John Wall's Excitement Rating

Sorry for the blogging break, but I had a semi-sudden death in the family and have been away from computers for a week. Back to business.....

I posted on this a little over a month ago, but the website Thuuz evaluates the amount of excitement an unbiased fan would get from a game. I provided a little consulting for them and they have now come up with individual player ratings for excitement. This is awesome news, because it will allow for a lot of individual player evaluation using Thuuz's metrics.

Also, we can shove it back in Charles Barkley's face that the Wizards are indeed worth watching because we've got John Wall.

Here is the report from Thuuz. Here is the take from Thuuz, "In summary, John Wall crushes it. He's the top rookie and the #7 player overall, even higher than Blake Griffin. We know this rating system works because 'jumpshooter' Ray Allen and 'Mr. Fundamental' Tim Duncan, are two of the lowest ranked All Stars."

Top Twenty Most Exciting Players of the 2010 – 2011 NBA Season (through the All-Star Break)
Player	Excitement per Game	Excitement Rank	Impact per Game	Impact Rank
Williams, Deron	90.9	1	44.7	8
Nash, Steve	85.7	2	40.8	14
Love, Kevin	78.8	3	48.1	2
Rose, Derrick	78.5	4	45	5
James, LeBron	77.8	5	50.1	1
Westbrook, Russell	75.8	6	44.5	9
Wall, John	72.5	7	36.4	29
Paul, Chris	71.6	8	44.8	7
Ellis, Monta	69.8	9	40.8	13
Durant, Kevin	68.9	10	46	4
Felton, Raymond	68.8	11	39.8	19
Griffin, Blake	68.7	12	43.3	12
Calderon, Jose	67.8	13	31.3	64
Wade, Dwyane	66.4	14	43.7	10
Curry, Stephen	64.8	15	36.6	28
Stoudemire, Amar'e	64.7	16	44.8	6
Rondo, Rajon	63.6	17	40	16
Randolph, Zach	62.7	18	39.9	17
Bryant, Kobe	62.4	19	39.7	20
Gordon, Eric	62.2	20	38	24
Additional NBA All-Star Starters not in the Top Twenty
Anthony, Carmelo	61.7	22	39.8	18
Howard, Dwight	59	26	46.5	3
Ming, Yao	21.7	225	21.5	143
Additional NBA All-Star Reserves not in the Top Twenty
Horford, Al	57.5	27	38.9	22
Nowitzki, Dirk	57.1	29	38.1	23
Johnson, Joe	56.6	31	34	45
Gasol, Pau	56.4	33	43.7	11
Ginobili, Manu	49.8	51	36.2	31
Pierce, Paul	49.3	56	34.6	38
Bosh, Chris	45.2	69	33.8	47

As I noted before, a problem with the system is that players from bad teams generate more excitement, but a good way to account for that effect is to compare impact to excitement. Impact measures basic stats such as points, assists, rebounds, etc, so by comparing both, one can see who is generating the most excitement per play, sort of. Jimmy is only 29th in impact, but 7th in excitement. Jose Calderon and Steve Nash also fare well when comparing both numbers.

Fine, Blake Griffin should be #1, but the system has a hard time measuring 1 dunk against another. You must also realize that while waiting for Griffin's highlight reel dunks, watching the rest of his game is not as exciting.

Whatever, just let us Wizards win something this year other than the draft lottery. 

(Image courtesy of probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com)