Minnesota Sports Forum

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-53-best-franchise-players-in-the-nba/

Highlights:
- Kentavious Caldwell Pope, Danny Green and Jared Sullinger ahead of Andrew Wiggins.
- Marcus Smart ahead of Wiggins... AND Karl Anthony towns.

Enjoy!



[note: i think formulas and fabricated stats undermine the beauty and nuance of basketball... and destroy its soul. i let it slide in baseball even though it's taken away a lot of the fun. but it just doesn't translate to basketball as well as many smart mathematicians are trying desperately to convince us it does.]

Nah. I'm a positive guy by nature. I read that and said "Nice! We have 3 of the top 50 players in the NBA!" I have no problem with Wiggins being toward the bottom of the top 50. He was just a Rookie last year on a terrible team. As long as he continues to improve we'll be just fine.

Carlos Danger wrote:Nah. I'm a positive guy by nature. I read that and said "Nice! We have 3 of the top 50 players in the NBA!" I have no problem with Wiggins being toward the bottom of the top 50. He was just a Rookie last year on a terrible team. As long as he continues to improve we'll be just fine.

Sorry Danger. The stats say that Boston has Marcus Smart AND Jared Sullinger who are better than him. Stats don't lie.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Carlos Danger wrote:Nah. I'm a positive guy by nature. I read that and said "Nice! We have 3 of the top 50 players in the NBA!" I have no problem with Wiggins being toward the bottom of the top 50. He was just a Rookie last year on a terrible team. As long as he continues to improve we'll be just fine.

Sorry Danger. The stats say that Boston has Marcus Smart AND Jared Sullinger who are better than him. Stats don't lie.

Somebody should tell Brad Stevens...

http://espn.go.com/nba/team/depth/_/name/bos/boston-celtics

sjm34 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Carlos Danger wrote:Nah. I'm a positive guy by nature. I read that and said "Nice! We have 3 of the top 50 players in the NBA!" I have no problem with Wiggins being toward the bottom of the top 50. He was just a Rookie last year on a terrible team. As long as he continues to improve we'll be just fine.

Sorry Danger. The stats say that Boston has Marcus Smart AND Jared Sullinger who are better than him. Stats don't lie.

Somebody should tell Brad Stevens...

http://espn.go.com/nba/team/depth/_/name/bos/boston-celtics

Jonas Jerekbo is #54. Obviously.

I'm a big fan of the geniuses over at 538.com, but more for politics than sports. I wish I understood their basketball methodology, but I'm afraid it's way over my head. Some of their conclusions are bizarre though. You may recall that they had Tyus Jones rated as one of the top guys in the draft this year. And how great is Boston going to be this year...Sullinger is ranked in the top 50 players and can't even crack Stevens' starting lineup!

I have to agree with Carlos though. 3 of the top 53 players in the league is pretty good recognition for a team coming off a 16 win season. Let's hope there is some supportable science behind those numbers!

Sullinger in NBA 2K16 is a beast so I think these guys know what they are talking about...

Advanced defensive statistics are definitely trailing the offensive ones and that's how you end up with Sullinger in the top 50. He's a well rounded offensive player for a big. His per 36 was 17/10/3/1/1 with an 18 PER last year and he has continued to improve from behind the arc. That's a top 50 statistical line, but he's just not a top 50 player when you look at the whole package (comes off the bench and thus gets his stats against second units, etc.).

Also the KCP prediction is a joke. He's lower than the 50th percentile in every single category. The fact that Embiid makes this list not having ever played an NBA game and not playing one this year makes it questionable. His WAR this year of zero alone should keep him off the list because he's missing a whole year compared to everyone else in the league.

khans2k5 wrote:Advanced defensive statistics are definitely trailing the offensive ones and that's how you end up with Sullinger in the top 50. He's a well rounded offensive player for a big. His per 36 was 17/10/3/1/1 with an 18 PER last year and he has continued to improve from behind the arc. That's a top 50 statistical line, but he's just not a top 50 player when you look at the whole package (comes off the bench and thus gets his stats against second units, etc.).

By the way, part of the reason Wiggins scored lower is because he is labeled a "mediocre" defender in the piece.

Nobody else is even close to as bad as Wiggins according to the metric. Kyrie Irving is the closest... but even he's not that close.

Is this website real? Serious question.

My detailed statistical formula that has Hummel as the top player in all of sports. Jeff Adrian is #3. SP is #2 Lebron comes in at #325,387