Points in the Paint--Meaningless?

I noticed today in K.C.'s daily report (about how Deng might become the Bulls' main low post option) the interesting statistic that the only three teams that scored less points in the paint per game than the Bulls' 35.7 last year were Detroit (35.3), Houston (35.3) and Dallas (35.3). The most striking thing about that, of course, is that all those teams are very good.

Well, it turns out that K.C. was actually a little bit off; both Toronto (35.3) and Minnesota (35.0) also scored less. (Just goes to show you can't believe everything you read in the papers.) But I think the general impression still holds and 82Games' Roland Beech had a fascinating analysis a couple months back that suggested the points in the paint stat as currently constructed is just not very informative. And as far as the Bulls go, any dearth of low-post scoring is largely offset by how few points in the paint they give up each game (35.1), which was third best in the league, and which had a larger correlation to won-loss record than how many were scored.

Anyway, I think it's one more piece of evidence to be marshalled against the incessant "Bulls Need A Low Post Scorer" nonsense.