Unboxing (Day) the 1986-1987 NPBSL Season

[AngryBanana]

Happy holidays to all of you NPBSLers. I am taking this day to reflect on many things in my life, and landed on doing the same for NPBSL. We had a great season this year and not enough articles to reflect the engagement side of the house. This is only my second article where I have been churning out three plus it feels like the past few sesaons. So rather than my mid season reviews of things, power rankings, or other things of the sort - were going to do it all in one article this season. We will have a power rankings and a list of rankings of players by team, where I will also highlight one player per team. First, here is the overall power rankings

RANKINGS:

Power Rankings

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Of note for the power rankings, the change in rankings reflects where the teams was compared to the last rankings I did last season.

Next we have the link to the spreadsheet that details all of the players rankings for this season based on performance. Not all players were included on the list. I excluded anyone that did not play more than 10 mins in at least one game. Also, a player can show up several times on this as it was broken down by team. So for instance, Ralph Sampson will have three ratings associated to his games with the Jazz, the supersonics, and as a member of the ASG. So if his rankings seem low, its because of that reason. Also, for the team’s score below, that reflects the total value added by the players. It’s not necessarily a power rankings.

Link to Player Rankings:

Of note, here is the top ten players based on the calculations that were ran.

Top Ten List

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I may decide to tweak the formula some because there is an obvious omission here, however I will cover this more once I get to the Rockets. Other than that, I think this also shows that Magic is indeed no longer quite the OP SLOE Lord that he once was. He is still great, and the best player in the game, but we may be finally having other players start to catch up to him in terms of value added to their teams. Now lets start with each team:

76ers:

76ers

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Score - 17th

I will go ahead and partially take back the comments I made on the trade Gary made at the beginning of the year. If Carroll played the whole year he would have hands down been the highest rated player. However, he still misses the playoffs this season and at 30 wins has his second best record ever...

Bucks:

Bucks

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Score -2nd

First, I am shocked that McHale wasn't higher overall, but playing less games meant a lower score. I am positive he would have been number two if he played the full year. Also, I am glad to see Terry Tyler got a lower score to Lewis Lloyd.

Bullets:

Bullets

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Score - 21st

There are too many players and I am le tired of talking about this team so much with the trade thread. He also showed zero remorse for breaking rules, I knew he was evil this whole time!
Bulls:

Bulls

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Score - 22nd

The Bulls are clearly looking to rebuild, and I think the Mo Cheeks era needs to end in Chicago. However, it may be hard for them to move him on his contract. However, given he is a primary facilitator maybe he would have scored better with a better supporting cast?

Cavs:

Cavs

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Score - 13th

Michael Adams is looking good statistically on his player page, and is still a growing young player, but I would have thought he would rank better given he started every game and has some great players to pass too.

Celtics:

Celtics

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Score - 7th

I really think Wilkins would have been an All Star and made an all pro team if he didn’t miss about half the season, and this shows it. He would have had comparable score to Hakeem if he played all year. However, I also think it would have changed Hakeem’s year as well, who was DPOY.

Clippers:

Clips

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Score - 12th

Looks like Dawkins was a great add and provided impact exactly like JNR wanted. Alex English was also a great add, providing some solid value that would have put him top five on the team probably if he would have had the whole season on the Clippers

Hawks:

Hawks

Player Rankings 1986 - Hawks.jpg (42.79 KiB) Viewed 251 times

Score - 18th

I’m shocked Charles isn’t first on the team, also Vroman’s -220 is the lowest of any player in history to date for this ranking system.
Jazz:

Jazz

Player Rankings 1986 - Jazz.jpg (49.45 KiB) Viewed 251 times

Score - 11th

The amount of value Ralph provided only playing half a season to the Jazz is crazy. He is worth every penny of that Max contract. I kinda regret not trying to get him back instead of trading for Schayes.
Kings:

Kings

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Score - 20th

I really like Mark Price. He is worth the cost (not price - that’s a bad joke) to restore his leg.
Knicks:

Knicks

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I hate that the Knicks managed to make that three headed monster work with all three players benefiting.
Lakers:

Lakers

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Score - 4th

Lol jk. Magic is still Magic.
Mavericks:

Mavs

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Score - 9th

While the season may not have been as good as K100 wanted, the core he has in place looks promising.
Nets:

Nets

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Score - 15th

In a post Dawkins world, Lever was a good investment and it looks like Kellogg may continue to look like a guy who is better than he actually is.
Nuggets:

Nuggets

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Score - 14th

What I said about Kellogg apply to Griffith.
Pacers:

Pacers

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Score - 16th

To me this tells me that Pauly is really building a unit that over performs. He has no player that is a clear alpha and still is winning.
Pistons:

Pistons

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Score - 8th

Man. Have I said before how great Larry Nance is?
Rockets:

Rockets

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Score - 10th

Ok, so if Ewing played the whole year he would have ranked him second to Magic in this list probably. I wonder what a front court of him and Hakeem would have looked like. Frye this damn game.
Supersonics:

Sonics

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Score - 23rd

Ralph was almost the highest rated player on this team playing under half the season in Seattle.
Spurs:

Spurs

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Score - 1st

Ignoring the obvious, it’s surprising that Byron Scott was so low on this list. Maybe he will be the eventual odd man out in San Antonio?
Suns:

Suns

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Score - 19th

This is very much a two man team. Hopefully the suns get a wing in the next draft.
Trailblazers:

Blazers

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Score - 5th
It looks to me like it was smart of wig to move English. He was not playing on this roster well enough to keep around.
Warriors:

Warriors

Player Rankings 1986 - Warriors.jpg (60.17 KiB) Viewed 251 times

Score - 6th
Looks like Calvin Natt proved his worth on the coast and as long as he doesn’t get destroyed in TC should be a solid play next year too.
ASG:

ASG

Player Rankings 1986 - ASG.jpg (55.12 KiB) Viewed 251 times

Reggie was the ASG MVP right? Also, hilarious that a player got a negative score. That’s amazing.

[WigNosy]

OBJECTIVE: 1495 words - 4 points
SUBJECTIVE: There's clearly a lot of work (math) involved in the creation of these ratings, and you took the time to go through every team in the league, which I like. I feel like one sentence per team is a little light on content (especially since many of the sentences are obvious when looking at the numbers), and going 2-3 sentences would not only make this article a little chewier, it would up the word count as well, probably to 2000 words. This season, I'll award the full 6 points for Subjective points, but next season, I will probably limit myself to awarding 4 points... you can add one or two more sentences per team and get the word count up to 2000 to get the full 10 points.
TOTAL: 10 points