How BPM Rating Links Ben Simmons To Joel Embiid

The Universal Language of NBA draft hopefuls is Basketball-Reference.com’s Box Plus/Minus Index (BPM). Using BPM, how does Sixers Joel Embiid Stack up to the NBA draft?

When researching information about the Villanova Wildcats, and possible NBA draft implications from their dark horse success so far in the NCAA tournament, I uncovered another rare gem of information which has some curious applications to the current state of the Philadelphia 76ers.

The gem was the uncovering of a comparison table of 25 NCAA freshmen who had entered the NCAA draft by www.vuhoops.com, a website covering Villanova University basketball for SB Nation. The article was a well written piece focusing on deep dive analysis of various Wildcat line-ups, and their overall performance in terms of metrics. But embedded in that article was a tabular summation of historic NCAA freshmen who had or intend to declare for the NBA draft, as measured by the Box Plus/Minus Index. To clarify my basic understanding of the measure, I turned to our Basketball-Referense.com resource, and the originator of the index Daniel Meyers. I cite his article in the explanation below:

Box Plus/Minus (BPM) is a box score-based metric for evaluating basketball players’ quality and contribution to the team. It is the latest version of a stat previously called Advanced Statistical Plus/Minus; it is NOT a version of Adjusted Plus/Minus, which is a play-by-play regression metric.

BPM relies on a player’s box score information and the team’s overall performance to estimate a player’s performance relative to league average. BPM is a per-100-possession stat, the same scale as Adjusted Plus/Minus: 0.0 is league average, +5 means the player is 5 points better than an average player over 100 possessions (which is about All-NBA level), -2 is replacement level, and -5 is really bad.

BPM was created to intentionally only use information that is available historically, going back to 1973-74. More recently there has been more information gathered, both in box scores and via play-by-play, but in order to create a stat with historical usefulness, those stats have been ignored for BPM. In other words – it is possible to create a better stat than BPM for measuring players, but difficult to make a better one that can also be used historically.

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The goal of the index therefore was to create a commonly available comparative value which could be calculated from historically tracked statistics in the NBA. So what makes this such a curious development? Well a couple things jump out at me:

While the Philadelphia 76ers opened up the bank vault in pursuit of Atlanta Hawks reserve point guard Dennis Schroder, Schroder has not appeared strong in his BPM metric. In fact, he was the worst player who played significant minutes in 2013-14 , as Dennis Schroder of Atlanta generated a very poor -8.3 rating. Anthony Bennett, the surprise 2013 draft number 1 pick, followed with a -7.3. If you wish to delve into the mathematics that are used to arrive at this index, you can click here for a full detailed explanation, but you should allow plenty of time to absorb the math heavy calculation. For our purposes here, I am satisfied that the value does offer comparative value to players of different teams and seasons in terms of relative performances.

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Now that we have our measuring stick, what do we find as we apply it to NCAA freshmen in the past six years? Well the highest rating for a college freshman was that of Kentucky’s Anthony Davis in 2011-2012 with a BPM of 18.7. We had compared Davis to our own Jahlil Okafor before the season had begun, believing the best professional career path for the rookie Duke center would be to emulate Davis’ rookie season. In that same index, Okafor’s rookie season placed him a very respectable 16 on the list with a BPM rating of 10.9. 2015’s first pick of the NBA draft, Karl Anthony-Towns placed second on the list with a hefty BPM of 17.3.

Next: Can Villanova's Success Affect Philadelphia 76er's 2016 NBA Draft?

So how did D’Angelo Russell, the second pick of the 2015 NBA draft, fare? His BPM placed him at 10 on the list with a value of 11.7.

But the curious matter of this index is the spot of soon-to-return-to-health Sixer Joel Embiid. Despite a lack of formal basketball background, he placed a suprising third on the BPM value chart with a rating of 14.9. Right behind him is this year’s talk of the 2016 NBA draft, Ben Simmons, who placed fourth with a BPM value of 12.8. While we know just how exciting the knowledge of having Joel Embiid on the team next year can be, I think it adds an intriguing perspective to consider that Ben Simmons may have a similar impact if he is selected by the Philadelphia 76ers.

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Now this is not to say that a BPM index should be weighted heavily in assessing a prospect anymore than a high school class should only study the type of questions which might appear on a college board examination. It’s simply a way of gauging how players stack up against each other across many years time. Just one more tool in the undertaking of setting up a draft board of a particular team.