FanPost

TDS APPLICATION: Replacing Kevin Martin

Kevin Martin is gone. If not now, then soon. Inevitable. Like the crease of my dockers against my briefs.

Before we replace him, let's do some Shooting Guard Power Rankings

Pay attention to Points Over Average. The Average Player in the NBA scores over 1400 ESPN points.

Player ▾

avg Age

Avg Espnts

avg MP

espnts/MP (EFF)

EFF RANK

ESPNPTS rank

ESPN Rank

wp48

POS

Steady Rank

Points Over AVG

Dwyane Wade

29

1,630.33

2,413.33

0.68

8.00

15.00

23.00

0.25

2.00

2.00

186

Kobe Bryant

32

1,556.33

2,615.33

0.60

37.00

22.00

59.00

0.13

2.00

2.00

112

Manu Ginobili

33

1,370.50

2,288.00

0.60

36.00

44.00

80.00

0.20

2.00

2.00

-74

Kevin Martin

27

1,454.00

2,603.00

0.56

53.00

34.00

87.00

0.12

2.00

1.00

10

Stephen Jackson

31

1,370.00

3,129.00

0.44

78.00

45.00

123.00

0.02

2.00

1.00

-74

James Harden

22

1,088.00

1,946.00

0.56

51.00

78.00

129.00

0.17

2.00

1.00

-356

Joe Johnson

29

1,237.00

2,506.50

0.49

69.00

68.00

137.00

0.06

2.00

2.00

-207

A Brief Explanation on the data.

1. The data is from the last 3 years.

2. ESPNTS is how fantasy basketball scores my players. Similar to PER, it heavily skews toward scoring and shot attempts. Yes, I have a bias toward PER. This is important because the average player scores 1400 ESPNTS, so the last column is a quick reminder of how good a player is over any old joe.

You'll see that Wade and Bryant are by far the better ESPN fantasy players. The drop off is very large. Out of the top 7 shooting guards, only Jackson and Harden are available. You could always resign Kevin Martin but several factors limit this option.

A) Kevin Martin would need a boat load of money to stay on a young team looking to rebuild.

B) Kevin Martin is 29 this year. He'll be 30 when his contract renews. Players age like expired milk. Plus he's only a +10 over the average joe. He's not going to get better than +10.

Jackson is available but again, he's old. He doesn't mesh well with coaches he doesn't respect. Kevin McHale already had that problem with Lowry. Let's not have that mess again. And did I mention he's old?

All we have left is James Harden. He's young. Which mean his EFF rank will improve (basically PER/minute). And as that improves, his ESPNTS will shoot up. He also plays 400 minutes less than the other shooting guards. With the offense funneling through him, he would be giving us Kevin Martin's output in a worst case scenario, and Kobe's output in a best case scenario.

That is a good scenario.

That's not all folks. He not just good ESPN baller, he's great by WP48 (PER competitor) standards. We could look to the draft but McCollum is the only SG/PG gem in that draft. Any way I turn, it seems that all roads lead to Harden.

Here's the plan.

Step 1) Lin is magical. He increases his shooting% dramatically and becomes a young Steve Nash.

Step 2) Omer Asik follows my projections and becomes a younger, better rebounding Tyson Chandler.

Step 3) Montiejunas shoots the lights out. And Rebounds. And learns English.

The last step has to be Harden. With 4 out of the 5 positions secured with great players, a trip to the finals isn't that out of the question.

Notice how I left the 3 spot open. If you thought the shooting guard landscape was small, you should check the graph on small forwards. PER-wise, the landscape is Lebron, Durant and Carmelo. Lebron is top dog at +700. Durant is situated nicely at +600. Carmelo...is at +33. The drop off is pretty steep.

Hopefully with 4 good players, and a Finals appearance, the rockets can lure a quality Small Forward. Or maybe Chandler Parsons will become Iguodala. (Iguodala is a premier Small Forward by WP48 standards but PER hates him.)

For more information on Chandler Parsons, please read this post on him. The author is amazing. And handsome. And tall. With sparkly eyes. (Hint: The author is me.)

I'm cream crackered right now. Time to sleep.

Until next time, my illegitimate children.

P.S. Qualifications. I know SQL, Numbers, Google Docs, a bit of coding. I've won 2 essay contests before but only because I was forced to write. One of those contests offered a free iPod, man! I've also posted a bunch on Posting and Toasting. I have a day job, which means i'm affordable. As a caveat though, I'm mainly interested in posting up Lin stuff and charts. I love tables, line graphs and charts. My signature has all my contact info. So yeah, call me. If you want. It's not like I love you or anything. (Seriously, email me.)

No cursing in title. No pirated material, such as links to online game streams. Do not cut/paste entire sections of content from other websites. Thanks.