Everybody knows about the philosophical concept of “Pascal’s Wager”, which makes some tired and obsolete argument about the existence/non-existence of God. Pascal’s Wager is lame and boring and there’s no need to discuss it anymore because people smarter than us have already dissected it into dust.
Not many people are aware of the less-used axiom of “Paschall’s Wager”, however. Paschall’s Wager goes like this:
“It is better to be a rookie on a bad team putting up lower-efficiency, higher-volume stats than it is to be a rookie on a good team putting up higher-efficiency, lower-volume stats.”
Paschall’s Wager is something that the world’s leading philosophers still have debates over to this day. Well, they would if philosophers cared about NBA basketball. For some reason, they don’t, and even the ones that do care about basketball don’t often think philosophically about basketball concepts. There’s certainly no body of literature arguing about the accuracy or logical soundness of Paschall’s Wager. But run-of-the-mill NBA fans are happy to debate its merits for hours.
Would Eric Paschall be putting up the stats he’s putting up on any other team? Probably not. Is it beneficial for him to put up stats now and get used to the feeling of putting up stats, rather than sitting on the bench as the third-string PF somewhere? I would say yes. You are welcome to disagree, but please be aware that, in your disagreement, you are wrong.