NBA Statistics

After accidentally sending my laptop's power supply via UPS last Saturday, I finally received it today, so maybe blogging will increase.

Maybe I will have more to add to this post, but at any rate: I noticed Grant Hill on the bench Wednesday night during the Magic/Bobcats game, and asked myself just how often he's on the injured list. Today, after ESPN mentioned that Mo Vaughn got $17 million for not playing in 2004, I looked at Basketball-Reference.com and discovered that Hill has been paid around $76 million by the Orlando Magic for his first six seasons on that team. During that time he's played 135 games. Given his season game average over six years with Detroit (77 per full season played), he has "earned" $43 million per seasons played with the Magic.

MORE: Biggest surprises on the list of the 50 active players with the most career games:

• Jalen Rose: Even though I know he's as old as Webber and Howard, somehow he remains young in my mind.
• Stacey Augmon: I guess I thought he retired but he's just been playing reduced minutes down south since leaving that Portland.
• Jim Jackson has been around for a good while, but I'm always vaguely uncertain that he's still in the league. I don't know why.
• Calbert Cheaney: He played multiple years for the Bullets and the Warriors, in between he missed nearly a full season in Denver.
• Toni Kukoc: I seriously have not seen this guy in a highlight since he left Chicago in 2000.

Also, you can count the (at least one-time) superstars on one hand: Payton, O'Neal, Mutombo, Kidd, Garnett. I wonder if that's always true, or if we're seeing a lull in talent among older veterans right now. If you look at the minutes played list, those five are in the top six along with current iron man Clifford Robinson. You lose some of the journeymen and add Iverson, Duncan, Kobe, Dirk(?). Garnett seems like the type of guy who could just burn himself out or go insane as intense as he is with a team like the Timberwolves. Kidd I could see playing a good long time if he stays healthy. Kobe should be around forever.

Of course, it all comes back to Lebron for me. He is indeed a remarkable physical specimen, and he played something like 11,000 minutes before turning 22--Payton is the current leader at 45,000. But if you watch a Cavs game the opposing team will probably commit at least one called intentional, flagrant, or technical foul on him, and he will crash to the floor very hard as many as a dozen times. He enjoys playing like a running back, but is his body taking running back-type punishment from which it will become able to recover less and less quickly?