Is it possible for a player to improve, yet have worse statistics?

It's been 24 hours, time to cough up your answer @plutoblue11

 

Yes and i'm saying the only reason he put the ball in the basket more than Orlando was because he was playing against bums. The Center position was officially dead at that point. He just had the fortune of dominating it one last time before it was phased out and faceup PF's started becoming "Centers."

 

What an interesting question. Good on you, OP, for breaking the monotony of the offseason.

Mostly agreed with this. You can average less PTS/REB/AST and still be considered better.

NFL: Offensively, I'm not sure if you can average less TD passes or less rushing yards or less receiving yards, and still be considered better. However, you can average less TFL/sacks/measureables, and still be considered better than any particular season in which you filled up the stat sheet.

 

In the NBA a guy like Eric Gordon will put up monster numbers if Harden and CP3 aren't on the court due to rest or injury. However those #s won't be anywhere as efficient. Lots of teams have a lack of elite talent so they have a kind of meh player putting up great #s. Early career Harden on OKC wasn't forced to handle the ball as much or play giant minutes, and therefore was much more locked in on defense and had fresh legs. He also had two mega all-star caliber players on his team. Harden is the exact type of guy that will see a giant gain in efficiency on both offense and defense if another superstar joins the Rockets.

 

Definitely, because:
Roles change
Teammates change
Opponents change
Coaches change
etc.... sports are full of conflating factors.

Basketball is my 1b favorite sport, hockey is my 1a. In hockey, this is observably true, especially because players play short bursts on 'lines', and so hockey gives you an instant experiment to see how much 'linemates' and coaching style can affect a guy's assist numbers, steal numbers, etc - because he's able to play to different spots on the ice (aka on the floor) with more (or less) confidence, etc. Yet, you can see from a guy's positional play, puck control, shooting percentage, turnover %, etc that he has improved.

Inflammatory bonus statement: this is why I get sick of people dismissing players because they didn't win a championship, etc. It's not always a direct reflection on them. So many factors.