WP48 and the Charlotte Bobcats

I am a fervent Wages of Wins disciple. The Wages of Wins is a book written by David Berri that promotes a new formula for evaluation player talent: Win Score per minute. In his book, Berri notes that our tendency as NBA fans is too overemphasize the importance of scoring while underemphasizing the importance of rebounding, ball control, and shooting efficiency.

Win Score per minute is calculated using the following formula: Points + Rebounds + Steals + ½Assists + ½Blocked Shots – Field Goal Attempts – Turnovers - ½Free Throw Attempts - ½Personal Fouls) / Minutes. It is a rough approximation of Berri's metric, WP48. For the purposes of this blog, we will use the terms interchangeably.

Applying the WP48 formula to the Bobcats' 06-07 squad yields the following results (courtesy of Jason Chandler's excellent blog:) (note that 0.100 is average)

Emeka Okafur: .299
Gerald Wallace: .247
Sean May: .187
Matt Carroll: .114
Derek Anderson: .110
Walter Hermann: .099
Brevin Knight: .095
Raymond Felton: .054
Jake Voskuhl: .013
Jeff McInnis: -.044
Primoz Brezec: -.108
Adam Morrison: -.175

Much of this blog will be dedicated to analyzing these numbers. Here are some brief thoughts:

• Okafur is a superstar.
• The Bobcats would have been crazy to let Wallace go.
• Sean May is severely underrated.
• Raymond Felton must improve.
• Adam Morrison should be benched.

I will expand on these comments in future entries.