David West - not interesting?

While I was creating yesterday's post about the Hornets and how they are not interesting(i.e. unfairly ignored! Really!) it occurred to me that David West is to the Hornets what the Hornets are to the rest of the NBA. On Hornets Fan sites, they talk about Chris Paul and Tyson Chandler as the two stars on the team. West is ignored or listed as possible trade bait, and you'll find nothing about him on Youtube. Since I'm a big fan of his, I originally titled this post as "The Defense of David West" and was going to try and list reasons why he's fantastic and shouldn't be ignored. I mean, he has been the teams leading scorer for two years. But as you can see, that title didn't remain.

Part of that is his game - he's fundamentally sound, not super athletic, and neither overpowers nor leaps over his opponents. He doesn't take over games. But late in a game a graphic will appear that says he has 21 points, and I'll stare at it in surprise. Going over the game in my mind, I'll begin to appreciate just how efficient and effective he had been over the course of the game. It's one of the things I enjoy about watching the Hornets - that little surprise when I realize that West is quietly destroying the other team.

So - I decided I'd take his numbers and prove that he's that efficient fantastic player that I always knew him to be. I started at ESPN, and got a fairly promising 18+ PER from John Hollinger. Since 15 is average, I now had proof he was better than most! But then I went to the Wages of Wins site and found out last year he only posted a Win Score of .094 - which is below the average of .100 for NBA players. So after cursing David Berri and his suddenly ridiculous system of evaluating players I went back to West's career statistics.

As I worked to prove he is a good, or at least above average player . . . it quickly became apparent he isn't one. Among starting Power Forwards, per 48 minutes, he was 16th in Scoring, 15th in assists, 16th in Rebounding, 27th in Blocks, 21st in Steals and his FG% was only slightly above average for the kinds of shots he took. Only his FT% and low turnover rate stand out. Out of thirty starters in the league - that lands him right smack down in Completely Average territory.

So after mentally apologizing to Dave Berri, I admitted I had found my own answer to why he's the forgotten man on the team. He doesn't get attention because he does nothing that hurts the team, but he doesn't do anything to truly dominate either - which happens to be the perfect recipe for being ignored.

Of course, he's just now entering his prime, and I wouldn't be surprised if he averaged 20-22 points per game next year - which should be enough to garner him some attention. But for now, he appears doomed to labor in relative obscurity, with only die-hard Hornets Fans to appreciate him. Poor guy.