When analyzing a player the natural instinct is to pull statistical information. More often than not statistical data can demonstrate productivity or provide fodder for a debate.. When teams determine player contracts they also point to a player’s production improvements and utilize stats as a big part of the equation.
Certainly there are other factors which play into the decisions, but statistics provide the evidence. Chemistry, team interaction on and off the court and a players willingness to play a role are also key. Although everything a player does can be tracked it’s not typical for us to immediately check to see how many screens a player set, whether they initiated a successful play, how many hockey passes they produced or if they were actively calling out switches in a game.