Fantasy Basketball

Ranking the top 30 point guards by total value

Over the next five weeks, I will go position by position and rank the top 30 players by total value. The NBA is a business, so it doesn’t make sense to purely rank the players only by their talent or stats, or by some other qualitative measure (though those factors do matter). We must also look at a player’s salary relative to his peers. Obviously, if a player is in the middle of a very reasonable contract, he’ll get a boost in the rankings.

To summarize a player’s stats, I’ll use the NBA Efficiency statistic, which is defined as:

EFF = ((Points + Rebounds + Assists + Steals + Blocks) - ((Field Goals Att. - Field Goals Made) + (Free Throws Att. - Free Throws Made) + Turnovers))

I’ll list Efficiency Per Game (EPG) for each player, which will give a nice snapshot of his stats. To compare two players that get vastly different minutes, I’ll occasionally mention Efficiency Per Minute (EPM), which is simply the player’s total efficiency divided by his minutes.

I’ll also consider a player’s age and potential. All else being equal, a franchise would probably prefer a 25 year-old point guard to a 32 year-old point guard, right? Essentially, the order of this list comes down to this question – would you trade Player X for Player Y, assuming the goal is to win a title in the next three seasons at a reasonable payroll?

To summarize, there are four major factors I’ll consider: talent (statistical performance), contract, age and potential.

Without further adieu, here are the top 30 point guards, ranked by total value:

1. Chris Paul, Hornets
Age: 23
EPG: 27.8
Contract: two years, $10.6 M ($5.3 M per)
Not only has Paul emerged as hands-down the best point guard in the game, he is still on his rookie contract, so he’s a bargain to boot.

(See the rest of the list after the jump.)

The Lakers have a hole at small forward

Vladimir Radmanovic: good shooter, horrible defender
Luke Walton: poor shooter, good defender
If you combine the strengths of these two players, you have a pretty good small forward. If you combine their weaknesses, you have the worst player in the NBA.
Walton had a couple of bad plays at the end of Game 3 that cost his team […]

Cavs’ offensive woes are… offensive

In 2005, Mike Brown took over a Cavs team that went 42-40 a year before under Paul Silas. Since then, he has compiled a 145-101 (.589) regular season record and led his team to the Finals last season. Good work, right? Yes, but a closer look at the numbers reveals something very troubling.
The Cavs are […]

Lakers’ length and athleticism hurting Jazz

I wrote a few days ago about how the Hornets’ speed is killing the Spurs, and while speed and quickness is also playing a role in the Lakers’ 2-0 start against the Jazz, their length has been a bigger factor.
Specifically, I’m referring to Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol. Their considerable wingspans are really causing problems […]

Kobe wins MVP going away

I realize that it’s old news that Kobe Bryant is this year’s MVP. But the league released the vote tally, and the results are interesting.
Player, Total Points (First Place Votes)
Kobe Bryant, 1105 (82)
Chris Paul, 889 (28)
Kevin Garnett, 670 (15)
LeBron James, 438 (1)
In a recent post, I suggested the possibility of Kobe benefiting from a three-way […]

Hornets’ speed is killing the Spurs

It’s still way too early in the series to write the defending champs off, but I think that even the most ardent San Antonio supporter would admit that things aren’t looking too good. The Spurs entered the series with a serious advantage in playoff experience, but all that’s got them thus far is a pair […]

Celtics/Cavs Preview: LeBron versus the world

Basketball is a funny game sometimes. On paper, it looked like Boston’s first round series would be a cakewalk. Here you go, Big Three. Here’s a young, inexperienced 37-45 team to sweep before you give your old bones some rest. Or, if you want, you can drop a game in Atlanta so you can give […]

Suns give D’Antoni permission to talk to other teams

The Suns have given head coach Mike D’Antoni permission to talk to the Bulls and Knicks about their head coaching vacancies.
So if even Suns management is now convinced that reconciling with its coach is no longer possible, giving D’Antoni an opportunity to find a new job might be the easiest way for Phoenix to move […]

Where do the Suns, Mavs and Nuggets go from here?

Watching the once-proud Suns and Mavs (and the not-so-proud Nuggets) lose their first round series with a combined 2-12 record, the opening lyrics from “Games People Play” (the ol’ Alan Parsons Project song) popped into my head. I realize I’m dating myself, but here they are:

Where do we go from here / now that all other children are growing up
And how do we spend our lives / if there’s no one to lend us a hand

I don’t wanna live here no more / I don’t wanna stay
Ain’t gonna spend the rest of my life / quietly fading away

So where do these three teams go from here?

THE SUNS

Bill Simmons just wrote a good, long piece about the downfall of the Suns where he discusses all the questionable moves that the organization made to get where they are now. I agree with most of what he says, except his claim that the Spurs were the better team in last year’s series with the Suns. (You know, the one where Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw were suspended for the crucial Game 6 in Phoenix when the Suns were up 3-2 and had a chance to put the Spurs away on their home court.) I firmly believe that the Suns would have won that game had Stoudemire and Diaw played, so I never liked their decision to trade Shawn Marion for Shaquille O’Neal (which Simmons defends). The funny thing is that suspension may have completely altered the NBA landscape. Teams around the league were starting to mimic the Suns’ breakneck offensive attack, but the perception after that series was that it wasn’t effective in the playoffs. If the Suns’ win the title that year, the overall pace of the league would have continued to rise.

(Read the rest after the jump.)

Report: Kobe wins first MVP

It’s not official yet, but word has leaked that Kobe Bryant will win his first MVP award.
“The game tomorrow is a beast sitting on my shoulders,” Bryant said after practice Saturday, referring to the opener of the second-round series against the Jazz. “I’m reserving judgment until I hear from David Stern.”
That being said, the 29-year-old […]

Lakers/Jazz Preview: The battle of the efficient

During the regular season, Utah and L.A. were 2/3 in offensive efficiency (after Phoenix), which means that the Jazz and the Lakers were both in the top three in points per possession. This is no surprise considering that these two teams are coached by two of the best in the league, Phil Jackson and Jerry […]

Pistons/Magic Preview: Will the Magic hold the Pistons’ attention?

Things are finally getting interesting in the NBA’s version of the NIT. Two 52+ win teams will square off when the Pistons and Magic do battle on Saturday. The teams split the season series, 2-2, with each team winning one game on the road.
It’s safe to say that the Pistons are having a tough time […]

Correcting Bill Simmons, Part 2

Welcome to the second part of my infinite-part series, Correcting Bill Simmons. To find out why I started this series, feel free to read the first part. Simply stated - Bill Simmons is an entertaining writer, but sometimes he goes off the reservation and says something absurd.
I listened to my first Bill Simmons podcast today. […]

Hack-a-Shaq rears its ugly head (again)

After a thrilling double-overtime Game 1 for the ages, the Suns/Spurs series came to a rather unremarkable close last night when the Spurs won at home, clinching the series 4-1. Throughout the five games, San Antonio utilized the Hack-a-Shaq defense, intentionally fouling Shaquille O’Neal and putting him on the line to try to end the […]

Durant edges Horford for ROY honors

The Seattle Times is reporting that Kevin Durant will win Rookie of the Year.
Kevin Durant, who led all first-year players in scoring, assists and free-throw percentage, will be named the NBA’s rookie of the year and become the first Sonics player to win the award.
Two league sources confirmed Durant outdistanced second-place finisher Al Horford, an […]

What would it take to make the Hawks a contender?

As I watched the young Atlanta Hawks win two home games against the far more experienced Celtics, I wondered – what would it take to turn Atlanta into a serious contender?
My first thought would be to build a time machine and go back to the ’05 draft and take Chris Paul instead of Marvin Williams. […]

Larry Brown will coach the Bobcats

Michael Jordan hired fellow ex-Tar Heel Larry Brown to a four-year contract to coach the Charlotte Bobcats.
“How are you going to say no to Michael?” Brown said. “I’ve known him a long time. The things he stands for have made our game better. There’s no way I could say no to him. It was a […]

LeBron/DeShawn, Josh Howard, MIP and more

It’s kind of sad that the most compelling thing about the Cavs/Wizards series is all the drama surrounding the ongoing feud between LeBron James and DeShawn Stevenson, though I have to admit I love hearing clueless announcers describe the insult in LeBron’s comparison of DeShawn to Soulja Boy. Then Soulja Boy shows up and meets […]

Random thoughts from the NBA playoffs: Day 6

There were two sleepy games tonight, but a great one in Salt Lake City. It was tight the whole way, but the Rockets (behind some good mid-fourth quarter play by T-Mac) built a seven-point lead with under two minutes to play. But McGrady missed a couple of shots (badly) and the Jazz capitalized with back-to-back […]

Random thoughts on the NBA playoffs: Day 5

As I was watching Kobe Bryant go off for 49 points in the Lakers/Nuggets game last night, I found it odd to see him run around pulling his jersey forward, displaying the Laker logo. Wasn’t it just last summer that he was throwing Andrew Bynum and Mitch Kupchak under the bus? Wasn’t it just last […]