Talk:Paul Hoffman (basketball)

Paul Hoffman's birth year

I think we need to hold off making the change in Hoffman's birth year for now. I have multiple references that support the May 5, 1925 birth date (giving him an age of 73 at the time of death), contradicting the April 12, 1922 birth date given at [1]. Among these sources are

• The Official NBA Basketball Encyclopedia. Villard Books. 1994. p. 580. ISBN 0-679-43293-0. (this gives the May 5, 1925 date of birth)
• The Baltimore Sun obituary [2] (mentions age 73 at death)
• The AP obituary list [3] (mentions age 73 at death)

I will contact www.basketball-reference.com and see if they can support the April 12, 1922 date, or see if they acknowledge it as a mistake (they've made mistakes before). I'll report on their response here once I receive it. — Myasuda (talk) 13:24, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

In addition, Hoffman was still playing high school basketball in 1943: [4] Zagalejo^^^ 17:38, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

That's a good find. Additional support for the 1925 birth year that I've managed to find include this other obituary [5] (which states his age was 73) and this Indiana Hall-of-Fame site that lists his high school graduation year as 1943: [6]. On the other hand, I just looked at an "official" 1972-73 Knicks guide (Hoffman played part of the 1954-55 season with the Knicks -- the guide lists all Knicks who played for the organization through the 1971-72 season) that actually does list a birth date of April 12, 1922. So while the overall evidence certainly leans towards a 1925 birth year, there's also evidence that the 1922 date listed at basketball-reference.com was not just a careless mistranscription. Anyhow, I'm still waiting for a response from them. — Myasuda (talk) 17:25, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi everybody. First of all, I apologize for my very bad level of english due to my excessive rate of frenchiness. Well, I've just corrected Paul Hoffmann's date of birth on fr.wikipedia with your brand-new source and I suppose everything's gonna be fine right now. The explanation of all this mess is a french script used by the members of the french basketball project, which shows us stuff like things remaining to do about the articles and points some random errors or differences between dates of births. So when a brand-new user from the project (including me, two months ago) wants to help by correcting this, he might think that writers from en.wikipedia made a mistake because of basketball-reference.com. Of course if 1922 has to actually become the right year, don't hesitate to correct us on fr.wikipedia, as well you'll be able to leave me a message on my french User Talk Page. --El Funcionario (talk) 05:40, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Incomplete 1954–55 season stats

Hoffman's stats from the 1954–55 season are incomplete on Basketball Reference. It only displays his stats for the three teams he played for that season combined, while his statlines for the individual teams are blank. Viewing his game log during that season only shows his FGs, FT%, fouls and points, but even those are not for all games played. I am not sure how to complete Hoffman's career statistics, as the typical method of having a different row for each player's season with a team (even for different teams in the same season) can not be done. At the moment, I have put the stats he achieved that season with the teams combined as it appears on Basketball Reference (the game log only shows games he played for New York and Philadelphia, so I doubt the ones he played with Baltimore are a part of this anyway). I have left a note mentioning the incomplete stats in the article, but do not know if this is the correct way to indicate this. Is there another source besides Basketball Reference that would have his stats, and how should his stats for the 1954–55 season be shown if they cannot be viewed for each individual team? – CalDoesIt (talk) 12:23, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

I have a Knicks press-guide from their championship 1972-73 season (maybe a collectors item now) that lists Hoffman's 1954-55 stats (like many other press-guides, it has a complete player registry). They are . . . games 18, minutes 268, fga 78, fgm 21 (fg pct .269), fta 31, ftm 17 (ft pct .548), rebounds 40, assists 25, pf 41, dqs 0, pts 59, (ppg 3.3). Since Hoffman's game log at basketball-reference.com shows no games for Baltimore, we can now obtain his stats for Philadelphia by subtracting the Knicks totals from his season totals. — Myasuda (talk) 13:04, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

I have corrected Hoffman's stats using your information. Thank you for your help and incredibly fast response. – CalDoesIt (talk) 14:35, 7 June 2017 (UTC)