re: General NBA Links

Max contracts are a big problem. Maybe big enough to be called THE problem. A team level and league level salary cap (and floor . . . hard or otherwise) should be in there, but a player-level cap should be eliminated.

Also, this link is quite interesting on OKC and their "waves" of talent.

Gernane to the timeline discussion over on BSS I think

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Roberts is a trickier dilemma, but his presence (as noted in this article by Jason Calmes over at Bourbon Street Shots) takes opportunities away from Austin Rivers.

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Legit

TM will be in shortly to call him condescending.

Back on topic

Zach Lowe's weekly column. Must read

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corndeaux

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You seem to know more about advanced stats than most. What's your opinion on PER, WARP, Win Shares, Hollinger's EWA? I usually only look at PER, but I'm not sure which of those statistics hold the most weight. Are WARP ratings flawed by defensive ratings? I think it's tough to throw defensive ratings into determining a player's efficiency/value because it seems so team & scheme reliant.

Pelton wrote an article ranking the Top 10 NBA players by the numbers. He compiled WARP, WS, and EWA data to rank the best players in the NBA. Anthony Davis was eighth on the list.

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Gazing at this season's NBA cosmos has created more answers than questions. While it's clear that the stars of Kevin Durant and LeBron James shine the brightest, the order after them is subject to debate. Early in the season, Paul George looked like the league's third-best player. Then LaMarcus Aldridge took his turn. More recently, Blake Griffin seems to have attained that honor, but cases can be made for any number of players.

To help answer the question of who's next after Durant and James and rank the league's best players, let's take a look at this season's numbers, focusing on three measures of player value: my wins above replacement player (WARP), Basketball-Reference.com's win shares and John Hollinger's estimated wins added (EWA).

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Besides Durant's dominance, a couple of things stand out. First, notice the consistent differences between the three stats. EWA values are the highest because replacement level is set lower than in WARP. Win shares don't explicitly use replacement level, but because credit for defense is divided equally among players on the same team, it has a smaller spread between the best players and the worst ones.

Perhaps the most interesting thing to note from the chart is how quickly talent levels off outside the top two to three players. For example, the difference in WARP between Durant and Anthony Davis (fifth, at 14.5) is larger than the gap between Davis and the 20th-best player. The top 10 is an arbitrary standard, and the difference between finishing eighth and 12th is mostly a matter of taste. So without further ado, here are the top 10:

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8. Anthony Davis | New Orleans Pelicans

Though poor defensive numbers for Davis and the Pelicans as a team remain a concern, it's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the way he's torching opponents at the other end of the floor. Within weeks of my suggesting Davis could eventually become a 30 PPG scorer, he's averaging 32.3 points in his past eight games (on 58.0 percent shooting) with six 30-point games in the past month. Even win shares, which reflect New Orleans' defensive woes, now has Davis as a top-10 player (he's fifth in both WARP and EWA).

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I'm not going to post the write ups on the other players in the top 10, but here is the list:

10. James Harden
9. Paul George
8. Anthony Davis
7. Russell Westbrook
6. Blake Griffin
5. Stephen Curry
4. Chris Paul
3. Kevin Love
2. Lebron James
1. Kevin Durant

Honorable Mention - Aldridge, Bosh, Cousins, Dragic, Lowry, Howard, Noah, Dirk, Wade, Tony Parker, Melo

I like the SBNation draft lottery idea. Lottery actually decides 10-15 picks and every team is in the lottery. There are a few different ways you could try to allocate the odds, but none work out perfect.

I worked one out that gives the best team in the league a 1% shot. Each subsequent position has odds about 7.316% higher than the previous pick. The second best team's odds would be around 1.07316%. The odds for the 3 worst teams would end up being around 7.74883%, 7.22060%, and 6.72837%. There would have to be some rounding involved to get to a manageable number of balls

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What's your opinion on PER, WARP, Win Shares, Hollinger's EWA?

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I look at PER, WS, WS/48 (which includes a replacement level element), and WP/48 stats from Box Score Geeks. Not as familiar with EWA.

For me the key thing is none of these numbers are the holy grail. No one number can be that definitive, especially since defense is still such a mystery. They all do a nice job, but I hesitate to point to only one the same way I hesitate to only look at stats and not watch games. It's pieces of a whole for me.

Thanks for the link. Interesting to see how far ahead James/Durant rate and how highly Davis rates while playing on a terrible defense

Remember, no matter how much you hate Monty or Roberts or Gordon or all the injuries or whatever, the Pelicans are not the Knicks. Monty is not Mike Woodson. Gordon is not JR Smith. Davis is not Melo. We are not making up hilarious terms to describe our teams awfulness.

Read this, laugh, and be happy it's not New Orleans

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I have a quibble with the way the term FARTDOG has spread. My quibble is: When people ask each other what FARTDOG stands for, the response is usually "Friendly Alliance of Really Terrible Defenders of Opposing Guards." While that sounds most correct, I insist that it should be "for," not "of". As we've discussed before, the Knicksdefense doesn't just permit opposing guards to go off, it promotes their efforts. It is a charitable organization, and it rarely fails to uplift.

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I don't know shite about math.

I just read what these formulae are supposed to tell me and take it into consideration. Haven't the foggiest about the models or anything specific like that.

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I hesitate to only look at stats and not watch games. It's pieces of a whole for me.

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I would also say ignoring numbers and only trusting your eyes is just as dangerous. Use all the tools you can to form an opinion

As long as the tax rules allow one set of teams to outspend another to a degree that influences title allocation (like recently), then the tax rules are having thr opposite effect of what they are intended to do, which is level the NBA title chances to a degree while allowing spikes in spending to appease both players and fans.