Arturo Galletti is the Co-editor and Director of Analytics for the Wages of Wins Network. He is an Electrical Engineer with General Electric in the lovely isle of Puerto Rico, where he keeps his production lines running by day and night (and weekends) and works on sport analysis with his free time.
The Wins Produced metric works great when looking over how much a player helped our hurt your team for a season or over their career. When trying to discuss game to game though it can be a little abstract. Luckily the Wins Produced formula is all about converting points (or the difference in points using efficiency differential) to wins so what if we convert wins back to points? It’s easy enough to do with the following formula.
Point Margin = 31 .0 (Wins Produced-Wins Produced by an Average player)
(Editor Arturo’s Note: I screwed this up again :-) . Fixed now)
Basically the difference in Wins Produced for a player versus an average player can be mapped directly to point margin (go here if you want the full detail behind that equation). Let’s illustrate this as well (for simplicity I’m using .100 WP48 as the player average, it’s actually .099). Here’s a break down of how that works on a minute by minute basis.
Trotting out a star (0.250 WP48) is like spotting your team 4-5 points. Trotting out a player like Bargnani? Just the opposite. Trotting out an average player doesn’t gain you any points, but it doesn’t lose you any either.
For quick review of how the best players are helping their team here are the top 30 players, in terms of Point Margin per game.
| Name | Team | G | MP | PM | PM/G |
| Kevin Love | MIN | 73 | 2611 | 612.3 | 8.4 |
| Dwight Howard | ORL | 78 | 2935 | 571.5 | 7.3 |
| LeBron James | MIA | 79 | 3063 | 505.2 | 6.4 |
| Chris Paul | NOH | 80 | 2880 | 463.9 | 5.8 |
| Dwyane Wade | MIA | 76 | 2824 | 380.7 | 5.0 |
| Zach Randolph | MEM | 75 | 2724 | 339.0 | 4.5 |
| Kevin Garnett | BOS | 71 | 2220 | 298.6 | 4.2 |
| Kris Humphries | NJN | 74 | 2061 | 305.1 | 4.1 |
| Pau Gasol | LAL | 82 | 3037 | 337.0 | 4.1 |
| Andrew Bynum | LAL | 54 | 1500 | 210.8 | 3.9 |
| Marcus Camby | POR | 59 | 1540 | 227.3 | 3.9 |
| Joakim Noah | CHI | 48 | 1576 | 183.7 | 3.8 |
| Rajon Rondo | BOS | 68 | 2527 | 260.2 | 3.8 |
| Steve Nash | PHO | 75 | 2497 | 285.8 | 3.8 |
| Reggie Evans | TOR | 30 | 798 | 113.2 | 3.8 |
| Andre Iguodala | PHI | 67 | 2469 | 238.1 | 3.6 |
| Al Horford | ATL | 77 | 2704 | 272.0 | 3.5 |
| Tim Duncan | SAS | 76 | 2156 | 266.1 | 3.5 |
| Blake Griffin | LAC | 82 | 3112 | 279.3 | 3.4 |
| Tyson Chandler | DAL | 74 | 2059 | 250.0 | 3.4 |
| Paul Pierce | BOS | 80 | 2774 | 256.1 | 3.2 |
| Landry Fields | NYK | 82 | 2541 | 249.4 | 3.0 |
| Lamar Odom | LAL | 82 | 2639 | 249.2 | 3.0 |
| Kevin Durant | OKC | 78 | 3038 | 232.3 | 3.0 |
| Jason Kidd | DAL | 80 | 2653 | 232.2 | 2.9 |
| Deron Williams | UTA | 65 | 2465 | 178.1 | 2.7 |
| Manu Ginobili | SAS | 80 | 2426 | 206.7 | 2.6 |
| Andrew Bogut | MIL | 65 | 2297 | 160.2 | 2.5 |
| Nene Hilario | DEN | 75 | 2291 | 176.7 | 2.4 |
| Kobe Bryant | LAL | 82 | 2779 | 184.2 | 2.2 |
Table 1: Top 30 Players for 2011 based on Point Margin per game
Starting Kevin Love is like giving your team an eight point advantage (we’ll get to that more in a second.) The Heat got a 11.4 point boost every game LeBron and Wade showed up. Why don’t teams with these players win every game? Well let’s also check out the bottom players.
| Name | Team | G | MP | PM | PM/G |
| Andrea Bargnani | TOR | 66 | 2353 | -337.0 | -5.1 |
| Craig Brackins | PHI | 3 | 33 | -12.4 | -4.1 |
| Bobby Simmons | SAS | 2 | 16 | -6.5 | -3.3 |
| Brook Lopez | NJN | 82 | 2889 | -237.0 | -2.9 |
| Darko Milicic | MIN | 69 | 1686 | -193.8 | -2.8 |
| Earl Barron | MIL | 21 | 305 | -55.4 | -2.6 |
| Jeff Green | BOS | 75 | 2427 | -193.4 | -2.6 |
| Aaron Brooks | PHO | 59 | 1284 | -150.2 | -2.5 |
| Jordan Crawford | ATL | 42 | 1027 | -106.6 | -2.5 |
| Glen Davis | BOS | 78 | 2298 | -194.5 | -2.5 |
| Michael Beasley | MIN | 73 | 2361 | -179.3 | -2.5 |
| Samardo Samuels | CLE | 37 | 701 | -90.1 | -2.4 |
| Ekpe Udoh | GSW | 58 | 1030 | -140.6 | -2.4 |
| Travis Outlaw | NJN | 82 | 2358 | -198.3 | -2.4 |
| Jonny Flynn | MIN | 53 | 983 | -127.6 | -2.4 |
| Nick Young | WAS | 64 | 2034 | -149.7 | -2.3 |
| Al Harrington | DEN | 73 | 1665 | -170.1 | -2.3 |
| Jawad Williams | CLE | 26 | 391 | -59.2 | -2.3 |
| Ryan Hollins | CLE | 70 | 1182 | -158.1 | -2.3 |
| Eduardo Najera | CHA | 31 | 372 | -69.4 | -2.2 |
| Carl Landry | NOH | 76 | 2008 | -167.9 | -2.2 |
| Sonny Weems | TOR | 59 | 1413 | -130.0 | -2.2 |
| Linas Kleiza | TOR | 39 | 1032 | -85.5 | -2.2 |
| Jermaine O’Neal | BOS | 24 | 431 | -52.6 | -2.2 |
| Dante Cunningham | CHA | 78 | 1637 | -166.2 | -2.1 |
| DeMar DeRozan | TOR | 82 | 2851 | -173.2 | -2.1 |
| Gilbert Arenas | WAS | 70 | 1796 | -147.7 | -2.1 |
| Derek Fisher | LAL | 82 | 2297 | -172.5 | -2.1 |
| Nikola Pekovic | MIN | 65 | 887 | -136.2 | -2.1 |
| DaJuan Summers | DET | 22 | 199 | -45.9 | -2.1 |
Table 2: Worst 30 players of 2011 based on Point Margin per game
Bargnani is essentially an anti Dwyane Wade giving his team a 5 point handicap each game. Kevin Love’s 8.4 points can only handle Darko, Beasley and Flynn and the Wolves have even more bad players after that. Luckily the bad players hurt a little less than the good players help. For the most part at least.
If you want the entire league in a shiny image you can get them all here:
Point Margin for every player in 2011
-Arturo
Wages of Wins Journal 
Wayne Crimi
July 25, 2011
This is great stuff, but some of the values look different on this entry from the one you linked to with more background. One is per game and the other is per 48, but that doesn’t account for it.
Love 4.1 vs, 9.1
Howard 3.6 vs. 7.7
etc…
Am I misunderstanding something?
Dre
July 25, 2011
Wayne,
I’m a bit confused. Where are you seeing 9.1 and 7.7? Thanks for the feedback.
Arturo Galletti
July 26, 2011
Wayne,
I screwed up initially. Good catch. Fixed now.
dr1john
July 26, 2011
If a metric is relevant, what do you do with the anomalies?
Epke Udoh is Mr. Negative in all of the WP measures. He does not score or rebound. He does, however, have a wonderful +/- for players with more than 1000 minutes. When the same 4 Warriors starters were with Biedrins they were very minus, and with Udoh the same 4 were very plus, apples to apples etc.
I’ve been asking Arturo about this for months, it seems. I am curious if the anomaly is real, and whether there are other true anomaly players.
Anyone care to comment on this?
Dre
July 26, 2011
John,
The issue here is using the +/- metric to measure the WP metric. The PM family is inconsistent at best and should not be used as a means of judgement when we’re discussing something else that there is a very clear metric for (Actual Wins)
In terms of anomalous players, I’m sure they exist. With 500+ players even at a 99% hit rate you’d still see 4-5 misclassifications. The rule I stand by is to use the stats as a starting point and then dig not the other way around. It is very common to say “I know Derrick Rose is great, do the stats agree” the better way is to go “The stats say Derrick Rose is good, do I have any counter arguments?”
Tom Mandel
July 27, 2011
This is nifty, Arturo.
If I total up point margins for every player on a team, should I approximate that team’s point differential per game on the season?
Arturo Galletti
July 27, 2011
Drjohn1,
You’re on my queue and I apologize for not getting to it sooner. You just caught me at a busy time in my life :-). I do have the data, I just need to get it written up.
Tom,
Yes it does. Provided you add up the Total Points Generated and divide by 82.
David Morris
July 28, 2011
Could you create a “Points produced” and a “points allowed” statistic?