.1

Basketball Stats

This box-and-whisker plot is for the average number of rebounds per game. The median is 7.15.

Lin:3

Basketball Stats

While Jeremy Lin’s statistics are not as high Magic Johnson’s, this is easily

explained. Lin has only been playing a short time and his statistics are

bound to change. But based on the impact he has made on the New York Knicks’ season, it’s likely that fans will

be following these statistics throughout the years he plays.