In Reply to: Not the whole story, but they are the most objective. posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on December 14, 2025 at 13:09:21
Dent doesn't command the floor like some other recent Bruins that did it well, most notably Tyger. That much is obvious to the trained eye.
And to your point HappyBurg - stats are useful, I am very much a quantitative person, both in my professional life and in sports watching. But I've noticed heavy quant-heads can be graded along a scale. On the low end is people that go strictly off instincts, then it progresses to people who uses stats exclusively and think they tell the whole picture. The next level of sophistication is people who understand both the value of stats, and the shortcomings - just because we can't or don't measure something well, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
As to your point about being biased by "flashy plays", I have to call that complete nonsense. That applies to your casual fan, sure. But to the trained basketball eye, like EJ certainly is from all I've read from him, and to a lesser extent myself (played competitive high school basketball, old school coach that made us full court press and run a zone defense exclusively), the things we look for and have a good sense of are not the "flashy plays", it's the things like leadership, basketball IQ, consistency.