ESPN Insider Top PG's by WARP

[Eric M VAN]

Interesting in that Rondo has been left off this and last years rankings due to his injury (Rose also, Parker due to Age). The verbiage goes on to explain that they would rank Rondo around  8-9 or 10 in both years.

As this is copyright content, I'll judiciously edit it to just show the rankings

Warp Explanation

1. Chris Paul, Los Angeles Clippers
Projected 2014-15 WARP: 17.8 | Win%: 73 percent

Westbrook
2. Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder
Projected 2014-15 WARP: 15.1 | Win%: 69 percent

Curry
3. Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
Projected 2014-15 WARP: 14.2 | Win%: 67 percent

Wall
4. John Wall, Washington Wizards
Projected 2014-15 WARP: 13.8 | Win%: 65 percent

Irving
5. Kyrie Irving, Cleveland Cavaliers
Projected 2014-15 WARP: 12.1 | Win%: 63 percent

Lowry
6. Kyle Lowry, Toronto Raptors
Projected 2014-15 WARP: 11.8 | Win%: 62 percent

Lillard
7. Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers
Projected 2014-15 WARP: 11.24 | Win%: 60 percent

Conley
8. Mike Conley, Memphis Grizzlies
Projected 2014-15 WARP: 11.21 | Win%: 62 percent

Rubio
9. Ricky Rubio, Minnesota Timberwolves
Projected 2014-15 WARP: 10.9 | Win%: 63 percent

Lawson
10. Ty Lawson, Denver Nuggets
Projected 2014-15 WARP: 10.1 | Win%: 60 percent

The next five: Goran Dragic, Deron Williams, Kemba Walker, Michael Carter-Williams, Trey Burke

Dragic's career season puts him on the verge of the elite, while Williams' worst season drops him from the top five.

Also notable: Eric Bledsoe, Patrick Beverley, Jrue Holiday, Isaiah Thomas, as well the aforementioned Rondo, Rose and Parker. As we mentioned in the introduction, Injury woes and age undermine the projections for some of these big-name players.

[BleedGreen1989]

Some advanced guys really swear by this stat, so it's fun to see an actual rankings.

I know Sullinger ranks very well at this stat as well.

[mgent]

Funny stuff.

Lowry at 6??  Rubio at 9??  No Parker??

Edit:  How far down is Teague?   He should definitely be in the top 15 over a few of those guys.

[sofutomygaha]

The actual ingredients for this stat are completely opaque and there's no historical data to be found anywhere. =(

On my proprietary scale of statistics usefulness, I give this article a -42.7Q

[D.o.s.]

Since I share few of Eric's ethical qualities:

Starting on Monday with point guards, over the next week we'll rank players by position according to forecasted WARP, which is perfect for this kind of exercise because it accounts for a player's efficiency, volume of production and team context. This also means that injury and age played a part in the rankings so notable veteran point guards who suffered injuries last season such as Rajon Rondo, Derrick Rose, Tony Parker are absent from the top 10.

The annual offseason position rankings offer a snapshot of the top players in the league by base position, according to the forecasted quantity and quality of performance for the coming season. Players are ranked by Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP), an estimate of the number of wins a player adds to a team's bottom line above what would be expected of any easily acquired talent from outside the NBA. Players are measured for usage and efficiency on both ends of the floor, and these ratings are converted to an individual winning percentage. From there, WARP is calculated based on the player's winning percentage and forecasted playing time for the coming season. Playing-time projections are based on recent seasons, health and role on the player's current team. Players are assigned a position according to where they appeared at most often in their most recent NBA season, though subjective adjustments have been made for some players based on anticipated usage in 2014-15.

The underlying methodology of calculating the player efficiencies used in these rankings has changed since last year, and now relies on Real Plus-Minus methodology, with adjustments. Each player's offensive and defensive RPM is converted to efficiency ratings for each end of the floor. Those ratings are then evaluated for "direct" and "indirect" impact. Direct impact is comprised of points scored and possessions used, as calculated from traditional box scores. Indirect impact uses RPM to evaluate how a player affects the possessions finished by his teammates while he's on the floor. RPM has been split in this manner for a couple of reasons. First, indirect impact has a higher season-to-season correlation, and is less affected by a player aging patterns. Also, splitting direct impact and indirect impact is useful for projecting how players will perform in new environments and in calculating team projections. For first-year NBA players, their SCHOENE projection is used as their WARP projection in these rankings.