Ultimate Game Breakdown: Players: Mar. 23, 2008: Nuggets 109 Raptors 100

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. While some are biased in favor of offensive players, such as the efficiency measure at the NBA site, many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player, which I think is a very good balance between offense and defense:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS-RAPTORS PLAYER RATINGS
Ratings of 50+ indicate superstar power performers.
Ratings of 40-49 indicate star power performers
Ratings of 30-39 indicate power performers.
Ratings of 20-29 indicate key role player performers.
Ratings of 10-19 indicate ordinary role player performers.
Ratings of 0-9 indicate unimportant players

NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Allen Iverson: Game 53.8 Season 41.4
Carmelo Anthony: Game 47.2 Season 39.2
Kenyon Martin: Game 26.3 Season 23.3
Marcus Camby: Game 21.4 Season 32.6
J.R. Smith: Game 20.7 Season 17.2
Anthony Carter: Game 10.9 Season 20.0
Eduardo Najera: Game 10.1 Season 13.2
Linas Kleiza: Game 8.9 Season 18.2
Chucky Atkins: Game 0.6 Season 8.9

Nene: Did Not Play-Illness

Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Yakhouba Diawara: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Taurean Green: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

RAPTORS PLAYER RATINGS
Chris Bosh: Game 38.7 Season 37.4
Jamario Moon: Game 37.2 Season 19.6
Jose Calderon: Game 33.0 Season 29.2
Anthony Parker: Game 23.3 Season 21.9
Andrea Bargnani: Game 22.4 Season 15.8
T.J. Ford: Game 20.5 Season 22.3
Rasho Nesterovic: Game 16.3 Season 14.0
Jason Kapono: Game 0.9 Season 11.3
Carlos Delfino: Game 0.6 Season 16.4

NOTE 1: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.
NOTE 2: This performance measure does NOT include the quality and quantity of each player’s defending, including the number of shots that the player prevented from going in the basket. The best Nuggets defenders, which are the ones who consistently make the extra effort and have the strength and defensive talent to make that effort pay off, are Camby, Martin, Nene, Najera, and Diawara.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLAYER RATINGS:
The most productive player on the court was Allen Iverson for the Nuggets, who was a superstar power performer. Carmelo Anthony was just behind the Answer and he was a star power performer for the Nuggets.

The Nuggets had no ordinary power performers, while the Raptors had 3 of those: Chris Bosh, Jamario Moon, and Jose Calderon.

In sum, among the 5 players who were power performers or better, the Raptors had 3 and the Nuggets had 2. But Iverson and Anthony were so extremely productive that combined together they practically equaled the combined production of Bosh, Moon, and Calderon.

For the Nuggets, the two most productive players ordinarily were not only the most productive in this game, but they were above their already sky high averages. Iverson was about 30% above normal to go into the stratosphere and Anthony was about 20% better than normal.

Key role player Kenyon Martin was about 1/10 better than normal and he made an incredible takeaway steal against Chris Bosh with very little time left in the game to help ice the game in favor of Denver. J.R. Smith was about 1/5 more productive than usual with moderate minutes.

But these four, Iverson, Anthony, Smith, and Martin, were the only 4 Nuggets who were more productive than usual in this game. 5 others were less productive than usual to one extent or another.

Power performer on the season Marcus Camby was only a little more than 60% as productive as usual. Ordinary role player Eduardo Najera was only about 75% as productive as usual.

Two other role players, Anthony Carter and Linas Kleiza, were way below normal; Carter was only about 55% as productive as usual and Kleiza was half as productive as usual.

In very limited minutes, Atkins was grossly less productive than normal although a normal has not really been established for him due to an extremely long injury absence.

Fortunately for the Nuggets, Iverson, Anthony, Martin and Smith stepped up enough to offset the serious down games of 5 other Nuggets.

By far the biggest upside for the Raptors was borderline key role player SF Jamario Moon, who by doubling his normal production became a power performer. The Raptors’ best player, high end power performer PF Chris Bosh, was almost exactly normal.

PG Jose Calderon, a borderline power performer, was about 1/10 more productive than usual, making him a definite power performer in this game. C Bargnani was about 40% more productive than usual, which made him a key role player for this game.. Key role player SG Parker was about 1/10 better than normal, while plain role player C Nesterovic was about 1/5 better than normal,

Key role player PG T.J. Ford was slightly below normal.

Lower level role players SF Kapono and SG Delfino were almost completely unproductive, which went a long way to causing the Raptors to lose this game. The Raptors had 6 important players above normal and only 1 important player slightly below normal. But they got almost nothing from either Kapono or Delfino, which hurt them a lot.

The Nuggets had 4 players above normal while the Raptors had 6. The Nuggets had 5 players below normal while the Raptors had only 2. But Iverson, Anthony, Martin, and Smith did some huge stepping up in this game to win it for the Nuggets.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.80 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Star Plus-Spectacular Performance
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Extremely Poor-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-RAPTORS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.311
2. T.J. Ford, Tor 1.281
3. Allen Iverson, Den 1.251
4. Jose Calderon, Tor 1.031
5. Chris Bosh, Tor 0.921
6. Jamario Moon, Tor 0.907
7. J.R. Smith, Den 0.863
8. Andrea Bargnani, Tor 0.862
9. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.692
10. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.685
11. Rasho Nesterovic, Tor 0.652
12. Anthony Parker, Tor 0.630
13. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.561
14. Marcus Camby, Den 0.549
15. Anthony Carter, Den 0.495
16. Jason Kapono, Tor 0.069
17. Chucky Atkins, Den 0.086…Atkins played only 7 minutes.
18. Carlos Delfino, Tor 0.086…Delfino played only 7 minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The best player on the court was Carmelo Anthony and he was a star-plus. There were two other star-plus players, T.J. Ford for the Raptors and Allen Iverson for the Nuggets.

Since there were no ordinary stars, there were those 3 players who were stars or better, one Raptor and two Nuggets.

The Raptors had 3 outstanding players, Calderon, Bosh, and Moon, while the Nuggets had none.

Smith was very good for the Nuggets and Bargnani was very good for the Raptors.

Martin and Kleiza were mediocre for the Nuggets not counting their made you miss type defending. Nesterovic and Parker were mediocre for the Raptors.

Najera and Camby were poor for the Nuggets not counting their made you miss type defending.

Carter was very poor for the Nuggets.

There were 3 total disasters. Kapono for the Raptors was a total disaster in limited minutes. Delfino for the Raptors was a total disaster in very limited minutes. Atkins for the Nuggets was a total disaster in very limited minutes.

Among the 10 players who were mediocre or worse, the Nuggets had 6 and the Raptors 4. But with Iverson, Anthony, Martin, and Smith working their magic, the Nuggets snatched victory from the jaws of likely defeat.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown

J.R. Smith: +12
Linas Kleiza: +12
Eduardo Najera: +12
Marcus Camby: +9
Allen Iverson: +6
Carmelo Anthony: -1
Anthony Carter: -1
Kenyon Martin: -5

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Turnovers: NBA Average: 14, Nuggets’ Total 7, Team 0, Anthony 3, Atkins 0, Camby 0, Carter 0, Iverson 4, Kleiza 0, Martin 0, Najera 0, Smith 0

Personal Fouls: NBA Average: 21, Nuggets’ Total 20, Anthony 4, Atkins 0, Camby 3, Carter 1, Iverson 3, Kleiza 2, Martin 5, Najera 1, Smith 1

Chucky Atkins played 7 minutes and was 0/1 for 0 points, and he made 1 assist.

Anthony Carter played 22 minutes and was 2/5 and 1/2 on 3’s for 5 points, and he made 2 assists, 2 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Marcus Camby played 39 minutes and was 1/4 and 3/4 from the line for 5 points, and he made 15 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 assist.

Eduardo Najera played 18 minutes and was 1/3 and 1/3 on 3’s for 3 points, and he made 3 assists and 3 rebounds.

Linas Kleiza played 13 minutes and was 1/4 and 1/4 on 3’s for 3 points, and he made 4 rebounds and 2 assists.

Kenyon Martin played 38 minutes and he was 4/8 and 2/2 from the line for 10 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 3 blocks, 2 steals, and 2 assists.

J.R. Smith played 24 minutes and was 5/12, 2/4 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 14 points, and he made 2 assists, 2 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Allen Iverson played for most of the game, 43 minutes, and he was 11/16, 5/8 on 3’s, and 9/11 on 3’s for 36 points, and he made 6 assists and 2 rebounds.

Carmelo Anthony played 36 minutes and was 14/28, 1/1 on 3’s, and 4/5 from the line for 33 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 3 steals, and 2 assists.