NBA Power Forwards: Who’s the best in the league?

This continues my series on who the best player is today at each position in the NBA. Click the link for centers.

The NBA power forwards back in the day used to be bruisers. They used to complement the center as together they held down the paint on both offense and defense. Power forwards tend to be a bit smaller and more athletic than centers, but similar in the ability to play out of the post as opposed to boasting a knockdown jumper.

This is the era of the stretch-four. These are tall (between 6’8” to 6’11”) power forwards who can shoot lights-out, especially for their height. They really help spread the floor, opening up the offense, but tend to not play amazing defense as a whole. Also, some of these stretch-fours tend to be foreign-born players.

Some legendary power forwards include: Charles Barkley, Larry Bird, Kevin Malone and Julius Irving (Dr. J), but who is the best power forward in the NBA right now? While some great power forwards are older like Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Bosh, three are younger in Blake Griffin, Kevin Love and Anthony Davis. (Chris Bosh is actually a PF, only was a C due to Miami’s scheme with LeBron James). Duncan and Griffin are more the old type of power forward, while the rest are basically made in the stretch-four mold to different extents.

There are a bunch of other power forwards that are good, but not in this conversation yet. These include Serge Ibaka, LaMarcus Aldridge, Paul Millsap and others.

There are a plethora of statistics that help us determine how good these players are. Let’s start with points per game.

Points per game

1. Dirk Nowitzki: 22.5
2. Blake Griffin: 21.4
3. Tim Duncan: 19.9
4. Chris Bosh: 19.2
5. Kevin Love: 19.2
6. Anthony Davis: 17.3

They are all clustered pretty close together. Davis is a focal point for New Orleans, but is still pretty raw and at the bottom of the list. Next up is the rebounding battle.

Rebounds per game

1. Kevin Love: 12.5
2. Anthony Davis: 10.0
3. Tim Duncan: 9.7
4. Blake Griffin: 9.5
5. Chris Bosh: 6.6
6. Dirk Nowitzki: 6.2

Love clearly dominates this metric and Davis will be catching him eventually. Duncan and Griffin are pretty solid rebounders, while Bosh and Nowitzki are clearly not good rebounders and just have a few defensive rebounds drop into their hands because they are tall.

We also have to look at the other side of the ball and see how these players impact the game on the defensive end. A good way to see how the power forwards protect the paint is by looking at the opponent’s field goal percentage at the rim with that particular player on the court.

Opp. FG% at the rim

1. Tim Duncan: 47.6 %
2. Anthony Davis: 48.8 %
3. Dirk Nowitzki: 52.3 %
4. Chris Bosh: 53.1 %
5. Blake Griffin: 54.1 %
6. Kevin Love: 57.4 %

So from the list, it is clear Love is not a good rim protector, even at 6’10”. Nowitzki, Bosh and Griffin are all average. Also, defying all physical laws of age, Duncan somehow heads this list as the oldest one at 38. He is a full 17 years older than Davis, who sits just behind him on the list.

Next is the player efficiency rating that takes into account different factors to determine how impactful a player is in a game.

Player Efficiency Rating (average is 15)

1. Kevin Love: 26.97
2. Anthony Davis: 26.54
3. Blake Griffin: 23.98
4. Dirk Nowitzki 23.68
5. Tim Duncan: 21.4
6. Chris Bosh: 19.11

Love and Davis lead this metric, with Bosh as the only player below the 20 PER plateau. That will probably change with James’ absence from Miami.

The final metric is value added. This is how many points that particular player adds to his respective team over the course of the season.

Value added

1. Kevin Love: 645.8
2. Blake Griffin: 533.3
3. Anthony Davis: 529.3
4. Dirk Nowitzki: 477.7
5. Chris Bosh: 321.5
6. Tim Duncan: 318.8

Love clearly adds the most value due to his three-point shooting and lack of talent around him last season in Minnesota. Davis also shouldered a lot of the work with the New Orleans Pelicans. Duncan and Bosh are low on the list due to the Hall of Fame talent around them taking some of the pressure away.

To help us make a determination, we look at who won each category and see how much it weighs toward an overall evaluation. Nowitzki won points per game, Love won rebounding, Duncan won opponent’s field goal percentage at the rim, while Love won the player efficiency rating and value added metrics.

The best power forward in the game is Kevin Love. Now that he’s in Cleveland with LeBron James his play should improve even more, with less pressure on both sides of the court and getting taught by a basketball genius.

Over the last decade or so, Duncan has generally been the best power forward with Nowitzki a close second, while Bosh hasn’t been overly relevant until teaming up with Wade and James in Miami. Griffin is an athletic freak who will continue to polish his offensive game and hone his defensive prowess as he eyes potential MVP honors in 2014-15. Davis is the player of the future and will probably tally a handful of MVPs and championships before his days are over, but he still needs to hit his prime. He’s only 21 for goodness sakes!

But for right now, Kevin Love is the best player with that PF designation in the NBA right now.

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