NBA Power Rankings: Ranking All 30 Starting Point Guards

Young’s Passer Rating Formula

When critiquing a point guard’s competence in the passing department, society has taught us the wrong idea. Too often in the rudimentary sphere of thinking, have we solely depended on “assists per game” as the number one instrument for basketball play-making.

Don’t get me wrong — it makes sense, because a lot of people would argue “play-making” is all about setting up your teammates for a score, and should only be quantified with assist totals once the players make a field goal. However, this simplistic view of living and dying by assist-per-game numbers can also provide flawed logic. Instead of being the infrastructure of how skilled and accomplished one is as a passer, it should be a smaller ingredient in the recipe.

This summer, I sought to devise a different way of thinking. I felt there needed to be an unique, comprehensive way of evaluating floor generals for their passing traits.

The NFL has gained popularity through its use of quarterback analytics in the modern era, as you can draw an opinion on Peyton Manning or Tom Brady’s pure passing strengths through football’s “Passer Rating.” Gridiron gurus have also strung together a few different metrics that assess quarterback play, such as QBR (Quarterback Rating).

For two months, I decided to tackle an advanced formula for judging NBA passers.

In order to get a complete perspective on what makes a passer gifted and proficient in what they do, I made it a priority to include the most important features. I experimented with various formulas and nearly pulled my hair out working on the snags, but eventually arrived at a final product.

This is the debut of Young’s Passer Rating metric, which can be found using the below formula:

Points generated by assists per 100 possessions + (Secondary Assists per 100 poss * 5) + (Free Throw Assists per 100 poss * 5) + (Percentage of the team’s passes per game that came from Player X – Percentage of team’s turnovers per game from Player X’s bad passes) + (Assists per 36 minutes / Assist opportunities per 36 minutes * 100 * 1.5 – Bad passes per 36 minutes) + (Team’s net Field Goal Percentage with player on/off the court) + (Team’s net Assist Percentage with player on/off the court) + (Average Assist Percentage – Bad Pass Turnover Percentage)

= Passer Rating

To see the equation in a more spread out fashion, you can always click here.

Since any type of experiment needs countless hours of trial and error, there are still a few shortcomings with this new metric. But, I’ve found that it’s yielding a lot more positive takeaways than anything.

Like most inventions in its early stages, there are deficiencies. I plan to create a separate piece, discussing the positives and negatives from this project.

This Passer Rating formula is strictly rating point guards based on their skills in distributing — how frequently they do it, how efficiently they do it, and how much it impacts their team. It should be understood, the rankings you see unfold from 30th to 1st are NOT solely based off the Passer Rating results.

Without any more hesitation, it’s time to unravel the league’s starting point guards. There are nine tiers, with all 30 individuals explained in detail.

We’ll begin with the rock-bottom, which surprisingly doesn’t include a landfill like previous years.