2012-13 Season Weaknesses
I do want to deliver a different message, but it would take industrial tools to polish this turd.
I mean, where do I start? He’s been bad to poor at everything not listed above? Look at the Advanced stats chart above. He’s below average as an NBA guard in every category. EVERY CATEGORY. And it extends to everything measurable. Most guards in the league need to have something they do well to hang their hat on, but even the two things Rivers does correctly are mitigated by the fact that he can’t make the free throws, and he can’t hit the good shots he manufactures.
Even defensively, where some seek to hang their Rivers hat, Austin has not been strong this season. Most metrics show the Hornets defense didn’t really change with him on and off the court, and Synergy Sports ranks him 308th in the league as a defender, allowing .91 points per possession defended. Considering where the team was (29th overall) that is hardly surprising.
So he was a subpar defender, a subpar rebounder, a subpar passer, a subpar shooter. He earned a 5.9 PER. 5.9! I’ve never seen that from anyone who played more than a few games worth of minutes. Win Shares and Win Score both rate him so poorly that they say he single-handedly cost the Hornets games. That means, by all three metrics, that you could replace him with any good player from a lesser league – D-League, Europe – and do better. A lot better.
That is also the impetus for the articles stating he was one of the worst players ever. He produced those low numbers, but played a lot. Usually when a player has these kinds of issues, he doesn’t get to play. Rivers played anyway. So he got the opportunity to make his team worse.
