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[mvossman]

Numbers are just raw data. If I played with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Lebron James and Wilt Chamberlain against five Dwight Powell´s we´d win every game by 50 points. Does that mean I´m a better basketball player than Dwight Powell, cause my net rating would sure look very sexy. 

My basic stat line would probably look like 0/0/0/0/0 with eight turnovers. 90% of the points scored by the Dwights were on me, but eye test and basic stats are generally overrated analytical tools.   

I can see what Powell brings to the table. I don´t need a positive or negative net rating to tell me that. He´s good defending in space. He works hard. He rarely makes mistakes and keeping the defense connected, but he offers zero rim protection (pyhsically or psychologically) or rebounding against fundamentally elite level opposition. And with the Mavs he is not helped by the fact that we generally are always on the smalller unathletic side to begin with.

While its not a good idea to focus entirely on analytics, is also not a good idea to focus entirely on the "eye test".  Its not only that none of us are NBA scouts, but the really hard part is to determine how important certain skills are on the court.  Your last paragraph is a fairly good assessment of who Powell is as a player, but what does that mean?  How big are those tradeoffs?  I was a long time Powell hater as he looks like he gets regularly abused on the defensive end and doesn't do much but occasionally dunk on the offensive end.  It took a long time for analytics to convince me that he provides more value than what the eye test suggests.