I have a different take on the positional value discussion. I experimented on a new system last year and I had some success with it. I would like to get your comments on it.

Consider for example Josh Smith. Last year he was eligible at the G (SG,G) and F (SF,F) position. Now my system last year would have argued that Josh Smith is more valuable as a guard than as a forward; basically saying that if you want to get the most value out of Josh Smith, plug him in one of the G positions instead of the F positions.

The lay man’s explanation of the logic behind this is if you plug J Smoove as a G, you are probably playing an above average G compared to the G’s everybody else are playing; ergo there is positional advantage for you at the G position. The typical G that everybody would have been playing would have given low FG, 3′s, some assists, etc. By plugging J Smoove at the G position, you could say that you have an extreme advantage at blocks, rebounds, slight advantage to neutral at every other G stat, with the 3′s being your only disadvantage (which you will make up with the other positions).

If you plugged in J Smoove at the F position, his positive impact would be somehow lessened since every other F would have nullified your positional advantage. There are a lot of SF’s who can block, steal and rebound like J Smoove.

So what would have been the most optimal solution according to this system? The normal thing to do would have been draft J Smoove and then find a G. However this system would argue that you should draft J Smoove for the G position and then find another F for the F positions for maximum positional advantage! This is based on the fact that every team is gonna have to plug in the same positional slots as you are, so you should maximize each of your slots comparative to everybody else’s

The system itself is pretty complicated, and I don’t even know if I got my math right, but I used standard deviations and gave each player a rating for all of their position eligibility (yes that means J Smoove got 5 scores SG,G,SF,F,Util )

And just to show that this system just doesn’t tell us what to do with J Smoove.. here were some other results:

Jason Kidd – You’re basically putting yourself at a disadvantage if you play him anywhere else besides the PG position. The FG, lack of points, TO’s just negate his advantages if you place him somewhere else.

Tyson Chandler – Got higher scores as a Util player. His efficiency at FG must have pulled his scored up. And despite his low FT, he doesn’t take that many attempts. Now if we we’re talking about..

Tim Duncan – Now this guy is worse as a Util and as an F. Putting him in other positions beside the PF and C would hurt you too much in the FT and TO dept.

Brandon Roy – Is most effective plugged in as a PG. Kinda like a mini-Wade with his plus in rebounds and points. His almost 6 assists won’t set you too far back in that dept.

Now don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t mean that TD and JKidd are bad players. They’re superb players and will still rank significantly higher than say someone like Nick Collison in all positional ratings. What my system basically says is how to best utilize these players through positional advantage.

Does this make sense? I could go on forever but this post is getting lengthy. Comment on it and I’ll explain some more. Chow.

testing. couldn’t post.