I believe that most of you have some faith in the NBA efficiency stat. It is worthwhile looking at it when discussing possibly unloading Brooks, Martin and Scola.

• Luis Scola, our best player, ranks 37th overall and 20th amoung forwards.
• Kevin Martin, often referred to in many postings as being "super efficient", ranks 46th overall and 15th amoung guards.
• Aaron Brooks ranks 166th overall and 62nd amoung only guards.

Last season Scola was 47th overall and Martin was 66th overall so they've improved slightly. Brooks was 69th overall last year and has basically fallen off a cliff this season. We should have unloaded Martin while his value was high.

Basically, these stats indicate that the average NBA team has 2 guards rated higher than Martin and three higher than Brooks. That means we are outgunned at the guard position.

And the average team has 1.2 forwards rated higher than Scola so it looks like we are also outgunned at forward.

That is why we cannot win. Our best players are average, at best.

We have been talking about possibly trading Brooks, the 166th most efficient player, for Nene, the 32nd most efficient player and many of you think that would be a bad deal. It makes no sense. Amoung only centers, Nene is currently ranked 6th most efficient. That is high. Only 5 teams have a center ranked higher. That is the type of guy we need and we will have to offer more than Aaron 166th Brooks to get  him.

I tend to believe in the efficiency stats because you can look at the rankings and see that the guys you know are better are all located up at the top of the list. You can look at only Houston players and see that Scola > Martin > Brooks. That is the order you think you see when you watch the game and that is the order that the stats show.

Guys, you cannot rebuild the team around the 166th best player (Brooks). And we cannot build a team around the 37th best (Scola) or the 46th best (Martin) either. On average, a team should have one guy ranked in the top 30. Houston has zero. Even if were were lucky enough to get Nene, we would still have zero but we would at lest get a lot closer.

If you believe in the NBA efficiency stat then you have to agree with me that we have a sorry bunch of players. That helps explain the losses. In fact, based on the efficiency ratings of our players, we should be losing more than we do so maybe that indicates the coaching is good or maybe we are just lucky.

BTW, Dalembert, another guy whose name gets tossed out as an alternative to getting Nene, is currently ranked 174th overall, 37th amoung only centers. That is worse than either Chuck Hayes or Brad Miller. Thrity-six centers are ranked higher than Dalembert! Do you really think he is the answer? If you have any faith in the NBA Efficiency Stat, would you really want Dalembert?

How about getting a center ranked higher that Nene? There are 5 of them. They are Pau, Dwight , Amare, Horford and Noah and we aren't gettinbg any of those. So let's focus on the best we can perhaps really get, Nene.

http://www.nba.com/statistics/player/Efficiency.jsp?season=22010&league=00&conf=OVERALL&qualified=N&position=0&splitType=9&yearsExp=-1&splitDD=&pager.offset=150