They did score around 100 points per game during the season (which should put them around 10th)
But, their points per possession, which is a much better measure of offense ranks them 5th.
if you look at the box scores of their games, their FG% is too inconsistent for an "elite" playoff team. they can shoot <40% FG on any given night.
I decided to. And compared them to the Pistons who had relatively few roster changes during the season.
I also did points per possession.
This is a stupid way to do it, (especially not even doing standard deviations or anything) but I didn't want to bother comparing to all teams. To me, the graphs don't look very different. I don't think teams are actually as consistent as we would think.
West & Paul take the most shots and shoot around 48-49% and Tyson shoots 60+ but doesn't take many shots. Peja is at 44 for the season and Mo Pete shot a dismal 41% during the season. their 6th man Pargo who plays at the 2 during crunch time shot 39% during the season and 38% during the playoffs.
I'm not going to bother with Pargo, as he is too obvious, but looking at more accurate shooting measures: (edit: added playoff figures)
[table][mrow]Player[mcol]eFG%[mcol]TS%[mcol]peFG[mcol]pTS
[row]Chris Paul[col].524[col].576[col].513[col].565
[row]Tyson Chandler[col].623[col].632[col].632[col].640
[row]David West[col].484[col].535[col].468[col].522
[row]Pedja Stojakovic[col].552[col].581[col].541[col].583
[row]Morris Peterson[col].526[col].549[col].603[col].609[/table]
West is the only bad shooter of the bunch, and he makes up for it at the line. Pedja basically already played the third scorer role, look at their possession usage:
[table][mrow]Player[mcol]Usg%
[row]Chris Paul[col]25.7
[row]Tyson Chandler[col]14.5
[row]David West[col]26.3
[row]Pedja Stojakovic[col]19.7
[row]Morris Peterson[col]15.4[/table]
Using 20% of possessions is about what we should expect from a third scorer when you have a player like Paul, and another guy using 25+%. I don't know how many more possessions some new third scorer could take away (if he replaced Pedja, not Peterson) without negatively affecting the team.
I think they need, as I believe I said, more bench output. They need a guy who can score, or at least replicate Chandler more, from the frontcourt. Wright will get better and he had some good production, but he's easily more of a SF, than a PF/C. Pargo uses way too many possessions at a low efficiency to make their bench backcourt effective either, especially without Bobby Jackson. The first five plus Wright are at least short-term keepers in my opinion, with Armstrong and Bonzi Wells being on probation, I'd consider everyone else to be players to replace.
