Note: I've reworked the ratings formula as of February 4, 2002, which changes some of the ratings for past seasons. Most of the shifts are very minor, but it does change some of the leaders at each position.

Welcome to Alleyoop.com's player ratings. Using a detailed formula, I have developed a system that rates every player's statistical performance, and have ratings for ever year going back to 1990. The ratings for the 2000-01, 1999-2000, 1998-99, 1997-98 and 1996-97 seasons are now on the site.

The ratings are NOT intended to be the final word on how a player performs, but are designed to inform the debate. There are several factors that aren't included in the ratings. The most notable is position defense - the part that doesn't involve blocked shots and steals. But factors like durability as well as less tangible ones (leadership, for example) are others that can't be rated numerically.

Nevertheless, it's a start, because it takes the statistics that are available and boils them down in a way that's easy to understand. It interprets the things that we do know - how many shots a guy made, how many rebounds, etc. - in a much more systematic way than anything I've seen to date.

The formula, which I call the Player Efficiency Rating (PER), adds the good (made shots, steals, assists, rebounds, blocked shots, free throws), and subtracts the bad (missed shots, turnovers, fouls) by assigning a point value to each item (I arrive at the point values in a fairly tortuous way, and that's one of the parts I'm saving for the book). The rating for each player is then adjusted to a per-minute basis (so that, for example, you can compare subs with starters in the frequent 'he should start ahead of so-and-so' debates), and also adjusted for the team's pace. In the end, one number sums up the players' accomplishments (the statistical ones, anyway) for that season. I've set it up so that the league average, every season, is 15.00, which produces sort of a handy reference guide:

A Year For the Ages:    35.0
Runaway MVP Candidate:  30.0
Strong MVP Candidate:   27.5
Weak MVP Candidate:     25.0
Bona fide All-Star:     22.5
Borderline All-Star:    20.0
Solid 2nd option:       18.0
3rd Banana:             16.5
Pretty good player:     15.0
In the rotation:        13.0
Scrounging for minutes: 11.0
Definitely renting:      9.0
On next plane to Yakima: 5.0

It's superior to other ratings I've seen (such as this hideous one that doesn't even think Shaq is the best center; I can't believe they were allowed to publish this) for a number of reasons. First of all, most ratings tend to overweigh the non-scoring categories, which is great if you're in an 8-category fantasy league but produces results that don't jive with reality. The "IBM Award" is the most notable of these; the fact that Michael Jordan didn't win it during any of his five MVP years says a lot (David Robinson, on the other hand, won this award five times. I propose renaming it the "IBM Roto MVP Award").

There are a number of variations on the "Tendex" system, which basically adds points for good stuff and subtracts for bad stuff, just like the ratings here do. The problem is the weights they put on categories are screwy (most add exactly one point for all the "good" and subtract the same for all the "bad"), and so tend to distort the importance of some categories. For instance, I've seen versions from last year that didn't even have Allen Iverson in the top 20 because they overrated missed shots. It's worse if you go back in history; use a Tendex-type method for the early '90's and you'll consistently see David Robinson rated higher than Michael Jordan, which borders on blasphemy.

But enough about what I think. Check out the ratings for yourself (your comments are welcome) as I put ratings from the last decade on the site:

- 2003-04
- 2002-03
- 2001-02
- 2000-01
- 1999-00
- 1998-99
- 1997-98
- 1996-97
- 1995-96
- 1994-95
- 1993-94
- 1992-93
- 1991-92
- 1990-91
- 1989-90
- 1988-89