People are working on incorporating defense differently in a Wages of Wins framework. Defense is there, but it is only based on the team (not the individual). As I have said before, I think keeping it at the team level makes sense. Of course, looking at it from the individual perspective has value also, and that step will be taken at some point. As I have also said before, I do not think that step (which I have tried in the past) will dramatically change the final results.

Personall I find adjusted plus-minus frustrating because I find it hard to keep track of it. At least with the Wages of Wins I can keep an eye on rebounds and shooting percentage and turnovers and other underappreciated stats and get a rough idea of who is underappreciated without making the calculations.

The big question in my mind is whether Wages of Wins does enough to credit great defensive players and to penalize bad defensive players. Ilardi apparently argues that adjusted plus/minus reveals that Chris Paul is a horrible defensive liability, so bad that it cancels out his historically-high (for a short man) offensive stats. Wages of Wins reveals no such thing. Are you saying that the jury is still out?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?page=MVP08-Abbott

What’s your take on adjusted plus minus? I ask because I saw this startling analysis from “professor Stephen Ilardi, who has consulted with Roy Williams’ staff at Kansas, and is an expert in adusted +/-” on the TrueHoop blog:

“As you know, the best measure of a player’s overall impact on the game’s bottom line is his adjusted plus-minus rating, which adjusts statistically for the effect of all teammates and opponents, and also factors in both offensive and defensive contributions. Paul’s adjusted plus-minus rating right now (through games of April 10) is +0.76 points per 100 possessions, indicative of a modest overall positive contribution. Put simply: his superb offensive contributions have been largely offset by his apparent defensive liabilities. Based on this season’s adjusted plus-minus numbers, a much stronger MVP case can be made for either Kobe (+12.04) or LeBron (+11.35), and perhaps the best case of all for Dwight Howard (+16.57).”

The full post is in this link:

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-32-45/The-World-s-Most-Unlikely-MVP-Showdown.html

First, if you DO look at Felton’s numbers since they waived McInnis, he’s pretty much the same player he was before McInnis was waived. Queen City Hoops took a pretty good look at that (http://www.queencityhoops.com/EverybodyLovesRaymond.php). And one thing hasn’t changed; Raymond still can’t finish inside. Combine that with him shooting a career worst from 3, and you can see where his production is going down.

As far as Wallace is concerned, even when he was healthy in the first part of the season before the concussion, he wasn’t the player he was last season. I look at it as a part of the change of the offense, where he had been taking 3 times as many three pointers as he has over the course of his career. He’s only making 32% from deep, and this pulls down both his regular and true shooting percentages. His rebounding was down, and his blocks were reduced by half from last season. All of that negates the face that he has more assists and is going to the line more frequently and making more. Add an increase in turnovers to almost 3 a game, and there’s your sinking back to average right there.