Each Saturday brings high-level statistical analysis from a man who hasn't taken a math class since high school.
This week I lost Danny Granger, who has undoubtedly been the most valuable contributor to my team this season. In looking to replace him in the line-up, I wondered just how valuable he truly was to the Black Prezodents, and how that stacked up against other team MVPs. So I went through each team and calculated what percentage of the team total each team's star had made up in each category over the last month. For the shooting percentages, that entailed way too much math, so I just calculated a +/- figure versus team percentage. The results, below:
(for those of you not mathematically inclined, consider that we start 9 players each week, so the average contribution would be 11% in each category.)
Black Prezodents' Danny Granger:
field goal percentage: -.067
free throw percentage: +.205
three-pointers made: 30%
points: 18%
rebounds: 9%
steals: 8%
blocks: 32%
Professor Dribbles' Kobe Bryant:
field goal percentage: -.021
free throw percentage: +.077
three-pointers made: 38%
points: 24%
rebounds: 10%
assists: 16%
steals: 20%
blocks: 9%
Browless Wonders' Chris Paul
field goal percentage: +.029
free throw percentage: -.021
three-pointers made: 12%
points: 16%
rebounds: 8%
assists: 32%
steals: 33%
blocks: 5%
Fear the Turtle's Caron Butler
field goal percentage: -.003
free throw percentage: +.085
three-pointers made: 23%
points: 15%
rebounds: 12%
assists: 19%
steals: 17%
blocks: 8%
Snap Jelly Soldiers' Lebron James
field goal percentage: -.006
free throw percentage: -.074
three-pointers made: 28%
points: 21%
rebounds: 15%
assists: 27%
steals: 17%
blocks: 14%
Working's fo Suckers' Jason Kidd
field goal percentage: +.017
free throw percentage: -.084
three-pointers made: 20%
points: 8%
rebounds: 13%
assists: 34%
steals: 22%
blocks: 21%
Dominique Moceanu's Troy Murphy (that's right, Troy Murphy)
field goal percentage: +.057
free throw percentage: +.021
three-pointers made: 25%
points: 12%
rebounds: 28%
assists: 10%
steals: 9%
blocks: 14%
I should note that I did calculate the percentages for Amar'e Stoudemire as well, and while Murphy was generally the stronger contributor, Amar'e did have an incredible 50% of Moceanu's blocks for the past month. It should also be pointed out, though, that Moceanu rarely makes it out of single-digit blocks in any given week.
Great Oden's Raven's Dwyane Wade
field goal percentage: +.039
free throw percentage: -.070
three-pointers made: 7%
points: 18%
rebounds: 12%
assists: 20%
steals: 22%
blocks: 24%
Fire Al Groh's Dwight Howard
field goal percentage: +.124
free throw percentage: -.072
three-pointers made: 0%
points: 14%
rebounds: 26%
assists: 3%
steals: 10%
blocks: 33%
This was a weird one because Howard is basically a non-factor in threes and assists and a strong negative in free throws, but his contributions in field goal percentage, boards, and blocks are so strong that I think Bardey will agree he's his most valuable player. [Yup, I just asked him. He agrees.]
Kill Whitey's Pau Gasol
field goal percentage: +.120
free throw percentage: -.018
three-pointers made: 0%
points: 19%
rebounds: 23%
assists: 13%
steals: 8%
blocks: 15%
An argument could have been made here for Manu Ginobili or Steve Nash, which I suppose says something about the nature of team basketball and Dekker's team composition/complexion, etc. But I hate Dekker's team and I hate spending time thinking about them, so I just chose Pau because he's my favorite.
Screen Team's Kevin Durant
field goal percentage: +.027
free throw percentage: +.080
three-pointers made: 27%
points: 24%
rebounds: 16%
assists: 15%
steals: 14%
blocks: 16%
Black Ice
It took me 15-20 minutes to do these calculations for each team, and since I don't think Reeves has put 15-20 minutes into this league all season, I didn't bother doing this for Black Ice. Also, they have no players of value.
So what can we make of this? Well, for one thing, not only is Kevin Durant really fucking good, but he's also incredibly important to Screen Team, and probably the MVP of the league--at least for the past month. If we take 11% as the "average" contribution of one player in one category, then Durant is doing more than his fair share in every single category. On top of that, he's better than his team in both field goal percentage and free throw percentage. Say what you will about Lebron or CP3 or Kobe, but they are all statistical liabilities in one category or another, at least relative to the rest of their teams. I should also point out that on this list, only Jason Kidd and Troy Murphy were drafted after Durant. Nice foresight, Screen.
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Durant is just incredible. This year in our draft, we had 3 players who were consensus "top 3" (lebron, cp3, and kobe). After that, there were some major question marks, even though Dwayne Wade has been incredible and injury free this year. That got beb and I discussing how many players we would add to the consensus picks for next years draft (he came over to watch basketball the other night; my wife was already asleep, and his girlfriend was watching some movie about traveling sisterhood pants...the second one). So, I think that you can add 2 more players to the consensus picks next year (in other words, you would be very happy about the top 5 picks; after that, you'd have some figuring to do). I think Lebron, CP3, and Durant are the top 3, with Dwayne and Kobe coming behind. Thoughts?
ReplyDeletei would almost certainly take granger at 6, with those guys off the board. i wouldn't put him in the same class as those guys, but he is still a definitive 6th to me. i don't know if that's just because i've had him or not.
ReplyDeleteI forgot about Granger. I would take him 6th as well. Are there big guys I'm forgetting?
ReplyDeletewould granger go before howard? he might be better all around, but with the relative dearth of top notch big guys i think his value goes up. but maybe granger still goes ahead of him. also, would b. roy make his way into that second tier-late first round group? i haven't looked at his stats lately, but he's been impressive this year.
ReplyDeletediscuss.
also, i love charts and figgers. i love the numbers, but i'm waaaaay too lazy to do the math myself.
ReplyDeleteIs Chris Webber high?
ReplyDeleteI'd put Howard in there (pts, rebs and blocks)
ReplyDelete