Question about minutes per game

[Winnipegopher]

Why in basketball do they calculate minutes played and omit the DNPs from the statistics?

I understand if you were injured but if you were available to play but didn't shouldn't that count as 0 and factor into your averages?

 

[Gophers09]

I agree, can't answer your question though.

 

[Rick Mons]

I suspect the reason is because it would require that the DNPs be further distinguished between DNP-CD (coach's decision) versus DNP-I (injury/illness) versus DNP-S (suspension/ineligibility)

Without those distinctions, it's always possible to calculate the average minutes by just dividing total minutes played by total games played by team ... but IMO the latter stat is somewhat meaningless if you don't know how many games were unavailable to play due to injury, illness, ineligibility and/or suspension.

For example, Kevin Payton played in only 9 games ... several were due to suspension/ineligibility IIRC and I also think he had "the flu" prior to at least one game.

 

[Winnipegopher]

I don't know but seems to me if you dress and warm up, you can play and that counts as a DNP-CO. FWIW hockey is the same, it is just much rarer for someone not to play and minutes played is not as important a stat.

Useless interesting stat, Garry Unger was dressed, healthy but benched when his league record consecutive game streak ended. The coach was sending him and the team a message. Apparently players kept coming off trying to get him on the ice.