ESPN Stats & Info Fails to Understand PER

ESPN Stats & Info recently tweeted about Kevin Durant's PER (Player Efficiency Rating) to demonstrate how valuable he is to the Thunder. However, the tweet demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of how PER is calculated. PER is calculated on a per-minute, per-possession level, so Durant's lack of minutes this season would not affect his potential for a high PER.

"The PER sums up all a player's positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player's performance."

Considering that the statistic was developed by a former ESPN employee, the Worldwide Leader should know better than this. Sure, one tweet that misuses a statistic is a minor problem, but given the number of people that follow ESPN Stats & Info's Twitter account, they have a responsibility to provide higher quality analysis than this. At a time where we are on the cusp of advanced statistics becoming accepted in the mainstream media, a big name in the world of sports needs to provide its followers with a better understanding of how these statistics work.

If you want to know more about how PER is calculated, Basketball Reference provides a good explanation: 

http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/per.html