#SLOE: People's Basketball Sim League

Hello everyone and welcome back to another AngryBanana is bored, let’s write another article series. So after strenuous hours of recreating my powerrr rankings, that involved hours of trying to scrape the index correctly (which was way harder than I expected. The index is very hard to scrap because of the way it’s built.), getting the right data out of the index once I figured it out, getting a new way to resolve a powerrr ranking formula after the macros I used for the old one was discontinued after the developer killed the app. After all that I realized it was way too late in the year to get a solid point grab from the series, so I needed to pivot and find an additional article idea.

Given my new found skills of scrapping data, I decided to build a new one for players to see who has truly been playing well on their teams (Hey, @IAmQuailmam, Ralph’s season last year was pretty good.) After weeks of tinkering I was able to build something out. Once getting the data needed, I again needed to think of a way to mathematically evaluating a players. With some help of AI, I built out a formula to capture a player’s value added to a team in any given season.

When I was able to get this formula fully realized in a datasheet format, comprised of computing several values based on points, rebounds, assists, fouls, and other stats then converting the data to a per 36 min amount to account for time disparity, I got my golden number. I finally took out the outliers of players who played under ten minutes a game and finally summed the players contribution based on season and team played for. The other condition I decided to apply was to regular season only in order to get an idea of the players overall when they are all playing. This was an interesting way to do it, because if players were traded mid season they had two values for that season, more on that later though.

Before I started messing with the data and reviewing the results, I wanted to do a top ten best and worst players of the year or of PBSL to date. However, I realized quickly that would be top boring. The top end would consist of Magic and Moses and the bottom would be players people have never cares about enough to remember, even if they played for their own team.

I decided that the best way to get a good article out to show my data and have everyone engaged would be one talking about each team instead. We have now had a few seasons where each team has had a chance at being decent so I decided this article will be a Team X Mount Rushmore article. Where each team section will show the top four seasons played by the player. The table will consist of player name, season of their performance, the team name, their score, and the ranking in the overall rankings across all SLOE. So without further any further nonsense that I’m sure none of you are reading - here is the article.

76ers:
To start out our list were going to talk about the 76ers. This is a team that Quail and LTS will look at and see who they want to slime away from digi. Well, too bad, all the assets have been taken. Larry had a good two year stretch for Digi before being traded to the Bullets though. After further review, Davis was the player Digi got back for Nance, so plus value overall for that deal in the little I am seeing of it.

Bucks:
You see that right. A player that was on the bucks later played for the 76ers. However, it is not what you think and the Bullets we’re the team sandwiched in this Davis sandwich. Otherwise,the other three seasons have been top notch. McHale and Parish all had top end seasons. Quail did move Parish after this season, will he do the same with McHale?

Bullets:
Ok… hopefully we close this Walter Davis circle. Larry Nance is represented again here. His season in ‘83 was astronomical, getting a top 20 ranking. Seeing Buck on here shows how good the Bullets are at trading given that both players were brought in via trade.

Bulls:
Speaking of building good teams. It’s impressive to see the Bulls have all of their best players come in the past two seasons. Log took a few years to build this team, but they really have built a strong contender here, with guys like Natt who had a stellar year this season. You have to get eight player deep before you see someone that isn’t from the past two seasons (Steve Johnson 1981 season).

Cavaliers:
This team should be renamed the Moncreif Paxoson’s because the top ten results were all those two players.

Celtics:
I always felt good about Kareem being my top pick and laying the foundation that this team would be a big centered org. These numbers show that.

Clippers:
Reggie Theus is a guy who some have called and written about being overrated. Thankfully, JNR ignored that and saw the true alpha in Theus. Mitchell has also showed his value this season where he was pivotal to the clippers this post season before scratching his eye.

Hawks:
While the list of players in this list is a guy who later got a great deal from a smart GM and a former championship winning big past his prime, don’t worry Syndicate. Number five on the list, and right behind Roundfield overall, is Sir Charles maiden voyage.

Jazz
This one hurts to see. The mountain would surely be demolished if this was the case in real life because Benedict Arnold himself leads the way for the SLC crew. Chambers had a solid season in 83 as well and maybe would have excelled in Utah if he stayed instead of bouncing to Washington and Golden State.

Kings:
I thought it would have been more representation of the championship season for the kings, but seeing Natt at the top shows how important he was to this team, getting a top ten ranking overall. Seeing English fourth on the list for his season this year shows how good he was in his age 31 season, given the quality players the Kings have rolled out on the court.

Knicks:
Another team, another showing of familiar faces with King and English. The real star though is Malone, who still put up great value in his first season away from the Bay. Have to give a little love to Dr. J as well who balled out in the first season.

Lakers:
Ok, this is where I bring back up the player getting traded and also counting towards his team(s) and not just the year. Magic was traded in season in 1983 from the Suns to the Lakers. It didn’t matter though, because he still put up so much value in the 40-50 games that season for the Lakers that he had the 7th best season in PBSL history. That’s honestly more impressive than his season this year to me.

Mavericks:
The three players representing the Mavs on this list were the top three picks for the Mavs in the creation draft. Props to the Mavs for getting the right mixture of players out the gate. Moore particularly was a great pick, before pulling a Kiki and leaving in UFA. Hopefully they will be able to pivot again soon and get some newer players up here.

Nets:
My goodness, Dawkins is really that guy huh? I know I should have a better idea of how good he is since he is in my division, but I somehow missed he was THAT Fryeing good. Good on the Nets and I hope that they can keep building a quality team around them.

Nuggets:

According to this exercise, the Nuggets are stuck in the past. English, the guy that brought them to glory in the first season truly balled while on this team. Clyde is getting to a point where he can start challenging some of the older teams players, but may need another season or two to crack this top four group.

Pacers:
I am surprised to not see more recent players on this list, given that Pauly always manages to have a good team. What’s even odder is that Dantley is still on this team, but hasn’t been as valuable to the team the past two seasons, and now that he is 29 he may never reach his old glory.

Pistons:
Dan Roundfield has really been around the block huh? I don’t know that any other player will show up in this article across so many teams. Well, after his breakout first season in Detroit, Terry decided to turn the team into one he will run. He may have regressed in every season, but that may be attributed to the added help surrounding him.

Rockets:
Poor Larry…

Spurs:
The next few years are going to be fun…

Suns:
Guess who was fifth on the suns list, if you guessed Dan Roundfield you would be correct. Anyways, Magic was truly dominant in Phoenix (while being played out of position) and the fact that Dr. K didn’t get a kings ransom is very sad. Also, if you added his 1983 season here with the Lakers 1983 season it would be the best all time…

SuperSonics:
This is another one that should be of no surprise to anyone. Wilkins is the guy in Seattle. I’m only shocked that it was Rickey Green as the other player listed and not Kareem, Cook, or Parish.

Trailblazers:
Speaking of the man formerly named Lew Alcindor. While the Blazers surprisingly had no one in the top 50 of this list, it’s also not surprising given the way they build their teams. If anything if I tweaked the formulas to pull players who are the most likely to injure I’m sure his team would shoot up the rankings.

Warriors:
All I say to end this article is that maybe Greeple was smart to move Moses when he did? While he is still great, and a perennial MVP canidate and ASG game rep, there is a clear drop in value from the early years to later in SLOE.

Thank you all for reading. As a special side treat because it is just something I did to try to check things out, I pulled the East and West players as well. Check out the full rankings below.

Really comprehensive work here. I'm not sure I fully understand the final table, but that doesn't matter much at the end of the day
3000 some word count +6
+2 more for the fully comprehensive work here