5 Basketball Stats That Must Be Thrown out the Window

Sports fans are notoriously dependent on statistics to carry the weight of their most heated arguments, and for mostly good reason.

Without them, every debate would culminate in an "agree-to-disagree" deadlock at best, and an all-out fisticuffs at worst.

It should go without saying, however, that numbers are an imperfect representation of what actually happens on the court—some more so than others. Here are five statistics that distort reality more than they explain it.

Rebounds Per Game

While rebounding remains one of the most unheralded fundamental skills, its statistical significance is overplayed.

Take Kevin Love's apparently dominant per-game rebounding average, currently second in the league with 13.5.

To be clear, Love is an incredibly talented rebounder, but his gaudy numbers shouldn't be starting any MVP discussions. For starters, this man leads the league in playing time at 39.6 minutes a game. That may in and of itself be an impressive accomplishment, but it's also important to remember when assessing his nightly production.

Additionally, though, the Minnesota Timberwolves create more than a few rebounding opportunities—they're ninth in the league in field goals attempted and only 26th in in field-goal percentage. That adds up to a lot of missed shots, which helps explain why Love is second in the NBA with 4.1 rebounds per contest.

When actually measuring the percentage of missed shots a single player secures (taking into account the number of rebounding opportunities), Love's rebounding rate ranks only 10th in the NBA, just a fraction of a rebound ahead of Andrew Bynum, Tim Duncan and Kris Humphries.

Similarly, you can explain DeMarcus Cousins' lead-leading 4.3 offensive rebounds (and 11.1 overall) at least in part by the Sacramento Kings' woeful inefficiency—the team puts up the most shots in the NBA despite ranking 27th in scoring efficiency.

Put simply, Sacramento and Minnesota are prime locations for rebounding hopefuls.

Obviously, guys like Love and Cousins are still very good—but their numbers have to be put into context. There are number of quality rebounders garnering far less attention simply because their teams' efficiency or style of play.  

Double-Overtime Boxscores

Officially, Jose Juan Barea will finish the season with a triple-double while versatile MVP candidates like LeBron James or Kevin Durant continue to go without one for the year.

Of course, it took Barea two overtimes to secure the feat. Outside of the extended game, he's tallied five or more rebounds only three times this season. Most fans watching the game probably found themselves thinking they too could notch a triple-double if they just played in a game with enough overtime frames.

In that same game, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook combined for 85 points, both scoring over 40 points in a rare display of prolific tandem scoring. Again, though, the real story here is that they each played for at least 50 minutes.

Sure, it's still pretty hard to drop 40 points, but it just doesn't mean the same thing when a game lasts all night long.

Congratulations are still in order for these kinds of guys, but so are some asterisks.

Value Added

There are plenty of examples of John Hollinger's statistical obsession going too far, but it doesn't get any better than his hyper-formulaic approach to the "value added" statistic:

"

VA: Value Added - the estimated number of points a player adds to a team’s season total above what a 'replacement player' (for instance, the 12th man on the roster) would produce. Value Added = ([Minutes * (PER - PRL)] / 67). PRL (Position Replacement Level) = 11.5 for power forwards, 11.0 for point guards, 10.6 for centers, 10.5 for shooting guards and small forwards

"

There's nothing inherently wrong with this kind of metric—it's a comprehensive measure of someone's production, but let's be clear: That's all it is.

Unfortunately, we don't have any means of assigning a non-arbitrary value to the kind of distraction Dwight Howard has created and its subsequent disruption of the Orlando Magic locker room. We can't quantify the dysfunction produced by Mike D'Antoni's system butting heads with Carmelo Anthony's style.

Try as the numbers gurus might, statistics will never tell the story of a basketball player as well as they capture the "value" of a guy playing baseball. This will always be more of a team game where "chemistry" means something qualitatively different.

Hollinger's litany of numbers certainly offer a more complete story than your typical stat line, but they remain more useful to those playing fantasy basketball than those playing the real thing. 

Games Started

For some reason, many a professional basketball player still cares about being a starter. 

They really shouldn't.

Some of the league's very best have thrived while coming primarily off the bench. James Harden has averaged 16.7 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game for the Oklahoma City Thunder this season, typifying the value of a sixth man and the impact he can make with an elite club.

Manu Ginobili has frequently done the same for the San Antonio Spurs, including the latter half of this season after returning from a series of injuries. It goes without saying the Dallas Mavericks' championship wouldn't have been possible without a spark plug like Jason Terry giving Rick Carlisle's reserves a helping hand.

Most recently, Ray Allen has begrudgingly agreed to come off the bench to keep a good thing going with Avery Bradley starting for the Boston Celtics, and the Memphis Grizzlies have experienced a similar situation with Zach Randolph.

Of course, those who have a problem with coming off the bench probably care more about the status of "being a starter" than the actual number of starts they accrue over their career. All the same, though, it's high time we start caring less about who starts the game.

After all, what really counts is who finishes it.

Free-Throw Attempts

The occasional discussion of how good a player is at "getting to the line" has become code for assessing a superstar's ability to game the system.

If Kobe Bryant, LeBron James or Kevin Durant happens to be on your team, then of course this all sounds like blasphemy—"Superstars get to the line, because no one can guard them," or so the media would have you believe in its desperate attempt to make these heroes seem larger than life.

Sure, there's some truth to that story. The best of the best tend to have quicker first steps, better footwork and craftier post moves.

That doesn't change the fact that the best of the best also get some calls because of who they are.

More importantly, they get calls because they know how to create contact with even the most ridiculous of shots. It's become nearly impossible for defenders in the paint to occupy any space at all without getting flagged for a shooting foul.

A big man holding his arms straight up after a whistle has become emblematic of this trend. In the world of professional, star-studded basketball, it's always that guy's fault.

For those of us who call it like we see it, it's nothing but shenanigans.