Why are basketball stats always counted as average per game and not cumulative?
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There are a handful of cumulative records in basketball – one of the most famous records is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time points lead at over 38,000.
But as far as stats go, averages per game (or per season) are much more useful than cumulative, because cumulative totals don’t really tell you the whole story. Imagine an unbelievable rookie player who scores 3,000 points in his first season. Now imagine a player who scores 500 points per season for 6 seasons. Both of these players have a cumulative 3,000 points, but one of them is performing much better than the other.
Same reason that shooting percentage is an important statistic – a player who shoots 100 times for three-pointers and makes 10 of them has scored 30 points, while a player who shoots 20 and makes 10 has also scored 30 points, but he’s done it much more effectively – using less time on the clock, and giving the opposing team way fewer opportunities to turnover and respond. I’d rather have the guy with a 50% 3-point average (which is unreal, but handy for this example) than the guy with a 10% average.
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