An Experimental Method for Measuring Player Efficiency

(WARNING: THAR BE STATS AHEAD, MATEYS!!!)

In thread after thread here at GSoM, statheads such as jae and others discuss the relative merits of players using statistics. The stats that seem to come up time and again are rebounds, turnovers, and shooting efficiency, as these have the highest correlation with winning than any others. I thought it would illustrative to develop a “quick and dirty” measurement to use for comparing players which account for these stats and these only.

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"We are ecstatic," said Stephan Volker, attorney for the California Oak Foundation who sued the university two years ago. "We believe this project is now dead."

What can I say, it's going to be a while before I can root on the Bears in an athletic contest, so I need something to think about that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Oh, and I don't know if this was even mentioned, but they finished the archelogical investigation of the SAHPC grounds on January 8th and found no evidence of Native American artifacts or human remains. TAKE THAT, DUMPSTER MUFFIN.

Reading about all the defections to the NBA from Pac-10 teams got me thinking:

Are we the prohibitive favorites to win the conference next year?

Check out these notable graduations/defections:

Arizona: Budinger, Wise, Hill
Arizona State: Harden, Pendergraph
UCLA: Collison, Josh Shipp, Aboya
USC: Hackett, Taj Gibson, DeRozan (has not hired an agent)
Washington: Dentmon, Brockman

I'm ignoring Oregon, Stanford, OSU, and Wazzou for purposes of this exercise (although Wazzou losing Bennett might be bigger than any single player leaving).

We return everyone except for Wilkes, who sucked anyway. As I see it, Washington should be our strongest competition, as they return a bunch of rotation players, including Isaiah Thomas, Overton, Bryan-Amaning, and Pondexter. Considering how gutted the rest of the teams will be, I think it could very easily be a two-team race.

Oh, and in before "UCLA doesn't rebuild, they reload."