Paul Pierce: The Most Important Piece To The Puzzle

Since the beginning of the era of the new “Big Three” there has been debate going on throughout Celtics nation about which player on our team is most important. Which player could we really not afford to lose? Well the answer in all reality is none of them. Every single guy on the team, one through ten, has a huge impact on the success of the team. But if there was one player we really couldn’t afford to lose who would it be?

Well today I did something out of nature. I got out my TI-83 calculator that has been sitting in my desk  since the completion of my freshmen statistics class. So what did I do with this calculator? I  used some basic statistical analysis to try to find out which Boston Celtic has the biggest statistical impact on the success of the team. Now before I start going off with all these numbers I came up with I want to let it be known that there are some things players do that can not be measured by any type of statistic.

Alright now to the fun part. As you can see the above chart displays each players impact in each statistical category mentioned on the chart. You can roll over each players total statistics to see what kind of impact they had percentage wise. So lets cut to the chase. To try to make my study more reasonable I cut out the Personal Foul category, and the Turnover category to limit confusion. After I did that I took my old friend, TI-83, and added up each players  impact for each category, then divided by nine (the number of categories), in hopes of figuring out each players impact (percentage wise) on the team.

So without further ado here are the numbers that I came up with:

• Paul Pierce – 15.91%
• Rajon Rondo – 14.06%
• Kendrick Perkins – 13.32%
• Kevin Garnett – 13.06%
• Ray Allen – 12.64%
• Rasheed Wallace – 11.10%
• Eddie House – 6.39%
• Shelden Williams – 6.13%
• Marquis Daniels – 4.23%
• Brian Scalabrine – 1.27%
• Tony Allen – 0.92%
• Lester Hudson – 0.76%

Other players that may interest you:

Kobe Bryant – 20.1

Lebron James – 23.9

Kevin Durant – 23.16

Dwayne Wade – 24.6

As you can tell, statistically, Paul Pierce is the most important piece to the Celtics puzzle. That may have a lot to do with the fact that he is first on the team in points, free throws made, three pointers made, and defensive rebounds. He is also second on the team in field goals made and offensive rebounds. These stats just show how versatile “The Truth” really is. He isn’t afraid to go inside with the big boys to get rebounds, and he sure isn’t scared to drive the lane in hopes of getting to the line. Put those two things together, along with his outside shooting this year, and Pierce is Mr. Versatility.

There were also some other things that I found quite interesting after putting all the numbers together. One was how close together the numbers were from one to six. You have Pierce at 15.91 then Rasheed Wallace at 11.10. This just goes to show how well this team works together and spreads the wealth. The same strory isn’t told on teams like L.A, Cleveland, Oklahoma City, or Miami; where their star player has a much bigger impact, proving they aren’t as much of a team as the Celtics.

The other thing that stuck out to me was Rondo, who is second, slightly behind Pierce. We all know that Rondo has a huge impact on whether the Celtics win or lose a game, and this stat proves it. Is it time to start calling it the big four? If not, he’s not far away from joining that elite group.

Maybe you disagree with these stats, if you do let us know. Who do you think is the most important piece to the puzzle that we call the Boston Celtics?