UH GENIUS: Introducing "Tim Allen's Player Value System"

How can you objectively determine the value that a player has to his team?

That is a question that I have wanted to answer for some time, but the standard statistical meausres - points per game, PPR, etc. - have proven inadequate.

For the past couple of months, I have been working on a formula that would help to answer that question and define player value in statistical terms. Finally, the formula is finished, the data has been input and the Player Value System has been born.

What is the Player Value System?

The Player Value System takes into account 12 individual statistical measurements (made field goals, turnovers, etc.) and 5 team measurements. After weighting those various measurements properly, comparing them against league and team averages and then adjusting for minutes played, a single number is produced for every player.

This number is his Player Value Added (PVA).

PVA is not a replacement for PPR. PPR is a statistic that measures on-court production and is good for that purpose. But measuring production is not the same as measuring value, which is the purpose of the Player Value System.

(The actual formulas involved are pretty complex, but if you would like more information on my methodology, please feel free to e-mail me.)


Top PVA Scores for Bloomington South

Using the Player Value System, I have run the numbers for every player who has played in Bloomington South this season.

The top PVA scores for this season are:

1. Mitch Hanson - 4.3162
2. Roderick Powell - 3.9983
3. Chris Maher - 3.8567
4. Sam Halverson - 3.8196
5. Benjamin Wagner - 3.6697
6. Kevin Craft - 3.1330
7. Ryan Samuelson - 3.0829
8. John Hohenstein - 3.0563
9. Dustin Dupont - 3.0510
10. Don Kahl - 3.0107

If you compare this list to the list of top PPR averages this season, you will see that there is some overlap. This makes sense, since the greater production a player has, the more valuable that player is to his team. Powell, Maher, Halverson, Wagner and Dupont are in the top-5 of both lists.

Yet, there are some differences as well. Hanson jumps from 18th in PPR to 1st in PVA. This stems from the fact that the Tropics have struggled to find any player besides Hanson to steadily contribute this season. Take Hanson off of the Tropics and they'll turn into one of the worst teams in the league, whereas if you take a player like Mark Buettner off of the Riddlers, the team would be worse but would still likely be a contender.

This is also a reason why Kevin Craft is high on the PVA list; he has been provided significant value for the Lakers and has kept them alive as a playoff contender this season.

Conversely, Clem's Kidz Scott Ruhsam has dropped from 8th in PPR to 32nd in PVA. While Ruhsam's numbers have been solid this season, they have not been as valuable with regards to team success.



Below are the PVA numbers for every player on every team in the league.

The highest PVA is 4.3162 for the Tropic's Mitch Hanson and the lowest PVA is 0.0051 for Inception's Ryan Freese. The average PVA is 1.5830.

Blue Chips

Halverson, S. 3.8196
Mortenson, P. 2.8780
Riddley, K. 2.7952
Daly, C. 1.9989
Briggs, J. 1.0274
Boys, M. 0.9469
Hoelscher, J. 0.8780
Bohn, E. 0.4752

Blazers

Nyberg, C. 1.9235
Cotterman, S. 1.7584
Eddy, J. 1.1694
Baird, T. 1.0333
Suek, B. 1.0035
Anderson, A. 0.6358
Houg, J. 0.5730
Baird, B. 0.3285

Clem's Kidz

Wagner, B. 3.6697
Ruhsam, S. 2.3411
Corona, N. 0.8236
Ward, T. 0.4824
Loetscher, B. 0.4175
Bobich, J. 0.2802
O'Brien, M. 0.1782
Gempeler, J. 0.0132

Huskies

Olson, R. 2.9333
Stoll, H. 2.5587
Hoyle, J. 2.3613
Stoeffler, J. 1.4409
Ho, J. 1.3085
Ng, T. 0.9380
Barnes, L. 0.2458

Inception

Van Leer, T. 2.2372
Poe, C. 1.8345
Ramirez, J. 1.7068
Auserud, R. 1.1471
Dinh, P. 0.5219
Lakanwal, Y. 0.3722
Safranski, J. 0.3198
O'Donnell, D. 0.0574
Freese, R. 0.0051

Lakers

Craft, K. 3.1330
Hericks, R. 2.8325
Buesgens, B. 2.6344
Martin, J. 2.2248
Ojanpa, J. 1.6076
Nelson, S. 0.8234
Shields, M. 0.8071

Panthers

Graham, N. 2.0874
Zweber, K. 1.6814
Soderberg, N. 1.6060
Wendorff, J. 1.5723
Cage, Q. 1.2775
Heieie, A. 1.0227
Perron, J. 0.7957
Dornfield, J. 0.0304

Raptors

Jensen, J. 2.5650
Stensrude, D. 2.1310
Curren, P. 1.8492
Whiteside, D. 1.5085
Buscher, L. 1.2099
Fee, M. 0.8134
Machacek, M. 0.3994
Allen, T. 0.2799
Allison, C. 0.2397

Rebels

Dupont, D. 3.0510
Ferber, P. 2.6218
Jansen, R. 1.7590
Montzka, J. 1.6531
Magnuson, P. 1.6238
Thomas, J. 1.5747
Schlichte, L. 1.3554
Brown, T. 0.9933

Riddlers

Kahl, D. 3.0107
Ebeling, J. 2.7081
Clark, P. 2.6352
Buettner, M. 2.5513
Roell, N. 1.9342
Steingas, C. 1.6855
Vogel, I. 0.07095

St. Baul

Samuelson, R. 3.0829
Samuelson, J. 2.8941
Klobe, A. 1.9057
Regenscheid, G. 1.8238
McComas, J. 1.7227
Herzberg, C. 1.7202
Lewer, S. 1.0291
Pinkett, J. 0.6016

The Bulls

Powell, R. 3.9983
Ellis, S. 1.9952
Phelps, E. 1.8280
Purnell, D. 1.4770
Dudinsky, G. 1.1620
Caron, N. 1.0176
Forst, C. 0.0145

Thundercats

Maher, C. 3.8567
Batiste, D. 2.9273
Mendez, N. 2.2464
Boeding, B. 2.2174
Grotbeck, T. 1.7144
Mayer, K. 1.6347
Radde, K. 0.1164

Thunder

Hohenstein, J. 3.0563
Dirnberger, K. 2.4364
Christenson, J. 2.4148
Walz, A. 2.3450
Olson, P. 2.1223
Bachman, J. 1.1113
Strom, L. 0.9538

Timberpuppies

Byrne, M. 2.7673
Ball, S. 2.7256
Sontowski, L. 2.6769
Wolf, M. 2.4731
Trejo, L. 1.4125
Wenzel, K. 0.9106
Jenkins, S. 0.7618
Jude, N. 0.1682

Tropics

Hanson, M. 4.3162
Fowler, J. 2.2524
Bundy, M. 2.0339
Chau, J. 1.2857
Martynenko, A. 1.2169
Johnson, B. 1.0009
Halderman, T. 0.7441
Owata, J. 0.3297