Elite Skills Distribution in SLN
Elite Skills Distribution in SLN
As I was sitting thinking about comparative value across positions started wondering exactly how many players at each position have A ratings and decided to just go through the league and take stock. Obviously the ratings we can see aren't everything when it comes to valuation — stats are usually the better indicator — but it is interesting just to think about the balance of skills and how many elite specialists there are.
Here's what I found, and some inconclusive but maybe interesting thoughts about ratings and where we're going as a league.
INSIDE
There are only five players at any position with Flat A inside scoring. They are as follows:
LeBron James (PG)
Derrick Rose (PG)
Blake Griffin (PF)
Eddy Curry (C)
Amare Stoudemire (C)
Props to Ashes here because this all kind of adds up with how these guys were (or were supposed to be) in real life. There are very few of them. They're all elite scorers. LeBron is LeBron. I feel like Rose should be better (what would he look like in outside? does it matter with his turnover thing?). It's wild that Blake and Curry are on the same team. Amare is having a sweet late career peak.
For shits, I also tallied up A- inside scorers, just because that list was so short — here are those guys:
PGs (1)
Shaun Livingston
Wings (10)
Kevin Durant
Carmelo Anthony
Tracy McGrady
Marvin Williams
Dahntay Jones
Rudy Gay
Josh Howard
DeMar DeRozan
Damion James
Josh Smith (who knows what position he is)
Bigs (9)
LaMarcus Aldridge
Yao Ming
Pau Gasol
Chris Bosh
Eddie Griffin
Giannis
DeMarcus Cousins
Greg Oden
Dwight Howard
So this is a more interesting list. Some of these guys are really great scorers, some of them less so. There are some vast differences in efficiency. One thing I'm wondering about also is how much inside scoring skews not only volume, but shot selection in terms of threes versus twos (that might hang more on 3P rating I would guess?) Regardless, this is a pretty sweet list — elite inside ratings are not required to be great, particularly not for wings, but it does seem to typify the type of players who get to the line and score efficiently. It's a little different for bigs because they're usually facing other bigs with comparatively high strength/interior defense, is my guess — jump shot matters a ton, as we can see guys like Oden and Dwight who haven't been consistently elite in the FG% realm.
Side note — is 20-year-old Giannis going to be the first player in league history to get to A+ inside scoring?
OUTSIDE
This list is a lot longer, as you'd guess. Shooting is a much easier skill to improve via camps. But the Flat A shooters are still a notch above the A- shooters. They're still not actually that hard to find, though — which makes me wonder how much of a comparative advantage elite shooting really is — seems like we are gravitating toward this era where there are just more good shooters out there, too.
Point Guards (17)
Kyrie Irving (A+)
Lou Williams (tossed him in here since he's more of a PG than a wing)
Jameer Nelson
Steph Curry
Deron Williams
Damian Lillard
Kemba Walker
Jrue Holiday
Gilbert Arenas
Brandon Jennings
George Hill
Sergio Llull
DJ Augustin
Keyon Dooling
Delonte West
Isaiah Thomas
Troy Bell
Some of these guys are backups, some of them just have turnover problems so it matters less, but a Flat A shooting point guard who can actually handle 30MPG is a pretty large advantage. I'd say basically all these players have a history of efficiency. Worth noting that the younger guys on this list are all on insane trajectories already.
Wings (22)
Jason Richardson (A+)
OJ Mayo (A+)
Carmelo Anthony
Dwyane Wade
Dahntay Jones
Rashad McCants
Monta Ellis (I guess he's a wing)
Jimmy Butler
Manu Ginobili
Rudy Fernandez
Klay Thompson
JJ Redick (more of a straight two guard)
Kobe Bryant
Bradley Beal
CJ Miles
Ben Gordon
JR Smith
Shane Battier
Willie Green
Tayshaun Prince
Hedo Turkoglu
Trevor Ariza
Every one of these guys is either a stud, a starter, or a useful player regardless of age, which kind of goes to show how critical elite shooting can be for maintaining value. However, there are a lot of them, and there's some distribution in terms of how much these players are paid, which is interesting to think about from a contract perspective. It takes a lot for elite shooters to totally die on the vine.
Bigs (1)
Troy Murphy (Raptors draftee! Look at the longevity!)
Troy Murphy, a unicorn!!! We'll probably start to see more bigs who are really good shooters come into the league - but at the expense of other things (more on that later).
HANDLES (12)
Chris Paul (A+)
Jameer Nelson (A+)
Shaun Livingston (A+)
Mike Conley (A+)
John Wall (A+)
Ricky Rubio (A+)
Devin Harris
LeBron James
Jrue Holiday
Raymond Felton
Russell Westbrook
Jerryd Bayless
I'm not gonna spend too much time on this, they're all point guards and LeBron. Skewed heavily by passing, not always indicative of ball security. But for the most part, these guys are all on the spectrum of elite to useful.
DEFENSE
These names are a little more interesting.
Point guards (6)
Jameer Nelson (A+)
LeBron James
Chris Paul
Shaun Livingston
Mike Conley
John Wall
Elite defense at the PG position is really hard to find. Feels like Marcus Smart will be on that trajectory and Jrue Holiday might get there. It sometimes also just doesn't matter at PG — elite shooters are going to torch sometimes no matter what or who they are facing — but as a baseline, these type of two-way PGs are super scarce. Is there hope for John Wall? There aren't too many A- PG defenders either, for the record — I think it's Holiday, Westbrook, Rondo, Smart, Kemba, Rose, Bayless, Jay Williams, Jason Hart, and Felton, of those that are relevant. And uh, Roddy Beaubois.
Wings (11)
Paul George
Kawhi Leonard
Tony Allen
Metta World Peace
Andrei Kirilenko
Danny Granger
Andre Iguodala
Luol Deng
Julian Wright
Thabo Sefolosha
Corey Brewer
This is a super short list combining SGs and SFs. Pretty notable list. Not easy to find a flat A wing defender! There are some A- guys floating around out there too, of course. Defensive letter grade is compiled of so many things that it's hard to really say how much Flat A matters — but it certainly doesn't hurt. Most of these guys are stocky, those that aren't have great positional defense. Not as long a list as you'd think.
Bigs (6)
DeAndre Jordan
Darko Milicic
Kwame Brown
Serge Ibaka
Hasheem Thabeet
Bismack Biyombo
As we'll see in the rebounding section, elite butts are no longer everywhere! We're seeing a lot of the older bigs decline in defense and rebounding. This leaves us with just six bigs who are Flat A defenders — all great shot blockers, too. There are plenty of other bigs who are good defenders who don't have the Glorious A, but it's notable how few of these guys there are out there.
Here's the list of A- big man defenders, for shits and gigs — it's a longer list, so it's not like the big man is dead or anything.
Chris Bosh
Blake Griffin
Eddie Griffin
Anthony Davis
Dwight Howard
Andrew Bogut
LaMarcus Aldridge
Greg Oden
Marcin Gortat
Nikola Vucevic
Sam Dalembert
Al Horford
Desagana Diop
Rudy Gobert
Andre Drummond
Kendrick Perkins
Johan Petro
Brook Lopez
Michael Kidd Gilchrist
Kris Humphries
Joakim Noah
Jason Thompson
Larry Sanders
Greg Monroe
Roy Hibbert
Fabricio Oberto
Leon Powe
Nerlens Noel
John Henson
Solomon Jones
Jon Leuer
Nene
I count 32 names here. There are some younger guys on this list who have emerged — basically everyone on this list except for Nene (lol) is a regular worthy of minutes somewhere. A- defense always seems to travel for big fellas. It's not a necessity, and some guys have more stonks than others — but it feels like surely a bankable thing when we're evaluating players.
REBOUNDING
Eddy Curry
Dwight Howard
Greg Oden
Hassan Whiteside
Kevin Love
Kris Humphries
Kwame Brown
Kendrick Perkins
Ian Mahinmi
David Lee
Only 10 flat A rebounders left out there in the wild. Crazy to think about! Well, maybe. We've seen all these guys become valuable to quite valuable over the years, many a title team has had one of them. Only a few of them are on the younger side — Oden, Whiteside, and I guess Love.
Here's the list of A- rebounders, too. Plenty of these guys, but again, most of them are older — I have noted those Under 30 to drive the point home...
LeBron James
Chris Bosh
Blake Griffin (under 30)
Eddie Griffin
Andrew Bogut
DeAndre Jordan (under 30)
Darko Milicic (under 30, he's 29, damn we've been doing this for a long time)
Desagana Diop
Marcin Gortat
DeMarcus Cousins (under 30)
Al Jefferson
Al Horford (under 30, he's 28)
Tim Duncan
Emeka Okafor
Pau Gasol
Yao Ming
Andre Drummond (under 30)
Boban (under 30)
Sam Dalembert
Johan Petro (under 30, he's 29)
Michael Kidd Gilchrist (under 30)
Jason Thompson (under 30, he's 28)
Amare Stoudemire
Elton Brand
Greg Monroe (under 30)
Primoz Brezec
Zach Randolph
Pops Mensah Bonsu
Andris Biedrins (under 30, he's 28)
Russell Westbrook (he's a PG! and under 30 - will he scale into even more value over time?)
Yi Jianlian (SF! he's 27 but his age is fake!)
Carlos Boozer
Leon Powe
Lou Amundson
Thomas Robinson (under 30)
Amir Johnson (under 30, he's 27)
Sean May
Olumide Oyedeji
Craig Smith
Troy Murphy (!)
So yeah, most of these 40 guys are still useful — but I do wonder how fast these types of rebounding-heavy big men are going to phase out of the league. We're seeing more tweener guys come out each year. There are like maybe a dozen guys who are relevant and Under 30, and some of them are 28/29, so those guys are basically right there at the hump. We probably need to be adjusting expectations accordingly as we build out our teams — but it can be a huge advantage to have one or two of these guys around as they age, still, too.
I think the question is gonna be how people approach camps/how lucky they get in TC with development of big man prospects, some of this will bear out over time, but In five seasons a lot of these guys will be out of the league, and Ashes isn't loading up rookies with rebounding the way he used to. Some food for thought!
Here's what I found, and some inconclusive but maybe interesting thoughts about ratings and where we're going as a league.
INSIDE
There are only five players at any position with Flat A inside scoring. They are as follows:
LeBron James (PG)
Derrick Rose (PG)
Blake Griffin (PF)
Eddy Curry (C)
Amare Stoudemire (C)
Props to Ashes here because this all kind of adds up with how these guys were (or were supposed to be) in real life. There are very few of them. They're all elite scorers. LeBron is LeBron. I feel like Rose should be better (what would he look like in outside? does it matter with his turnover thing?). It's wild that Blake and Curry are on the same team. Amare is having a sweet late career peak.
For shits, I also tallied up A- inside scorers, just because that list was so short — here are those guys:
PGs (1)
Shaun Livingston
Wings (10)
Kevin Durant
Carmelo Anthony
Tracy McGrady
Marvin Williams
Dahntay Jones
Rudy Gay
Josh Howard
DeMar DeRozan
Damion James
Josh Smith (who knows what position he is)
Bigs (9)
LaMarcus Aldridge
Yao Ming
Pau Gasol
Chris Bosh
Eddie Griffin
Giannis
DeMarcus Cousins
Greg Oden
Dwight Howard
So this is a more interesting list. Some of these guys are really great scorers, some of them less so. There are some vast differences in efficiency. One thing I'm wondering about also is how much inside scoring skews not only volume, but shot selection in terms of threes versus twos (that might hang more on 3P rating I would guess?) Regardless, this is a pretty sweet list — elite inside ratings are not required to be great, particularly not for wings, but it does seem to typify the type of players who get to the line and score efficiently. It's a little different for bigs because they're usually facing other bigs with comparatively high strength/interior defense, is my guess — jump shot matters a ton, as we can see guys like Oden and Dwight who haven't been consistently elite in the FG% realm.
Side note — is 20-year-old Giannis going to be the first player in league history to get to A+ inside scoring?
OUTSIDE
This list is a lot longer, as you'd guess. Shooting is a much easier skill to improve via camps. But the Flat A shooters are still a notch above the A- shooters. They're still not actually that hard to find, though — which makes me wonder how much of a comparative advantage elite shooting really is — seems like we are gravitating toward this era where there are just more good shooters out there, too.
Point Guards (17)
Kyrie Irving (A+)
Lou Williams (tossed him in here since he's more of a PG than a wing)
Jameer Nelson
Steph Curry
Deron Williams
Damian Lillard
Kemba Walker
Jrue Holiday
Gilbert Arenas
Brandon Jennings
George Hill
Sergio Llull
DJ Augustin
Keyon Dooling
Delonte West
Isaiah Thomas
Troy Bell
Some of these guys are backups, some of them just have turnover problems so it matters less, but a Flat A shooting point guard who can actually handle 30MPG is a pretty large advantage. I'd say basically all these players have a history of efficiency. Worth noting that the younger guys on this list are all on insane trajectories already.
Wings (22)
Jason Richardson (A+)
OJ Mayo (A+)
Carmelo Anthony
Dwyane Wade
Dahntay Jones
Rashad McCants
Monta Ellis (I guess he's a wing)
Jimmy Butler
Manu Ginobili
Rudy Fernandez
Klay Thompson
JJ Redick (more of a straight two guard)
Kobe Bryant
Bradley Beal
CJ Miles
Ben Gordon
JR Smith
Shane Battier
Willie Green
Tayshaun Prince
Hedo Turkoglu
Trevor Ariza
Every one of these guys is either a stud, a starter, or a useful player regardless of age, which kind of goes to show how critical elite shooting can be for maintaining value. However, there are a lot of them, and there's some distribution in terms of how much these players are paid, which is interesting to think about from a contract perspective. It takes a lot for elite shooters to totally die on the vine.
Bigs (1)
Troy Murphy (Raptors draftee! Look at the longevity!)
Troy Murphy, a unicorn!!! We'll probably start to see more bigs who are really good shooters come into the league - but at the expense of other things (more on that later).
HANDLES (12)
Chris Paul (A+)
Jameer Nelson (A+)
Shaun Livingston (A+)
Mike Conley (A+)
John Wall (A+)
Ricky Rubio (A+)
Devin Harris
LeBron James
Jrue Holiday
Raymond Felton
Russell Westbrook
Jerryd Bayless
I'm not gonna spend too much time on this, they're all point guards and LeBron. Skewed heavily by passing, not always indicative of ball security. But for the most part, these guys are all on the spectrum of elite to useful.
DEFENSE
These names are a little more interesting.
Point guards (6)
Jameer Nelson (A+)
LeBron James
Chris Paul
Shaun Livingston
Mike Conley
John Wall
Elite defense at the PG position is really hard to find. Feels like Marcus Smart will be on that trajectory and Jrue Holiday might get there. It sometimes also just doesn't matter at PG — elite shooters are going to torch sometimes no matter what or who they are facing — but as a baseline, these type of two-way PGs are super scarce. Is there hope for John Wall? There aren't too many A- PG defenders either, for the record — I think it's Holiday, Westbrook, Rondo, Smart, Kemba, Rose, Bayless, Jay Williams, Jason Hart, and Felton, of those that are relevant. And uh, Roddy Beaubois.
Wings (11)
Paul George
Kawhi Leonard
Tony Allen
Metta World Peace
Andrei Kirilenko
Danny Granger
Andre Iguodala
Luol Deng
Julian Wright
Thabo Sefolosha
Corey Brewer
This is a super short list combining SGs and SFs. Pretty notable list. Not easy to find a flat A wing defender! There are some A- guys floating around out there too, of course. Defensive letter grade is compiled of so many things that it's hard to really say how much Flat A matters — but it certainly doesn't hurt. Most of these guys are stocky, those that aren't have great positional defense. Not as long a list as you'd think.
Bigs (6)
DeAndre Jordan
Darko Milicic
Kwame Brown
Serge Ibaka
Hasheem Thabeet
Bismack Biyombo
As we'll see in the rebounding section, elite butts are no longer everywhere! We're seeing a lot of the older bigs decline in defense and rebounding. This leaves us with just six bigs who are Flat A defenders — all great shot blockers, too. There are plenty of other bigs who are good defenders who don't have the Glorious A, but it's notable how few of these guys there are out there.
Here's the list of A- big man defenders, for shits and gigs — it's a longer list, so it's not like the big man is dead or anything.
Chris Bosh
Blake Griffin
Eddie Griffin
Anthony Davis
Dwight Howard
Andrew Bogut
LaMarcus Aldridge
Greg Oden
Marcin Gortat
Nikola Vucevic
Sam Dalembert
Al Horford
Desagana Diop
Rudy Gobert
Andre Drummond
Kendrick Perkins
Johan Petro
Brook Lopez
Michael Kidd Gilchrist
Kris Humphries
Joakim Noah
Jason Thompson
Larry Sanders
Greg Monroe
Roy Hibbert
Fabricio Oberto
Leon Powe
Nerlens Noel
John Henson
Solomon Jones
Jon Leuer
Nene
I count 32 names here. There are some younger guys on this list who have emerged — basically everyone on this list except for Nene (lol) is a regular worthy of minutes somewhere. A- defense always seems to travel for big fellas. It's not a necessity, and some guys have more stonks than others — but it feels like surely a bankable thing when we're evaluating players.
REBOUNDING
Eddy Curry
Dwight Howard
Greg Oden
Hassan Whiteside
Kevin Love
Kris Humphries
Kwame Brown
Kendrick Perkins
Ian Mahinmi
David Lee
Only 10 flat A rebounders left out there in the wild. Crazy to think about! Well, maybe. We've seen all these guys become valuable to quite valuable over the years, many a title team has had one of them. Only a few of them are on the younger side — Oden, Whiteside, and I guess Love.
Here's the list of A- rebounders, too. Plenty of these guys, but again, most of them are older — I have noted those Under 30 to drive the point home...
LeBron James
Chris Bosh
Blake Griffin (under 30)
Eddie Griffin
Andrew Bogut
DeAndre Jordan (under 30)
Darko Milicic (under 30, he's 29, damn we've been doing this for a long time)
Desagana Diop
Marcin Gortat
DeMarcus Cousins (under 30)
Al Jefferson
Al Horford (under 30, he's 28)
Tim Duncan
Emeka Okafor
Pau Gasol
Yao Ming
Andre Drummond (under 30)
Boban (under 30)
Sam Dalembert
Johan Petro (under 30, he's 29)
Michael Kidd Gilchrist (under 30)
Jason Thompson (under 30, he's 28)
Amare Stoudemire
Elton Brand
Greg Monroe (under 30)
Primoz Brezec
Zach Randolph
Pops Mensah Bonsu
Andris Biedrins (under 30, he's 28)
Russell Westbrook (he's a PG! and under 30 - will he scale into even more value over time?)
Yi Jianlian (SF! he's 27 but his age is fake!)
Carlos Boozer
Leon Powe
Lou Amundson
Thomas Robinson (under 30)
Amir Johnson (under 30, he's 27)
Sean May
Olumide Oyedeji
Craig Smith
Troy Murphy (!)
So yeah, most of these 40 guys are still useful — but I do wonder how fast these types of rebounding-heavy big men are going to phase out of the league. We're seeing more tweener guys come out each year. There are like maybe a dozen guys who are relevant and Under 30, and some of them are 28/29, so those guys are basically right there at the hump. We probably need to be adjusting expectations accordingly as we build out our teams — but it can be a huge advantage to have one or two of these guys around as they age, still, too.
I think the question is gonna be how people approach camps/how lucky they get in TC with development of big man prospects, some of this will bear out over time, but In five seasons a lot of these guys will be out of the league, and Ashes isn't loading up rookies with rebounding the way he used to. Some food for thought!
Last edited by jwoo on May 27th, 2024, 10:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Great piece
Fun to ponder things like Russ's A- rebounding becoming more of a cheat code in his 30s when the heavier rebounding population ages out
Fun to ponder things like Russ's A- rebounding becoming more of a cheat code in his 30s when the heavier rebounding population ages out
Cool article. Interesting to think about positional changes and guys playing out of position for the defense rating, due to strength and split of stocks/post D vs perimeter D (e.g., Russ is a flat A Defense guy when the computer lists him at PG, and Lou Will jumps from B- to B+, Kwame went from flat A to A+ defense when he was moved from PF to C) - probably a few bonus guys on a couple of these lists
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