As statistical concepts assume more and more importance in basketball, which numbers do NBA players such as LeBron James and Seth Curry look at? And which sometimes consume them?
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Steph Curry made 402 3-pointers this season, going completely past the previously uncharted territory of 300 the way Bob Beamon went beyond the boundaries of possibility in the long jump.
It was not, however, a number to which fans related in the same way as 1,000 yards or even 2,000 in an NFL season. Only baseball has the number plateaus that are instantly recognizable to many fans, such as 500 home runs, 300 pitching victories, and a .400 average.
Asked if players talked about 400 threes, LeBron James said, "The shooters do."
"Man, Steph had 400 threes. I had 200," lamented J.R. Smith.
"I don't even know if I ever broke 100," said James.
He has, eight times, but his 87 this year was his lowest total in an 82-game season since he made 63 as a rookie in 2003-04.
90-50-40
James cited some of the most valued numbers in the game in discussing Curry's credentials as the first-ever unanimous NBA Most Valuable Player selection.
"He averaged 30 (points) and was 90-50-40," said James.
This is the shooters' Triple Crown, in free throw percentage, overall field goal percentage, and 3-point percentage, respectively.
In its purest form, without rounding up the numbers, only seven players have done it -- Larry Bird (twice), Steve Nash (four times), Dirk Nowitzki, Reggie Miller, Curry, Kevin Durant and Mark Price, the only Cavalier, in 1988-89.
Efficiency
The stats James himself looks at most, beyond team wins and losses, are related to efficiency in the form of his field goal percentage and turnovers.
J.R. Smith takes a slightly different view. He looks immediately at the assist column in the box score.
"We set as a goal 25 assists," he said.
The Cavs have amassed 25 or more four times in eight playoff games. They have had fewer than 23 only once, with 16 in the fierce close-out game against Detroit.
By the way, don't bust on turnovers all that much. Great players have the ball in their hands a lot and commit the most.
But you can't go all James Harden, whose 374 in Houston this season were the most ever by a player who played solely in the NBA. (Billy Cunningham and George McGinnis had more during their ABA employment.)
Sure shooting
Kyrie Irvng also has the most interest in winning or losing.
Taught to shoot by his father Drederick in a style Irving called "Old School, from behind the head," he himself began launching the ball from his stomach as a small child, moved up to his chest, and now shoots from in front of his face.
A dutiful son, Irving has resisted the impulse to point to his own shooting on threes (28 for 52, 53.8 percent) in the playoffs and say to his dad, "That in front of the face thing worked out OK, huh?"
An anonymous letter
By any terms you want to use, including ball-hogging, gunning, and sociopathic abandonment of conscience, scoring and field goal attempts are usually the biggest causes of jealousy on a team.
When they were teammates in Philadelphia, Steve Mix jokingly (sort of) circled teammate Tom Van Arsdale's shot total, which was in the high 20s, in the box score after one game, as well as his own, which was in the low single-digits, and mailed it anonymously to Van Arsdale with the note scrawled on it: "Don't you ever pass?"
Skywalker vs. Iceman
Actually, in the biggest scoring lollapalooza in NBA history, two NBA teams willingly subordinated collective goals to try to help their stars win the scoring title.
It happened on April 9, 1978, the last day of the regular season.
Denver coach Larry Brown turned loose guard David Thompson, whose hops made him the brother, at least in nicknames, of Luke Skywalker back at the dawn of "Star Wars." Against the Detroit Pistons, Thompson hit 20 of his first 21 shots and scored 33 points in the first quarter. Thompson had 53 points at halftime.
He finished with 73 (28 of 38 from the field, 17 of 20 from the line) in a 139-137 loss, for a 27.15 average.
The San Antonio Spurs, playing New Orleans later that day, conspired to feed George "Iceman" Gervin the ball often enough to get the 58 points he needed to hold the narrow lead in scoring he took into the final game.
Gervin had 53 at halftime, too. In all, he was 23 for 49, 17 for 20 at the line, for 63 points in a 152-132 loss. His scoring average was 27.22 points per game.
Ricky Davis , stat padder
In probably the single most brainlessly selfish act in NBA history, the Cavs' Ricky Davs, who had 25 points, 12 assists, and nine rebounds, deliberately shot at the wrong basket in the final seconds of a game against Utah, in an attempt to get a triple-double.
He grabbed his own miss off the rim and was hard fouled for his pain by Deshawn Stevenson of Utah. The NBA ruled the rebound did not count.
George McGinnis, stat-padder
McGinnis was known for his self-absorption in the ABA. Several times, the power forward would release early when an opponent's shot went up. McGinnis then would take the outlet pass if the player missed and deliberately shoot the ball against the (correct) backboard, repeatedly tapping it for offensive rebounds to swell his total.
Larry Brown, the David Thompson enabler, said privately after one such game, "It was a disgrace."
More rebounding chicanery
The 1973-74 race for the rebounding title between Boston's Dave Cowens and the Capital Bullets' Wes Unseld came down to the final day. The Celtics played at Philadelphia in the afternoon. The Bullets were at home later in the day.
A phone call from the Bullets' stat crew to an unsuspecting Harvey Pollack, the statistics guru of the 76ers and head of the team's numbers crew, obtained Cowens' rebound total for the game.
Unseld, his rebounding total puffed up with tips and keep-alives, got just enough rebounds later that night to win the crown with an average of 14.75 to Cowens' 14.7.
Pollack afterward occasionally put Unseld, as he would do with Boston's Bill Russell, "under the microscope," as he called it, assigning one staffer to do nothing but log his rebounds. In both cases, they sometimes failed to reach their season averages.
Minutes played
Probably the first item in the box score that the vast majority of players look at is minutes played. The late North Carolina coach Dean Smith refused to let team statisticians list seasonal minutes played, believing the stats were detrimental to unity.
It was a nice try.
With spy cameras from on-high recording almost everything that moves in the modern NBA, the analytics genie is out of the bottle. It has been summoned not by magic words, but by numbers -- familiar as points per game and arcane as true shooting and per possession stats.
Think of them as the combination of lock, revealing the secrets of the game and the strengths and weaknesses of the human spirit