Charts & Figgers

High-level statistical analysis from a man who hasn't done math since high school.

Last season, I wrote a Charts & Figgers in which I analyzed each team's MVP by assessing what percentage of the team's total output in each category was produced by each player. It was an interesting exercise, but it was particularly suited to those all-around players that contribute in every category. Those are the type of guys I love, but it doesn't mean there's no place in the Cluj for the freaks who dominate just one category. In thinking about these guys, I wondered to myself: who are the guys who are most capable of swinging a single category all by themselves? Who are the Big Swinging Dicks of Cluj '09-'10? And who is the biggest swinging dick of all? To find out, I did some math.

The Formula
First, I did as last year and calculated the percentage of contribution each player had made to his team. I only used the top contributor in each category for each team, and only included players who had been on their teams for the entire season (or near it). I realized, however, that when I did this last year, I did not account for the effect of the player's contributions on actual wins and losses. For example, Kevin Durant, who I judged to be the player who contributed most to his team in last year's Charts & Figgers, provided 27% of Screen Team's threes, which is great. But Screen was among the worst in the league at 3s and rarely won the category, so what good did that contribution really do them? To solve for this problem, I took the player's percentage of contribution in the category and multiplied it by the number of wins the team had posted, through Week 14, in that cat. This formula produced a number that I'm calling the Big Swinging Dick Factor, and for those of you who are math inclined and didn't understand a word of that paragraph, it looks like this:

Player Total in Category  /  Team Total in Category  x  Team Wins in Category  = BSD Factor

First of all, the top BSDs by category:
Three-Pointers Made: Channing Frye, Noah's Ark; BSD Factor: 3.14
Points: Kevin Durant, Black Prezodents; BSD Factor: 1.80
Rebounds: Dwight Howard, Teen Wolf; BSD Factor: 1.48
Assists: Jason Kidd, Unfrozen Caveman Bogut; BSD Factor: 2.68
Steals: Rajon Rondo, Call em Bullets; BSD Factor: 1.80
Blocks: Dwight Howard, Teen Wolf; BSD Factor: 2.94

(Note that I did not calculate for the percentage categories, which always demand way too much math.)

And here are the top ten overall BSD Factors:
Channing Frye, Noah's Ark - 3PM; BSD Factor: 3.14
Dwight Howard, Teen Wolf - BLK; BSD Factor: 2.94
Jason Kidd, Unfrozen Caveman Bogut - AST; BSD Factor: 2.68
Steve Nash, Power Bottom & Jelly - AST; BSD Factor: 2.67
Rajon Rondo, Call em Bullets - AST; BSD Factor: 2.32
Brook Lopez, Noah's Ark - BLK; 2.30
Aaron Brooks, Cowboys - 3PM; BSD Factor: 2.22
Josh Smith, Call em Bullets - BLK; BSD Factor: 2.19
Andrew Bogut, Unfrozen Caveman Bogut - BLK; BSD Factor: 2.16
Danilo Gallinari, Call em Bullets - 3PM; BSD Factor: 1.96

Now since these factor result partially from the number of games won, and since we're trying to determine who single-handedly swings their categories the most, we also have to consider teammates. For example, UCB's Jason Kidd has 432 assists, accounting for 22% of his team's production in that category. But he's also on the same team as LeBron James, who has 409 assists (21% of the team total). Obviously, UCB's wins in that category are almost equally attributable to LeBron as they are to J-Kidd, so we can't really consider Kidd a BSD. Other such situations include PB&J's Steve Nash, who is closely followed in Assists by teammate Chris Paul; Noah's Ark's Brook Lopez, who has Joakim Noah himself as a blocking partner; and Call em Bullets' Josh Smith, whose blocking has been matched by Sam Dalembert since Bardey picked him up.

Taking those four down a notch, and eliminating Dildo Gallinari (as the only top ten BSD under the 2.0 mark), leaves us with a solid top five Big Swinging Dicks: Channing Frye, Dwight Howard, Rajon Rondo, Aaron Brooks, and Andrew Bogut. Not surprisingly, many of the top BSDs come in the Blocks department, showing that if you can afford to get yourself a specialist there, it's a category that can be one with one big acquisition. Why do you think the Black Prez picked up Chris Andersen this week?