There’s no time to waste with a provocative opening today. All I have for you is a brief rundown of some of what I find to be the more interesting statistics of Marcus Thornton.

Some Stats

1. The Hornets have been better overall with Marcus on the bench than when he’s in the game. The team scores 3.7 more points per possession than the opposition when he’s not in the game (79% of the time) and 2.1 points per possession when he is (21% of the time).
2. The team has been better offensively with Marcus on the pine. They score more points per possession (1.07 to 1.01) and shoot a higher eFG% (50.0 to 46.3).
3. New Orleans is better defensively with Marcus on the floor. They give up .988 points per possession when he’s on the floor and 1.033 points when he’s off. They allow an effective field goal percentage of 46.2 when he’s on and 48.8 when he’s off.
4. With Thornton on the floor, the team rebounding has been much better, specifically on offense. When he’s out there the team grabs 54.3 percent of all available rebounds, as opposed to the 49.5 percent they get when he’s not. Offensively the team snags 41 percent more boards when he’s on the floor compared to when he has his butt in a court side seat.

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Why in the world are the chairs not much bigger on NBA benches than they are in, say, my house? Those guys are much taller than the average person you encounter in day to day life, so why don’t they have bigger chairs? Not only that, but a seven foot tall person just wouldn’t ideally use the same size chair as someone who is five foot ten. It just would make more sense to have chairs that in some way correspond to the actual size of a player.

Now I’m not saying that there should be chairs tailored for each inch and pound, but why not have small, medium, and large chairs for guys who are 6’0, 6’6, and 7’0. Not one of those heights? Tough, but the chair is still going to fit you better than the the ones currently utilized by the league.

Look at Shaq here. Extra credit to anyone who can explain to me why all the chairs are so damn small.

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I’ll get together some more stats about his specific performance tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Check out 42’s journal entry- The Little Things, which touches on some Marcus stuff as well.

Edit- After the jump there are some more details about how Thornton has played with and without Chris Paul in the lineup, and some more details on how he has done in certain lineups. (Thanks to 82games.com)

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