As opinionated as I am--and I think I'm pretty high on the list--this is not an opinion piece. Rather, it's something I've been thinking about for a while and wanted to start a discussion on. So consider this less of a FanPost and more a round table discussion.

Here is the topic: You often hear people say things like, "Rondo's numbers are inflated because he's passing to so many good shooters." Or, "Player X only looks that good because he has Nash feeding him the ball." Fair enough. Having a good player around you can take the heat off you by preventing teams from throwing a double team at you and a good assist man makes you look like a pretty good shooter. .

But at the same time, you hear people talking about Tyreke's rookie year, and saying, "Of course his numbers were higher, because he was the only shooter on the team." This is not at all specific to Evans, and I'm not looking to make it about him. Take any top scoring rookie and put him on a weak team, and you will hear the same thing.

You also hear people saying, "Player X would have twice as many assists if he played with guys who can shoot."

My question, then is: Which more artificially inflates a players numbers, or inversely, negatively affects his numbers, being surrounded by above average players or below average players? And are certain positions more affected than others?

My initial swing at this would be that playing on a bad team gives you more changes to take shots and more opportunity to get rebounds of your team's misses. So you should see an increase in offensive rebounds and PPG. But because you are going to get more pressure, your shooting percentage will probably be lower, and your assists could be down. I'm also thinking your defensive numbers are not going to look as good, because you don't have the kind of solid team defense working for you.

Again, this is not focused on a specific player. But since the Kings have for several years now been a below average team. What players might have better talent than we are seeing here? And what players might appear better than they are? Let's leave coaching more or less out of the discussion, because I think we can all agree a player coached by somebody like Pops is going to look better.