KJ’s
BB Newsletter
February
27, 2001
Here’s
a response I sent to Mark Hanson, DM Register columnist, who recently had an
article stating that Creighton’s Ryan Sears was a good point guard, Kansas’
Kirk Hinrich was better, but ISU’s Jamaal Tinsley was the best.
Mark,
I
just had to write and let you know that you had the order a little wrong in your
recent article stating that Jamaal Tinsley was better than Kirk Hinrich and Ryan
Sears.
Here's
some data as proof that Hinrich is the best:
Martin
Manley's Production Index is a simple one that basically counts the 'good'
things players do (e.g. points, rebounds, steals, assists, and blocked shots),
and subtracts the 'bad' things (missed FGs, missed FTs, and turnovers).
The result then can be divided by the number of games played to show
their production index per game, or it can be divided by Minutes played to
derive an index which shows how effective they are when on the floor.
Here
are the results (through 27 games for Tinsley and 26 each for Hinrich and Sears)
Player
Game Index Minute
Index
Hinrich
17.38
.522
Tinsley
14.85
.461
Sears
12.88
.381
Clearly,
Hinrich is not only better per game, but he's more effective while on the floor.
Another
way to look at this is based on point guard indicators proposed by Jed Tai on
his web site About.com. He
uses seven different indicators:
Points
per 40 Minutes
17.81
14.15
13.59
Field
Goal %
40.2
51.3
37.8
Three
Point %
39.8
52.9
35.0
Free
Throw %
70.7
84.2
79.2
Assists
per 40 Minutes
7.36
8.65
4.91
Assist/Turnover
Ratio
1.58
2.13
2.20
Steals
per 40 Minutes
2.99
1.52
2.68
Tai
ranks PGs and then weights each of the Indicators.
Since we can't do that here, due to small numbers of players, let me just
state that Hinrich is the best on 4 of the seven indicators, Tinsley on only
two, while Sears had the best A/T ratio.
On
1/31 Tai ranked the best 55 PGs in the country, and Hinrich ranked 10th, Tinsley
20th, and Sears didn't make the list. Dean
Oliver, incidently, was 43.
Lastly,
there is what Tai calls the Prouty Index (I don't know who Prouty is).
It comes from four factors which are summed and then averaged:
Offensive
Efficiency = Pts / (FGA*2) + FTA
Total
Offense = (Pts + A*2 - TO) / Min
Possessions
Gained = (Reb + Stl = (Blk/2) - PF) / Min
Win
Rating = Min / (Team Total Min / 5) * Team Winning Pct.
Tinsley
.496
Hinrich
.525
Sears
.454
In
summary, based on a variety of statistics, Hinrich is clearly a better ball
player than Tinsley, even though he's only a sophomore while Tinsley is in his
last year.
Ken