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 ado, 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.)