Nylon Calculus: Using NBA Approximate Value to compare all-time Big 3’s

A recent 538 article about the New Orleans Saints motivated me to delve into NBA’s Approximate Value (AV). It “is an estimate of a player’s value, making no fine distinctions, but, rather, distinguishing easily between very good seasons, average seasons, and poor seasons.”  The value gives a good overview of general productivity, especially on the offensive end.

I calculated AV for every player’s season since the 1978 season. From there I grouped the players that finished in the top-three in AV for their respective teams in a single season, calculated the groups’ harmonic mean and ranked them (AV HARMEAN).

Note first how AV HARMEAN highly values some of the better overall offenses ever like in the old-time run-and-gun Denver Nuggets. In that linked song, by the way, I think there’s just one reference to the team playing any defense. Every other lyric is literally about hitting shots and scoring, really reflecting how insanely paced those offenses were.

Anyways.

There haven’t been any recent Big 3 group’s to have cracked the top-20 list in a while.

• Both the great 2015-16  Curry-Thompson-Draymond Warriors and the 2010-11 James-Wade-Bosh in Miami compiled an AV HARMEAN of 13.54.
• No trio including Shaquille O’Neal in Los Angeles notched an AV HARMEAN of 12.
• The 1994-95 Payton-Kemp-Schrempf Sonics’ grouping notched a 13.84
• LeBron’s best AV season got him an 18 just last year, tying him with Michael Jordan’s 1991-92 season with the Bulls. While MJ was 27 years old in that fateful year, LeBron was 34 years old in his 2017-18 campaign.

I think by any metric, even excluding AV, would have the Bird-Parish-McHale trio as the best Big 3 since 1978. They own a quarter of the space in the top-20 rankings of AV HARMEAN.

Are any of today’s Big 3’s as good as the all timers?

This chart displays the AV of each player should they keep their current productive pace. For example, if Kevin Durant averages 28 points 8 rebounds and 7 assists per game for all 82 games this season, he’ll have an AV of 17 when it’s all said and done. These numbers are exacerbated by some really hot starts that probably won’t hold but we can glean season insight by gauging this early season productivity.

The Golden State Warriors’ triplet looks more like a Big 2 if anything. They’ve won 10 games already this year, and if Klay Thompson or Draymond Green kick it into gear, they’ll probably never lose again. If this group keeps the current pace, it’ll be the third-best Big 3 group ever.

You feel bad for Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond from the Detroit Pistons. If Reggie Jackson could provide a tad increase of production (resulting in a +2 for AV), the trio would rank sixth in the league. It’d probably bust them out of their current 5-5 purgatorial start too.

The Washington Wizards need more from either one of their franchise stars desperately. In 2016-17, John Wall had an AV of 14, but you wonder if he could still kick it up to another level. Bradley Beal can take the throne of being a leader on this team by quickly shoring up improvement. It’ll give his team some serious fuel to jump-start this season’s recovery.

Finally, while Nikola Jokić’s season is exceptional, the prospects of a Jamal Murray breakthrough year are exciting. If only he could replicate just half of his 48-point performance on a nightly basis…