Failing At Life

Why do the teams this man plays on fail so bad?

He's not a bad player, is he? Well, he's no superstar, but he's a very very servicable "4".

So why then, with so much of the failing?

Shareef Abdur Rahim has averaged 19.8 PPG, 47% FG, 82% FT, 8.1 RPG and even 2.7 assists per game for his 9 full seasons. Last year was the first season in which he did not play in nearly every game... he had an injured knee, which would later result in a blocked trade to the Nets in the offseason. Nothing at all about his game or his stats screams failure. He's not selfish - not great assist numbers, but certainly no ball-hog. Doesn't miss a lot of shots, as is evidenced by the 47% field goal percentage. He is a help-player, his defense is very solid, and he is not known as a particularly abrasive teammate (at least, not on the court).

Here are his season win-loss numbers:

96-97 14-68
97-98 19-63
98-99 8-42
99-00 22-60
00-01 23-59
01-02 33-49
02-03 35-47
03-04 34-51
04-05 27-55
05-06 7-10

That adds up to a staggering 222-504 record in 9 seasons.

That means he wins 31% of the games he plays in at the pro level.

And on that note, for the curious, Shareef's college record looks like this:

95-96 2-26

Yes, that's right. His team was 2-26. They had most of their wins wiped from the record because of an ineligible player. I understand that this should not count against Shareef, but it is still very very funny. His win percentage in college was 7. 7 percent.

Back to his NBA career... if you averaged out Reef's percentages, his teams would win an average of 25 wins a year. He has never played on a winning team (surprise), in fact the only time he's ever even had something resembling success is the Blazers' record after they traded for him in 2003-2004. They went 17-16. AH AH AH, though... Reef didn't play in their first game after the trade... so technically they went 16-16 with him on the team. .500 is not a successful mark. Maybe in baseball. But in the NBA, .500 gets you nowhere. I hardly consider that a success.

In the strike shortened season of 98-99, the Grizzlies won 8 games and lost 42. They finished 29 games out of first place. There were only 50 games played. And they finished 29 games out. I don't need to say anything else about that.

I guess the point is this: Be afraid Sacramento. Be very very afraid. This man does not fuck around. And based on the game I watched last night, it's already happening in Arco.

Failure has never been this perfect.