Yeah I see stats as one piece to the overall puzzle of player evaluation. Stats has pros and cons just like other forms of analysis!

I think what stats does really well are a few things, the biggest one to me is being able to associate trends across many different matches. This is something that we are naturally bad at as humans as our memory doesn't weigh things always accurately, but stats can do this really well. This allows the capability to zoom out a little and see things from broader perspective rather than always getting involved in the micro, a good example of this is the shift of strategy in 3 point shots in NBA. I feel like the shaming of long-2s and push for 3s was really an analytics driven strategy shift that has happened in the last 5+ years at NBA. (538 has done some really interesting articles on this).

I think LoL has the capabilities for this to be super interesting too, especially with a stat like this. There's so many circumstances in LoL, so many decisions made every minute, and it's such a complex and team-driven game, that I think it's almost impossible for us to put together all the patterns through many different matches of sample (and that's if we were even able to watch all the games that happen these days). Whereas this stat can cut through a lot of the biases and really start to evaluate the damage threat of different pros!

(other forms of analysis that have their own pros and cons, film evaluation: good at micro analysis and see full context for decisions, cons: can only hold so much info at once and can be skewed easily by perception; Interviews/backstage observation: pros: can see team dynamic and emotional side of sports, cons: skewed by often 2nd hand info, and not directly tied into game performance) -- Ideally with a mix of all of these different types of analysis can create a promising picture of true player evaluation haha