2008 Reboot: By The Numbers

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In light of Jeff Clark's recent 2008 Reboot post, I decided to compare this 2011 team with their 2008 counterparts based on some of their stats.  This was just for fun, but you can clearly see some similarities and also a few stylistic changes for the main players since 2008.  Instead of looking at composite stats like PER or Win Shares that attempt to measure a player in one number, instead I went through the individual category percentage stats from BasketballReference and also added on-court/off-court +/- from 82games.com.  Without further ado, here is the 2008 Reboot, by the numbers:

That's a lot of numbers, so here are some summary thoughts:

Garnett is all-the-way back on defense this year, compared to '08.  His defensive rating is the same, his on/off defensive numbers (not shown here) are actually better in 2011, and his rebound percentage is higher now than it was then.  The biggest change for KG is on offense, where his usage, assist percentage and offensive rating all show that he isn't playing as large of an offensive role this year as he did in '08.  As we'll see, though, the lower usage is a trend for all of the '08 Big 3.

Pierce and Ray also have slightly lower usages and lower assist percentages, but each of them have responded by becoming more efficient as scorers (thus, the higher true shooting percentages and offensive ratings).   All three of KG, Pierce and Ray have been assisted on a higher percentage of their shots this year as opposed to 2008 (not shown here), but while KG's EFG% from both inside and outside have remained about the same both Allen and Pierce have shown big increases in both their jumper and inside EFG% this year.  Shows me that they have shifted more from being creators into being finishers, and that they are thus getting easier looks.

As you would expect, Rondo shows the biggest individual change since '08.  He's playing much heavier minutes, and both his assist % and turnover % have roughly doubled since '08.  He's just playing a much larger role in the offense, initiating almost everything that the Celtics do and letting Pierce and Ray concentrate on being finishers.

Once you get past the Big 4 it becomes harder to compare (since often one player is being compared to another), but a few things stand out.  Shaq this year has posted percentages very similar to Perk's in '08, but at a higher usage and with fewer turnovers.  Not surprising...Shaq is a better offensive player. 

Green's and Krstic's numbers are from Oklahoma City since they just got here, so obviously they'll change in their new roles.  But since we're looking at percentages, we can see that Green has thus far been a higher usage/lower efficiency player than Posey was for us.  Hopefully Green's Boston numbers will start to reflect a similar increase in efficiency. 

Baby has been a much bigger part of the team this year than he was in '08, but interestingly he was much more efficient as a scorer (but much, much worse at turnovers) in '08 than he has been this year.  That's not really so surprising, though, as it's generally easier to be an efficient scorer in short spurts off the bench than it is to maintain that in starter minutes.

All told, this team is probably a bit more talented than their 2008 counterparts and the main pieces have learned how to play with and off of each other to a much larger degree this year than they had four years ago.  We've got a lot of new pieces and some health concerns now that we didn't have in 2008, so this journey is far from over, but let's all just agree that no matter how we get there we DEFINITELY want to see a reboot of the final result of that 2008 season.