TRG:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...1&p2=gasolma01

D12:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...1&p2=howardw01

Boguesy:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...1&p2=bogutan01

It also has to do with:

Past five years, regular season stats only, stats derived from bbref:
Hibbert 0 days rest (103 G, 2835 MP): -1.24/100 possessions
Hibbert 1 day rest (180 games, 5115 MP): +6.35
Hibbert 2+ days rest (82 games, 2327 MP): +7.72

He's not an 82-game grinder.

I think you're making too big of a stretch to assume Hibbert is going to be a playoff stud. He's really only elevated his level of play one time in the past during the playoffs. Too small of a sample to assume it's a trend.

Is your use of "elevated" intended to draw a semantic distinction between the 2012 and 2013 playoffs? Because I think the fact that he was genuinely elite in the 2012 playoffs, like in the 2013 playoffs, is more important than the fact that he made a smaller jump from the preceding regular season.

Hibbs basically ended Tysons career and manhood in the playoffs last year

Can you throw out some other bigmen for context? I am unaware how outside the norm this is.

Yes the elevated distinction is important since his prior year was largely a continuation of his regular season play but only slightly elevated. It highlights that last year may have been an anomaly when looking at his playoff performance.

Another interpretation is that last year the trend of his play was moving in a positive direction as the season progressed so his playoff performance may have been just a continuation of that trend. Importantly, the trend is the reverse this year.

The point I was making: I think "elite in 2012, elite in 2013, so 2013's elite playoffs is less likely to be an anomaly" is a far more likely inference from the data than "he only made a medium jump to elite in 2012, whereas he made a large jump to elite in 2013, so 2013's large jump may be an anonaly." Fundamentally, I think (assuming health) his "playoff level" is much more likely to be a predictive, meaningful true talent level than it is that he has some fixed amount he jumps from the regular season.

The in-season trend is plausibly meaningful. I think the rest during the first round of the playoffs will be very useful.

Don't have time to run through data for other bigs. Dwight seems to have pretty big splits, eyeballing. Will admit that I just looked at the number and assumed it was larger than average.

But in the two years you're saying he was elite, he was also elite in the regular season leading into the playoffs. He's not his year and I think Indy fans have reason for concern. I doubt he can just turn it on as you imply.

He played extremely well at the beginning of the year and has been trending downward. Is there any reason to believe this is anything other than fatigue? And, if it's just fatigue, who cares? He'll get his rest between games and before he plays meaningful ones. The NBA regular season is a grind.

eta: I don't mean to say that the games are meaningless or anything. I just think people are drastically overweighting the last 40 games. Coming off the playoffs last season and coming off his first 20 games this season, Hibbert was the best center in the league by a wide margin. I just don't think 40 lackluster games for a player who's shown dominant playoff levels in decent samples each of the last two years and who's a known struggler with conditioning and heavy regular season minutes should be weighted as much as people are weighting it.

You really can spin an argument. Now that you see the data doesn't support your thesis, he just needs rest. Gotcha.

Everyone, Das Boot is a Pacers slappy. Carry on.

tim duncan led the league in drtg last year. crazy

Amazing this statement was made without sarcasm.

I have no idea what you're talking about. The data that supports the broad thesis (that he will be elite in the playoffs) is his playoff play the past two years, his splits with rest, and the fact that healthy 27-year-old players tend not to have spontaneous, massive declines without fatigue involved. Given that, my subjective interpretation is that fatigue is likely a heavy factor in his current level of play, and that there's no reason to believe his level of play won't pick up with more frequent rest.

Comparing Noah's body to Hibbs' is.. well, it's something.

In before Al Jeff destroys Hibbs and this lolFatigue narrative.

Kobe Bryant out for remainder of season #TANKCITY

Lakers shutting him down!

as a whole indy is trending downwards. every month. check the splits, it's gotten really bad as they've bottomed out.

chicago otoh is trending up.

Now is the time for Kobe to just show up in his uniform saying "well I'm ****ing ready!"

Das Boot obviously right, but I did like the guy who said that Hibbert is paid tens of millions of dollars so he should just stop having asthma.

I'm a lot more concerned with PG's inexplicable drop in shot selection / defensive effort than anything having to do with HIBBS. If anyone wants to make some reasonable bets on Hibbert's playoff performance I'll gladly take the over.

Can we send Rose to Germany for some magic blood treatment? Really need Chicago @ full strength for the playoffs. Especially since it looks like Indy isn't capable of challenging Miami.

Who's DPOY?

noah