Introduction
Enough of the 2007 / 2008 NBA season has elapsed for me to evaluate the best of the best by position and to put up a candidate for league MVP. The approach, like all things statsprocket-ish, is empirical (at least up to the end), statistical, and semi-complicated. Briefly, what I’ve done to rank players is described below. As always, thanks must go to www.dougstats.com for providing NBA stats in formats easy to drop into Excel.

The ranking methodology…

• Select all players who have appeared in more than 50 games
• Rank by total Sprocket Points generated and select the top 50
• Create three Sprocket Points based ranking for each player…
  • Rank by count of Sprocket Points for a measure of total statistical production
  • Rank by percent of team Sprocket Points for a measure of how important the player is to his team
  • Rank by relative production, the ratio of % of Team Sprocket Points to % of Team Minutes to distinguish players who produce more just because they play a lot of minutes
• Weight and average the three rankings for a final measure
  • Weights are 0.4 for the first ranking, 0.2 for the second, and 0.4 for the third

(The tables in each section below show all of the measures used and the final ranking and include all player’s in the league’s top fifty.)

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The Best Players So Far » Human Victory Cigar

Thanks dba!

I don't want to spoil it, but your MVP is bound to surprise some.

No Pistons with a ranking worth noting. Only CB ranked at all. Flip must be doing a good job of coaching. Nice work with the stats.............

Doesn't surprise me...he's on dba's fantasy team

I would've picked the other guy

How does this take defense into account?

The statistical-based argument is great, but when the talked turned into MVP consideration, then all sorts of new things (heart, personality, leadership, etc.) showed up.

It would be interesting to see how the Piston starters (besides CB) stacked up against the other top players.

Bill, I need you for a duet article I want to write. We should confab.

Sounds good. Are you bass or the tenor?

Boards, steals, blocks.

Yeah, one might say my dislike for LBJ won out. Or not.

The 50 player select got done first, but I can add the Pistons back in and see where they rank.

just wanted to say that this is excellent work as always and i enjoy reading your articles. keep 'em coming!