by nate
Adult life and hobbies are in a constant struggle with each other. As usual, life has beat out hobbies and I'm not completely sure if I'll get to finish my 1st round playoff preview. So why not move on?
We're at the time of the NBA season in which they begin to announce their regular season awards. Slowly, the announcements trickle through the media, giving tiny tidbits for halftime announcers to chew on and debate. So far, we know that Dwight Howard has claimed another Defensive Player award, and that its a good year to carry the surname Brooks as Aaron and Scotty won the Most Improved and Coach of the Year awards, respectively. The two biggest awards of the year have yet to be named; the Rookie of the Year, and the Most valuable Player awards.
We all know how this works; members of the media place first, second, and third place votes, each of a scaled value, that when totaled, determine the winner. What exactly are their votes based on? Performance? Value? Favoritism? Or worse, homerism? They could vote for anybody, and that fact becomes evident every year. In 2007, Brandon Roy came away with the ROY (pun intended) award averaging 17 points, 4 assists, and shooting 46% from the field. Pretty nice for a rookie. That same year, Tyson Chandler received a few votes despite averaging only 5 points, 4 rebounds, and 13 minutes per game (all lows for everyone who received a vote) and received enough votes that he beat out three other players. Just last season, Robin Lopez received a vote. ROBIN Lopez (3 points, 2 rebounds, 10 minutes per). In 2004, Marquis Daniels received a vote. Do I need to remind you who was chosen the 2003 draft? I could go on and on.
So is there an effective way to determine the winner of such awards without having to deal with sometimes preposterous and ambiguous voting? I think I may have found it.
Anyone who has played fantasy sports should be familiar with the rotisserie game. In a rotisserie game, team success is graded on overall numbers in pre-detrermined categories and then ranked. For example, in a 12-team league, the team with the highest rebound total on the season is awarded 12 points. The team with the next highest will receive 11 points all the way to the last team that will receive 1 point. This scale is used for each category and the point rankings for each category are added together in order to determine an overall score to determine ultimate team supremacy. As with everything else in fantasy leagues, stats are key. Why not use this method in determining end of the season awards? Certainly it’s not a perfect process. Many purists will argue that “leadership”, “floor presence”, “potential” and other worthless intangibles need to be involved in the equation. These are the same people who vote for Marquis Daniels when LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, and Kirk Hinrich are lighting up stat sheets. There’s a time and a place for such things, but I’m not concerned with that right now.
So let’s get to it, then.
The basic fantasy basketball categories a team would be judged on are points (PTS), rebounds (TRB), assists (AST), steals (STL), blocks (BLK), three-pointers made (3PM), turnovers (TOV - used in a negative sense), field goal percentage, and free throw percentage. I’m not going to use field goal or free throw percentage so that that guy who’s made 8 of 10 free throws, but only played in 5 games, doesn’t get an unmerited boost. In it’s place, I’m going to add minutes played (MP). A rookie who gets burn has value.
58 players played in their first NBA season in 2009-2010 and each have been ranked by the numbers mentioned above. Below are the top 10.
10. Chase Budinger 327
9. Jrue Holiday 329
8. Wesley Matthews 339
7. Marcus Thornton 348
6. Omri Casspri 349
5. Jonas Jerebko 356
4. James Harden 359
3. Tyreke Evans 376
2. Brandon Jennings 379
1. Stephen Curry 388
By this ranking, Stephen Curry would be our rookie of the year. Are there many arguments to this? I know most were ready to crown Tyreke Evans, but there’s no question that Dell’s son put in work and did his thing this season, all the while not missing a game. I feel that this system could be the start of way to determine player productivity in the league. Who's the more important rookie, the most productive, or the one with the best intangible? I’d have no issues if Curry came away with the Eddie Gottlieb trophy next week. Let's see who the writers choose. Expect at least one Taj Gibson, or Terrence Williams vote.
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