On NBAtv tonight, the 24 year old Kevin Garnett is carrying his Minnesota Timberwolves in game 7 the 2004 Western Conference quarter finals.  He’s played both forward positions, the center, and actually manned the point position to give Sam Cassell a break in the 4th.  He’s used hooks, up and unders, fadeaways, cross-over blow-by dribbles for dunks, and timely cuts with strong finishes to dominate the interior against a deep King’s team.  He’s also done it on defense, protecting the paint and guarding the top of Flip Saunders’s 3-2 zone.  As the game tightens up at the end, every play is run through KG, and there’s nothing Sacramento can do about it.

When you watch Boston play today, it’s easy to forget that The Kid was once the best player in the league.

Here’s a quick spreadsheet I put together using career per-game data beginning from the 3 point era – initially sorted by Win Shares and then resorted by AWS after I performed the calculations.

Lots of these guys make the list.

For those too lazy to click the links, here’s the breakdown by position with overall ranking in parentheses.

PG – Magic Johnson (3), Chris Paul (7), John Stockton (25), Kevin Johnson (32), Isiah Thomas (43)

SG – Michael Jordan (1), Clyde Drexler (15), Dwyane Wade (16), Kobe Bryant (23), Vince Carter (34)

SF – Larry Bird (2), LeBron James (4), Julius Erving (12), Alex English (18), Shawn Marion (20)

PF – Charles Barkley (5), Karl Malone (10), Kevin Garnett (11), Dirk Nowitzki (13), Chris Webber (19)

C – Hakeem Olajuwon (6), David Robinson (8), Shaquille O’Neal (9), Tim Duncan (14), Kareem A-J (17)

Boy, we’ve got a lot of the right names in there, don’t we? The order is funky, but that’s because the stats aren’t pace-adjusted or minute adjusted. Still if you consider that AWS is an offshoot of a metric that once measured Dennis Rodman as a more valuable member of the Bulls than Michael Jordan, it’s a nice step. It certainly isn’t meant to be used to measure players between generations the way we have here, but I’m actually pretty fond of the results though I had nothing to do with them. I’d probably get better results working year to year or in 5 year clips instead of as an all-time ranking this way.

I can’t figure out how Clyde could possibly outrank Wade, but I think it might have something to do with offensive rebounding and low turnovers – see Paul’s article regarding the benefits of Drexler’s possession creation here. Kobe of course is almost always rated lower than we’d expect by metrics. Too many misses and turnovers, plus low-production and low-efficiency in his teen years. If I set age limits, he would move up. So would LeBron and Garnett probably. Though if I set maximum age limits some of that might be reversed. Actually maximum age is probably why Pippen is below Marion.

No one position is massively underrepresented at the top. No decade is missing (though the newer players like Rose and Durant didn’t have the opportunity to make the list since I made it based on career Win Shares.

One of the things I like about the Win Score model is that it’s accessible to the mathematically challenged among us and has a very comprehensible logic about it. There have always been a couple of fundamental flaws with the formula though. One problem is the way the stat considered a shot to be as bad as a turnover which the Alternate formula corrects by factoring the 30% chance of an offensive rebounding. The other issue is that the stat weighted rebounds with no regard for the diminishing value of grabbing a defensive board. The Alternate formula factors in the likelihood of a team losing a rebound on either side of the ball and adjusts by that percentage.

I’ll work with this model a little more in the future to see if we can factor AWS into the Grand Ole Double Dribble NBA Player Ranking System (TM).

To rank point guards, I gathered every NBA boxscore over the past 365 days–through Tuesday’s games–and determined the starting point guard in each game (most were obvious, some were judgment calls). I then calculated Alternate Win Score, the best linear-weights metric, for both point guards in a matchup, tracking how often each point guard outproduced their counterpart.

Check it out.  Do it.

BIG NOTE: These stats are provided by Basketball-Reference.com, the best website on earth, and the box scores in the database only go back to 1986.

BIG NOTE: These stats are provided by Basketball-Reference.com, the best website on earth, and the box scores in the database only go back to 1986. That is why Wilt and Oscar and Kareem and Elgin aren’t way, way, way, way, way, way, way out in front. Also the games include playoffs, which only go back to 1991.

Educate your brains on the below tabled data!

Note how Karl Malone’s consistent productivity over his 40 year career separates him clearly from the rest of the pack. Observe the domination of Shaq, who is 96 games ahead of the next center on the list. Tremble in fear at the way 6′ 4″ Charles Barkley has more 30-10 games than Hakeem, Ewing, Duncan, and Robinson. Saucer your eyes in sheer wonder at the audacity of Michael Jordan breaking into the top ten as a guard (the only other guards in this top 25 list – Kobe Bean and Clyde the Glide).

I do think if one were to subjectively list the top 8 big men to play since 1986, when the stats for the above table begin, the results would match what we show in the top 8 of the table. Maybe shoehorn Garnett in somewhere, but otherwise I think Shaq, Hakeem, Duncan, Malone, Barkley, Robinson, Ewing, and Dirk is pretty hard to argue with if the count starts in 1986.

I’d like to close this bit of statistical tomfoolery with an apology:

If unadjusted stats offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While this table did appear.

1. Chris Bosh – 20.0 ppg, 24.8 usg
2. Derrick Rose – 20.8 ppg, 27.1 usg
3. LaMarcus Aldridge – 22.7 ppg, 27.2 usg
4. Blake Griffin – 21.9 ppg, 28.4, usg
5. Kevin Love – 25.6 ppg, 28.7 usg

The list is dominated by power forwards, which may not be surprising since they are most likely to be on the receiving end of finishing plays, most likely to grab and put back offensive rebounds, and least likely to be dribbling around the court.  That all makes Derrick Rose’s ranking in the top five all the more impressive.

Just thought this was amazing enough to share. This is the way to win 72 games in a season. Steal the ones you’re not supposed to win by turning a two point halftime deficit into a 4 point halftime lead.

If anyone is wondering why I’m not writing more, there are two reasons. First, I can’t draw any conclusions about anything in this shortened season. Wins and losses feel more schedule-related than anything else. Second, the Celtics have fallen apart about as quickly as I expected, and I don’t really need to dwell on the demise of the old gents.

A few thoughts I haven’t shared yet…

Kobe’s illegal German knee surgery seems to have worked wonders. He’s got significantly more lift than last year. Looks like he may take the scoring title back this season.

Playing in backtobacktobacktobacktoback games has been about as destructive on Wade’s knees as we expected. The Heat’s early season chemistry has dissolved due to lineup irregularities… There’s a good bowel joke in there, but I don’t have the time to massage it out. Oh. Well that’ll due.

Dwight Howard broke the record for most free throws attempted in a game. Michael Jordan still holds the record for most made free throws in a game. Cause he can shoot a basketball like someone who shoots a basketball as part of his day job.

Derrick Rose is my new favorite player to watch. He’s the most team-minded shoot-first point guard I’ve ever seen. Everything he does is laser-focused on victory, and he’s Iverson-level-entertaining on his drives into the paint. Hyphenation is a sign of laziness and virility.

More later.

The answer thus far has been Kobe Bryant, and lots of him.  Through 12 games this season, Kobe’s usage is higher than it’s ever been throughout his career.  After 15 seasons, and 1,300 plus games that’s quite a feat.  As a result, Kobe’s win share per 48 minutes is higher than its ever been as well.  As can be expected with a player getting this much usage at this advanced stage in his career, Kobe’s efficiency is not the best.  His true shooting is lower than it’s ever been.  And his effective FG% is the lowest it has been since 2003-2004.

From a less stat based perspective, it’s obvious that Kobe is filling in.  He’s making up for scoring, rebounding, and passing that the Lakers lost when Odom left town.  He’s also taking advantage of an offense with less emphasis on spread productivity.  It’ll be interesting how long Kobe can keep up his torrid pace.  Thus far, it seems the long off season has done him good.