Happy Valley Hoops

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My “How does Geary Claxton rank” post offered up a simplistic measure for determining the best players in the B10. There are other measures that are typically used. Here are three:The NBA Efficiency ModelThe NBA uses a very simplistic model for player evaluation. They simply give a player one point for each positive result (point, rebound, steal, block, or assist) and subtract a point for each negative (turnover, missed shot, missed free throw).

Using that as a model, here are the top ten performers in the conference (NOTE: for each of these evaluations, I limited my calculations to the top thirty guys in the league in terms of minutes per game).

Rank	Player	Team	NBA	NBA/game	NBA Rank
1	Gordon, Eric	IU	196	21.78	1
2	White, D.J.	IU	207	20.70	2
3	Claxton, Geary	PSU	194	19.40	3
4	Morgan, Raymar	MSU	207	18.82	4
5	Moore, Craig	NU	150	16.67	5
6	Butler, Jamar	OSU	162	16.20	6
7	Ellis, Jamarcus	IU	156	15.60	7
8	Neitzel, Drew	MSU	166	15.09	8
9	Hummel, Robbie	PUR	148	14.80	9
10	Pruitt, Shaun	ILL	143	14.30	10

Game Score

Many, most notably Dean Oliver and John Hollinger, find fault with the simplistic NBA model. They feel that all of these measure should not have equal wait. They modify the NBA model by only assigning half a point to blocks, assists, fouls, and free throw attempts.

Using their model, often called Game Score, the top ten performers are:

Rank	Player	Team	Game Score	GS/game	GS/Rank
1	Gordon, Eric	IU	163.00	18.11	1
2	Morgan, Raymar	MSU	151.70	13.79	2
3	White, D.J.	IU	136.40	13.64	3
4	Claxton, Geary	PSU	134.80	13.48	4
5	Moore, Craig	NU	115.60	12.84	5
6	Butler, Jamar	OSU	123.80	12.38	6
7	Neitzel, Drew	MSU	133.10	12.10	7
8	Crawford, Jordan	IU	76.40	10.91	8
9	Harris, Manny	MICH	114.10	10.37	9
10	Hughes, Trevon	WISC	103.50	10.35	10

Win Score

Lastly there are others, specifically the authors of Wages of Wins, who feel that Oliver and Hollinger were on the right track by assigning weights but were just arbitrary in assigning half weights to certain values. Instead they choose to run a regression analysis to more accurately determine the correct weights. Their conclusions: Points, steals, and turnovers are equal and assigned a weight of 1; field goal attempts, offensive rebounds, assists, and blocks get a .7 weight; made field goals and personal fouls have a .4 factor; and, finally, defensive rebounds weigh in at .3.

Using that formula, called Win Score, here are the top ten in the conference.

Rank	Player	Team	WinScore	WS/game	WS/Rank
1	Gordon, Eric	IU	177.00	19.67	1
2	White, D.J.	IU	190.00	19.00	2
3	Morgan, Raymar	MSU	192.50	17.50	3
4	Claxton, Geary	PSU	172.50	17.25	4
5	Moore, Craig	NU	125.50	13.94	5
6	Pruitt, Shaun	ILL	133.50	13.35	6
7	Butler, Jamar	OSU	132.00	13.20	7
8	Neitzel, Drew	MSU	135.00	12.27	8
9	Ellis, Jamarcus	IU	121.00	12.10	9
10	Crawford, Jordan	IU	82.00	11.71	10

Rather than anointing one as better than the others in this post (I have my own methodology that I’m working on that I’ll cover at a later date), I’m just going to average the three approaches.

Doing that give us this top ten.

Rank	Player	Team	GS/Rank	NBA Rank	WS/Rank	Avg
1	Gordon, Eric	IU	1	1	1	1.00
2	White, D.J.	IU	3	2	2	2.33
3	Morgan, Raymar	MSU	2	4	3	3.00
4	Claxton, Geary	PSU	4	3	4	3.67
5	Moore, Craig	NU	5	5	5	5.00
6	Butler, Jamar	OSU	6	6	7	6.33
7	Neitzel, Drew	MSU	7	8	8	7.67
8	Pruitt, Shaun	ILL	13	10	6	9.67
9	Crawford, Jordan	IU	8	12	10	10.00
10	Ellis, Jamarcus	IU	15	7	9	10.33

It certainly looks like Eric Gordon could be on track to win both the Freshman and the Player of the Year in the B10, although I do suspect that DJ White will pick up a bunch of votes for his body of work.

Also, all of the measures seem to be pretty consistent on who the top five are. Things do start to shuffle around a little bit with the second ten though.

It will be interesting to see how things hold up through conference play.