I have a simple formula for trying to figure out things like who has been better on the year, or who is most deserving of awards, that isn’t narrative based. Imo, it’s taking what’s considered the best all in one stat, and ranking players for awards based off of that.

Formula is simple: add epm and estimated win numbers together. Early in the season, epm will have more of an influence on the rankings. Later in the season, actual output in estimated wins will have more of an influence.

Without further ado.

  1. Nikola Jokic: 11.7

  2. SGA: 11.1

  3. Embiid: 11.0

  4. Lebron: 9.5

  5. Haliburton: 9.2

  6. Chet: 9.0

  7. Scottie Barnes: 8.9

  8. Curry: 8.8

  9. Booker 8.5

  10. Durant: 7.7

It’s still incredibly early in the season, so the rankings above are obviously still liable to change. What I found interesting is Lebron being in the top 5 still at his age (and improving on where he was at last year at this point in time), Chet being in the top 10 (honestly, the biggest stand out), and that Scottie Barnes seems to have clearly taken a leap in terms of his on the court impact. At the moment, the real MVP race seems to be between Jokic, Embiid, and SGA (the two usual suspects and SGA being added to the mix).

OKC’s time, as far as being more focused on winning now instead of the future, may be happening sooner than they thought, and there could be a chance that the organization flips sometime this year or next on moves to improve the team’s play now at the cost of future assets. Both SGA and Chet seem legit in their early run this season. According to epm, on the season (a limited sample size of course), they’re currently the best duo in the league.

    • NicolasName@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      EPM for KD: +5.0 (offense), -0.1 (defense), +4.9 overall

      EPM for Chet: +2.8 (offense), +3.4 (defense), +6.2 overall

      Stat changes as time goes on. But right now, it sees the gap between Chet and KD on defense to be bigger than their gap on offense.

      • Schmoova@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        If you genuinely believe Chet is already a more impactful player than KD or Book, you should probably start watching a different sport. Advanced stats don’t mean shit without watching games.

      • sharklavapit@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        this adjusted plus minus stats are awful on small sample sizes

        you should only “use” EPM for full seasons

        • NicolasName@alien.topOPBEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          I agree. I’ve done this for myself last two seasons after the all-star break.

          All the discussions about these awards are pretty awful to start the year. It still has some interesting things to say. I.e. SGA, Lebron, Chet, Scottie Barnes have started off the year playing all-nba level ball (and MVP level for SGA). Of course, the data could be noisy, and things can change going forward.

    • NicolasName@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Luka is at 7.1 atm. Him and Tatum are 12th and 11th respectively according to the formula.

      EPM has Luka as a top 5 offensive player in the league, while being a bottom 50 player in terms of defense on the year. His offense is +6.1, defense -1.7.

      Compare him SGA, they both have +6.1 on offense, but SGA is +1.7 on defense as well, and that’s why SGA is one of 3 players at the top of the MVP race so far, at least according to the formula I’m using, while Luka is not.

  • mcspazzerton@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    After all those “best duo” debates with Jokic/Murray, Bron/AD, Tatum/Brown, Giannis/Dame, Luka/Kyrie, KD/Booker, etc…

    SGA + Chet is the actual most valuable duo that nobody saw coming.

    • Garupaci@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      No Fox/Sabonis combo in there? Because this duo has beat up on the Lakers 2 times this year (and like 10 out of the last 11 games against the Lakers), Beat Dallas in Dallas, Minnesota in Minnesota, OKC… They gave Lakers first home loss, and Minn first home loss as well. Sacramento has had 10 road games so far compared to 5 home games.

    • OG_Wan_Annunoby@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Damn near 50-40-90 efficiency, 17/8/2.5 with 1/2.3 steals/blocks.

      Fuck the rookie status that’s an incredible player, like, deserving of All NBa status if he keeps it up and the Thunder stay atop the west.

        • WrightwoodHiker@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          To be fair, you don’t have an opinion on this, since you admittedly don’t follow the NBA. Chet isn’t the MVP, but you obviously aren’t going to get any support for this take from anyone who likes the NBA.

      • DoughNutSack@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Chet has quickly become a villain in this league and that’s a sure sign of a budding superstar. He’s a great player already and so much of his impact doesn’t even show up in the stats. Can’t wait to see what the Shai/Chet/Dub core can do in a few years

  • MormoNoMo67@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Basketball Reference has five advanced stats and this is where Chet Holmgren ranks in each of the five: 16th PER, 9th Win Shares, 7th WS/48, 12th BPM and 13th VORP.

    We’re only twenty percent of the way through the season and advance stats identify Chet as no worse than a top 20 player this season. In fact, his aggregate score of all those advanced metrics has a ranking of 11.4.

    Is he already a top twenty player?