this is a piece of an article by mike monroe on espnet: "Now, as to that MVP race ... for years I have relied on Larry Bird to determine my vote. See, back in Bird's playing days, he came up with his very own formula for quantifying a player's value to his team: Add up points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots, then subtract missed shots, missed free throws, personal fouls and turnovers. Divide by the number of games played and you have that player's "Birdies" per game. Strange as it may seem, 20 turns out to be something of a watershed number for Bird's formula, just as it is for scoring. When players begin to approach 30 "Birdies," you discover they are among the top two or three MVP candidates. As of this week O'Neal is a runaway leader in "Birdies" for this season, at 30.7 per game. Second on the list is Kevin Garnett, at 26.7. Duncan, after his last four games, is at 25.1, followed closely by Karl Malone, at 24.5, and Chris Webber, 24.1. Gary Payton is sixth on the list, at 23.6. So get the engravers working on putting O'Neal's name on this year's MVP trophy. It's just too bad Duncan didn't play like ... well, Duncan ... all season long. Then the MVP vote might have been one of the most interesting ever. By the way, it should surprise nobody that the top six players in Bird's objective evaluation of a player's overall game come out of the West. The highest "Birdie' figure for an Eastern player is Alonzo Mourning, at 22.0. Allen Iverson? He averages 17.2. Vince Carter? 17.0. Of course, in some corners, no further proof was needed of the West's ascendancy as the dominant conference." (end of article) ------------- using bird's formula, francis currently sits at 15.36, anderson at 10.76 and mobley at 10.61....overall, not too bad of a statistical measure, except i question the use of counting fouls (unless you consider that the more fouls per game that you have, the less valuable you are to your team since you will either be sitting on the bench or playing cautiously).... ------------------
It's a mistake to determine MVP by a mathematical formula. This particular formula seems to favor the frontcourt over the backcourt. Why can't one just watch the games? The MVP should become obvious. ------------------
Wow, the "hick from french lick" can do math? (j/k larry )His formula is right on the money. If you were to take Shaq, Garnett or Duncan off of their respective teams, they would not be the good teams that they are. As much as it kills me to say this, (gulp) Shaq is the MVP *sigh* ------------------ "Is it tomorrow, or just the end of time"- Jimi Hendrix (Purple Haze)
ESPN presents a similar stat simply called "ratings"--not as catching nor self-promoting as "Birdies" of course. It is based as follows: [Points + Rebounds + (Assists*2) + (Steals*2) + (Blocks*1.5) + (FTA*.20)] - [Missed FGA + Missed FTA + (DQ*5) + (Turnovers*2) + (PF*.20)] The only problem I have with ESPN's #s is blocks are underweighted (should be 2.o) and assists overweighted (should be maybe 1.5). In my opinion blocks mean quite a lot because they often result in future rushed shots or teams avoiding the interior in addition to the 2 points the play itself can save. Like the ESPN system I don't think fouls committed should be part of it (some times fouls are good--in the last seconds or against Shaq), though I can see a seperate addition for being fouled. About 15 years ago when I was in school my friends & I had a similar system we used before fantasy leagues became the "in thing". We had to crank out our own composite #'s. Steals, Blocks and Turnovers were with weighted 2s and the rest 1s, I don't remeber what we did with FG% & FT% though I know it was in there. BTW-the ESPN results are not that much different in terms of ranking the top players though it props up GP and Kidd which I think is fair in my book. Here are the top 8, and it is darn close to how I would vote in the MVP race: 38-Shaq 34-GP 34-KG 32-CW 32-JK 31-KM 31-TD 30-GH As for current Rockets, the top 8 are: 23-Steve 22-Chuck 15-SA 15-CM 14-Hak 13-Cato 11-Walt 11-KT ------------------
Charles Barkley out = Rockets in lottery I think this proves he is at least one possibility for MVP, his value to the team is proven. ------------------ Kapaayaaaa!!
I agree with Juan. We already have the Schick award for the best stats. I believe David Robinson used to win it every year. The award is not for the best player, nor is it for the best player on the best team. It's simply the most valuable player. The best way to determine it is: what top-flight player is doing more with less (as in teammates) than anybody else? The answer this year is simple -- Karl Malone. ------------------
Freak, I disagree. I think Gary Payton is doing "more with less" more than anyone else in the league. ------------------ Champions don't die. They simply lose decent point guards.
Sir Scarvy I gotta disagree with you about the blocks being factored by "2". A block doesn't necessarily equate to a turnover, but a steal does. A steal has a factor of "2" in that equation. A block shouldn't equal a steal in that formula. A block doesn't necessarily result in anything since you can't predict a player's reaction to a past occurence. And any "equation" or opinion that doesn't include Jason Kidd in the top 3-5 players is bogus!!!!! ------------------ <this space for rent>
DrDunk, I wouldn't want to undervalue steals either, that is why steals, block and TO should all be 2's in my book. I still think blocks are mighty important even if it may not result directly in a change of possession. It is because blocks do so much to change how a defense is attempted to be broken down. When a guy has a 4 or 5 block game, I would say he is usually impacting the outcome as much or more than just scoring 8 to 10 points would, IMHO. On another tangent, I don't think we should replace judgements with stats, but this one composite stat (Birdy or "rating") very quickly tells quite a big story--which is the nifty thing about stats. In fact this year a single "rating" score is very consistent with my personal subjective judgements in the MVP race. I could have no argument with saying Shaq, GP, Garnett, Webber & Kidd are the 5 most valuable players this year, in that order. In this case my subjective opinion doesn't differ one iota from what the composite stat indicates--in my mind confiming my subjective opinion as being with little bias towards my personal favorites or dis-favorates (if that is a word). ------------------
