Alright, so the other day I was arguing with my buddy about Kevin Durant’s performance in the NBA Finals. He kept saying KD was a “system player,” and I was like, “Nah, man, the dude’s a Finals MVP!” So, I decided to dig into the stats and prove my point. I needed hard data to shut him up.
Finding the Data
First, I needed to find the right data. It take some time. I spent all afternoon looking, it felt like a endless loop.
Collecting and Organizing
Once I found the stuff, it took me time to collect all the different series KD played in. I made a simple list, nothing fancy:
- 2012 Finals (vs. Heat):
- 2017 Finals (vs. Cavaliers):
- 2018 Finals (vs. Cavaliers):
- 2019 Finals (vs. Raptors): (Injury-shortened)
I had to watch some of them again.I picked out the key stats I cared about: points, rebounds, assists, and maybe shooting percentages just to be thorough.
Crunching the Numbers
Now for the fun part – actually looking at the numbers! I wanted to see his averages across all those series, and see how consistent he was.
I also use the calculator to get some averages.
I was looking for patterns. Did he always show up big in the Finals? Was there one series where he was significantly better or worse? The 2019 Finals, where he got injured, was obviously an outlier, so I had to consider that *’s so bad to effect the final result.
The Verdict
After all that digging and calculating, I had my answer. I could finally go back to my buddy with a solid, data-backed argument. I won’t spoil the exact numbers here, but let’s just say I had plenty of ammo to prove that KD is a Finals * way to say he is “system player”.
It was a bit of work, but hey, winning an argument with your friend is always worth it. Plus, I learned a lot more about KD’s Finals performances than I ever thought I would!
