I’m a huge fan of Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin.   In an earlier article I posed the question, “Who was the last college player who was this good?”   The Big 12 has had arguably the best player in college the last three years—Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, Blake Griffin.   Durant and Beasley were (are) fantastic players—but this guy is something else.  

            I posted these thoughts in an article and I got some pushback from the audience, members of whom offered the thoughts that:

            1)  Griffin dominates because the Big 12 is weak (several people used the term “the Little 12.”

            2)  Beasley dominated the same league to a greater extent last year when the league was stronger.

            3)  We would have to see how Griffin played against Syracuse and Carolina.

            4)  If Griffin had come out a year earlier he wouldn’t have been among the top 5 players drafted.

            Basically, they were just talking out their ass, but then, so was I, so we were even.   I decided to spend a little time studying the issue.

            1)  Griffin dominates because the Big 12 is weak.

            The Big 12 lost a couple of well-publicized games early in the year, and the easy experts who know everything declared the Big 12 to be a weak league.   One would think that the NCAA tournament would have put a stop to that.   The Big 12 was 6-0 in the first round—the best record of any conference—and won a total of 10 tournament games, through four rounds the most of any conference except the Big East.

             I took the rankings from our site for all teams as of March 27, and figured the average rank of each conference.   This study, which takes into account every game played between conferences and would rank the conferences by how they played in inter-conference competition, shows that there was essentially no difference in the average quality of a Big 12 team compared to a Big East or ACC team:

            The Big 12 was weaker than the ACC or Big East (or Pac 10), but by a margin of less than one point per game.   The Big East, as people know, had the strongest top-level teams in the power conferences.    But, setting aside the SEC, let’s look at the weakest teams in these top five conferences:

            The Big East had the strongest teams among these four conferences—and the weakest.   In these five conferences, the Big East had three of the six weakest teams, and four of the ten weakest.  

            The top-end Big East teams were very strong—but this strength was exaggerated, by the media, by the ability of those teams to feast on the four teams in their conference that were weaker than any team in the ACC.    And the Big 12 was not meaningfully weaker than the other premier conferences. 

            2)  Beasley dominated the same league to a greater extent last year when the league was stronger.

            Really, I thought?   I thought Griffin was doing pretty well.

            There is a formula I use to rank basketball players:

            Points scored

            Minus one for each field goal missed

            Minus one for each free throw missed

            Plus one for each rebound

            Minus .60 for each foul committed

            Plus assists

            Minus turnovers

            Plus steals

            Plus .40 times blocks

            I developed this formula myself, but I think that other people developed similar or identical formulas before I did.   The assumption is that teams scored about one point per possession; the rest of it pretty much follows from there.   When you get a rebound or a steal, that adds a possession, thus adds a point.   When you miss a shot or turn the ball over, that’s a negative point.   The formula does an inadequate job of measuring defense, but it does an excellent job of identifying the All-American and all-conference players, and I believe that the formula is, at a minimum, vastly better than just ranking players by points scored.

            I figure “points contributed” by each player by the formula above, and then convert that to points contributed per 40 minutes played.    In years past, before I went to work for the Red Sox, I would sometimes figure this for every player in the country.   I haven’t found time to do that, but I figured this formula for all players on fifteen of the better teams in the country:

            Boston College

            Carolina

            Clemson

            Duke

            Kansas

            Louisville

            Marquette

            Maryland

            Oklahoma

            Pittsburgh

            Syracuse

            U Conn

            Villanova

            Wake Forest

            West Virginia

            Among the players on these 15 teams, these were the highest-ranking players:

            Pretty much a consensus list of the best players in the country; my top 9, among the 150 players I included with 300 minutes of playing time or more, include all of Sports Illustrated’s first team All-Americans (Lawson, Williams, Blair, Griffin and Tyler Hansbrough.)    Griffin was clearly the best. 

            I’m sure there are other players who would rank over 25, but I would be surprised if there is anybody else who would rank over 30.  But we don’t know. . ..I’ve done these studies before, and the general rule is:

            Average players rank 15-18 per 40 minutes,

            Good players rank 18-21 per 40 minutes,

            All-conference players ranks 21-25 per 40 minutes,

            All-Americans rank 25-30 per 40 minutes,

            Only serious player-of-the-year candidates are over 30.

            The real question, though, was how Griffin would compare to previous player-of-the year candidates—Beasley and Hansbrough from 2007-2008, Kevin Durant is 2006-2007.  Here’s that comparison:

            So Griffin comes out a little below Beasley, although ahead of everyone else.

            3)  We would have to see how Griffin played against Syracuse and Carolina.

            If that was the test, wouldn’t Griffin already have passed it?   Beasley’s team won one game in the NCAA tournament.   Griffin’s team won three.  If that was the test, wouldn’t Griffin be the winner?

            This is a comparison of the top six Oklahoma and Carolina players, by my ranking system:

            Carolina

             Oklahoma

            Of course Carolina was probably going to beat Oklahoma; the rest of their team was vastly better.  People like to talk about Willie Warren as if he was ready for the NBA, but the reality is that he’s the sixth-best point guard in the Big 12. 

            I would argue. . .and this isn’t knowledge, it’s just opinion. . .but I would argue that in fact Michael Beasley’s supporting cast at Kansas State a year ago was significantly better than Griffin’s supporting cast at Oklahoma this year

            I think Griffin’s numbers are probably held down because there really wasn’t anybody else on that team that you needed to concentrate on stopping.     If you put Griffin on Carolina his numbers might be lower, because Roy Williams wouldn’t run the whole offense around him, but they might also be higher because the other team would have to defend the whole team.   

            4)  If Griffin had come out a year earlier he wouldn’t have been among the top 5 players drafted.

            Of course not; he was injured.

            I took a liking to Griffin, in part, because he plays the game with a lot of dignity and class.   I also continue to believe that he’s the best college player in several years.   My study doesn’t prove this or disprove it; that’s still what I think.

            Beasley was (is) a fantastic young player, absolutely terrific.   I would put the difference between them this way, assuming they are both about the same height.  (I haven’t checked. . .I think Beasley is like an inch taller.)    I’m 6’4”, which I know is in the top 1% of American men.   I’m guessing that Griffin and Beasley are about 4 standard deviations above the norm in terms of height.   If we assume that there are 100,000,000 adult American males, that would mean that he would be one of the 4,000 tallest adult men in the United States, I would guess.

            Beasley is quite athletic.   I would guess that, among men of that height, he is in the top 10%  in terms of athletic ability, which would make him one of the top 400 in the US in terms of combined height and athleticism.   What really makes him stand out, though, is that his basketball skills—his fundamentals—are outstanding.  I would say his skills are in the top 5% of all basketball players of that size.   That puts him in the top 20 (5% of 400), which means Player of the Year, since most of the other 19 are already in (or out of) the NBA.

            Griffin is about the same height, but Griffin, I believe, may be the most athletic man of that size that I’ve ever seen.  I’m not sure I have ever seen a man that size who can jump that way.   He is very, very strong, extremely well co-ordinated, and comparable to Beasley in terms of speed and quickness.   I’ve been talking to people about who he might be compared to, and people have suggested Karl Malone and Len Bias, and I think you’d have to include LeBron James.  Elgin Baylor, maybe.   That’s about it.  

            In terms of his ability to do things on the floor, is he the equal of Beasley and Durant?   Ehn.. . .probably not.    He’s a good basketball player.  He beats people with power moves, and scores 60 or 70% of his points on dunks and flips off the backboard.   Beasley could beat people off the dribble, through traffic, on moves starting 20 feet from the basket.   That’s not Griffin’s game.  

But the expression, “Plays above the rim”.. .I am 100% certain I have never seen anybody play above the rim the way Griffin does.    Whether his game works in the NBA. . .I don’t know.  That’s not what I’m writing about.   You take all the college players from the last ten years—Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, whoever you want—I’ll take Griffin over any of them, for the college game.