Comments

For those interested, I compared the Standard Deviations of PER and APER against each other on a year by year basis for the entire league and position by position for all players with > 15 minutes per game.

Overall StdDevs
PER_____APER____YEAR
5.43____5.63____2010
4.23____4.55____2009
4.14____4.35____2008
4.35____4.60____2007

Point Guard:
PER_____APER____YEAR
5.31____5.88____2010
4.17____4.67____2009
4.00____4.45____2008
4.17____4.74____2007

Shooting Guard:
PER_____APER____YEAR
6.26____6.36____2010
4.73____5.19____2009
4.07____4.47____2008
4.65____4.98____2007

Small Forward:
PER_____APER____YEAR
5.27____5.61____2010
4.20____4.56____2009
3.85____4.14____2008
3.80____4.03____2007

Power Forward:
PER_____APER____YEAR
5.10____5.08____2010
3.53____3.58____2009
3.95____3.95____2008
4.94____5.01____2007

Center:
PER_____APER____YEAR
4.86____4.80____2010
3.77____3.84____2009
4.54____4.39____2008
4.36____4.25____2007

These numbers basically say that the best PG, SG, and SF should have higher numbers than PER but it doesn't necessarily mean that they were that much better.
For comparison's sake:
LeBron James 2009:
PER: 31.7 StdDev for SF:4.20 StdDev from 15:3.95
APER:33.32 StdDev for SF:4.56 StdDev from 15:4.01
So the difference is not nearly as large as the numbers look, it would be larger for a player like Chris Paul though, but I'll leave any of that to you to do.

Dlirag           19

A case can be made for valuing steals somewhat more than drawn charges. http://www.sonicscentral.com/apbrmetrics/viewtopic.php?t=136

Matt Nolan           20

This is a possible future addition of the "Bill Simmons Super Steal" which is a steal that leads to a made basket within 5 seconds which would lead us to believe that it was a fast break and was nearly guaranteed of two points, but for now they both end a possession with no way to calculate the actual value between them. Also there's the value of the charge in giving a foul to the player who committed it.

j_d_hastings           21

Understanding that counting passes that lead to FTs as assists would destroy the standard measurement of that stat through the years, has anyone ever tried to track "Assisted FTAs" as its own number? One might expect that the change would mainly benefit those who already score a lot of assists, but it still seems like its worth tracking. "Attempted assists" may also be an interesting stat- passes that lead to missed field goal attempts. That could tell us A) guys whose teammates let them down the most or B) guys who don't get their teammates as good a look as others. It seems like both of these would be fairly easy to track and could give some good extra insight into play making (as would the old "hockey assist" pipe dream), though I don't know what insights those would be without seeing the numbers. maybe this is a question for the apbm board.

Matt Nolan           22

Given the format of ESPN's play by play there is no way to tell where the ball came from on a missed shot.