I'm not going to try to explain the system of the three authors of Wages of Wins. They (David Berri, Martin Schmidt and Stacey Brook) are all economics professors who have tried to put together a system to analyze what player attributes contribute to team wins. Perhaps someone else here understands this system better than I do and will try to explain it. It has been tested often and has been largely successful, at least that's what people say. I just wanted to report the point of view of someone who has applied their statistical analysis to the players in this draft - or at least some of them. Instead of trying to paraphrase it, I'll link and quote. Since it's a very long article, I won't include the methodology in the quote, but you can find that on the link.

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/the-2008-nba-draft-preview/

The 2008 NBA Draft Preview
May 27, 2008 · 58 Comments


In an Early Look at the 2008 Draft, Michael Beasley was dominating both headlines and Win Scores. Nothing has changed. Beasley remains the #1 talent available.

After Beasley we see two more big men. While mock drafts have Kevin Love going anywhere from 5 to 15, Win Scores followers should consider Love the #2 or #3 talent in the draft, hands down. Additionally, Florida big man Marreese Speights is one to watch. Currently his name is bouncing around mock drafts in the mid first round, though by the stats, Speights seems to be surefire top 10 material, if not better.

Neutral

Derrick Rose is coming off of a strong national championship run, and with the rise of Deron Williams and Chris Paul, its going to be hard to pass on a tall, explosive point guard prospect.

When I wrote January’s article, Derrick Rose had a .052 PAWS/M and warranted a warning rather than a recommendation. He continued mediocre play until February 20th, and then - as Table 3 indicates (see above) — began playing like a top prospect.

His late season statistical explosion, plus the high regard from the scouts suggest Derrick Rose is for real, but his early season struggles and high expectations prevent me from predicting a surefire success.

Another top prospect is Brook Lopez. He grades out high on PER, but Win Scores is skeptical given his non-impressive rebounding rate. The numbers don’t warrant excitement, but compared to the current projected lottery (mostly listed below), Lopez grades out favorably.

Two other neutral prospects are DeAndre Jordan and Donte Green. Jordan, a Texas A&M center, posted a full season .047 PAWS/M, but seems to have picked on the little guys, as his scores against tougher competition get ugly quickly. Meanwhile Green had an excellent start last season, but he actually hurt his team with a sour second half and wound up with a negative PAWS/M (which is far worse when Syracuse’s fast paced play is considered). If he returns to his early form, he’s well worth a lottery pick. If his second half is more like it, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Pessimistic

O. J. Mayo’s .018 PAWS/M does not impress at all. I would not have advised any agent to provide him with a big screen TV or pay advances, and I would advise lottery drafting teams to stay away. As a slight ray of hope, Mayo did seem to improve in the second half, which is more than I can say about…

Eric Gordon. Win Scores pegs Gordon as a net drain on his college team which got worse as the season progressed. Save your NBA team millions of dollars and do not draft Eric Gordon.

Furthermore, teams should stay away from Anthony Randolph, given his poor .005 PAWS/M and horrific -.044 PAWS/M against the top 100 college teams.

No Guarantees: Beyond the Projected First Round

Past the projected top 30, there are a handful of Win Score favorites that appear likely to pleasantly surprise their new organizations. Richard Hendrix, Chris Lofton, and Joey Dorsey all appear to be excellent NBA prospects per Win Score. These gentlemen are coming out of strong programs yet seem underappreciated by the scouting majority.

While Draft Express’s scouting report on Richard Hendrix is positive, his mock draft spot winds up south of the first round. Hendrix’s body of work is solid, posting consistently high PAWS/M regardless of competition (marks of .143 vs top 25, .162 vs top 100, and .139 vs NCAA65). To lock this guy up for 4 years would be a solid investment for any NBA team.

This year, Tennessee guard Chris Lofton posted an initially unimpressive .052 PAWS/M, though that comes with an asterisk. Lofton’s biggest opponent this year was not on the Volunteer’s schedule, it was cancer. Lofton’s story was kept quiet until recently and all signs point to a full recovery. Prior to this season, Lofton has consistently put up high marks, posting PAWS/M’s of .134, .124, and .145, which put him in similar territory to Brandon Roy’s 2006 .166, Rodney Stuckey’s 2007 .123, and Rajon Rondo’s 2006 .123. While Lofton’s measureables may come up short against the other three, he certainly seems to be undervalued by mock drafts as some even have him going undrafted. Despite his shortcomings, Lofton clearly seems to be worth more than a second round pick.

Finally, Memphis’s Joey Dorsey just plain puts up amazing Win Scores. Looking at his history, you’ll understand why I sighed a big breath of relief as Dorsey fouled out of the National Title Game. Dorsey, not Derrick Rose, was the engine that drove the Memphis Tigers through the regular season, and both players stepped up for a fantastic tournament run. Rose may go 30 picks earlier, but Dorsey can well prove to be the better value given the cheap projected price of a 2nd rounder.

Outside the big programs, there are three smaller school guards - Lester Hudson, J.R. Giddens, and George Hill — that are intriguing, though, the case for a full-fledged endorsement is hampered by a small sample size against serious competition.

Tennessee-Martin guard Lester Hudson posted great games against top competition, but the sample size was a woeful 1 game against the top 25 and 5 games against the top 100 NCAA teams. (PAWS/M .254 Top 100, .203 all games)

New Mexico guard J.R. Giddens destroyed weaker competition in gathering a PAWS/M of .205 in 2007, but had no games against the top 25 and posted a poor .058 in WS/M his junior year.

IUPUI’s George Hill posted a solid .183 PAWS/M and a .108 PAWS/M in his 5 games against top 100 competition. Furthermore, Hill posted a decent .119 PAWS/M in his freshman year, showing 2007-2008 may not be a fluke.

And finally, let me toss out the following one-liners

NCAA scoring leader Reggie Williams posted a strong pace-adjusted .209 PAWS/M, but played a mere one game against a top 100 team.

Nebraska center Aleks Maric came on strong with a .192 PAWS/M in his senior campaign along with two monster games against Kansas State.

Rider’s Jason Thompson was the NCAA’s 2nd place finisher in rebounding (after Beasley) and offers an impressive .188 PAWS/M, though, most of that comes against weak competition.

Beasley & Love versus Durant & Oden

Win Scores may be optimistic on Beasley and Love, but how do they measure up historically? To answer this, I dug up last year’s numbers and ran a quick comparison between Win Scores favorite big men, 2007 versus 2008. The results are reported in Table 4 (see above).

It appears Beasley and Love grade out solidly higher than Oden & Durant. In general, the class of 2008 generally can claim higher Win Scores than the class of 2007. Maybe the 2009 All-Star Rookie-Sophomore Challenge will be competitive for once…

Thanks for reading, and check back here before the draft for more!

-Erich Doerr

Interesting.

They want to use statistics other than points scored, rebounds made, etc., and see how often a given player actually contributes to his team winning.

http://www.wagesofwins.com/GladwellNewYorkerReview.html

Weighing the relative value of fouls, rebounds, shots taken, turnovers, and the like, they’ve created an algorithm that, they argue, comes closer than any previous statistical measure to capturing the true value of a basketball player. The algorithm yields what they call a Win Score, because it expresses a player’s worth as the number of wins that his contributions bring to his team....

...Berri, Schmidt, and Brook argue that the arbitrary algorithms of basketball experts elevate the number of points a player scores above all other considerations. In one clever piece of research, they analyze the relationship between the statistics of rookies and the number of votes they receive in the All-Rookie Team balloting. If a rookie increases his scoring by ten per cent—regardless of how efficiently he scores those points—the number of votes he’ll get will increase by twenty-three per cent. If he increases his rebounds by ten per cent, the number of votes he’ll get will increase by six per cent. Every other factor, like turnovers, steals, assists, blocked shots, and personal fouls—factors that can have a significant influence on the outcome of a game—seemed to bear no statistical relationship to judgments of merit at all. It’s not even the case that high scorers help their team by drawing more fans. As the authors point out, that’s only true on the road. At home, attendance is primarily a function of games won. Basketball’s decision-makers, it seems, are simply irrational.

Here's a chart from the article showing each player's PAWS/M and PER.

http://www.wagesofwins.com/2008NCAAProspectTable.html