Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Sorry I’m a little late but it’s been a hectic week. I actually put in 40 hours at work even though I was only in the office for 3 days and then I was caught up in the usual holiday travel adventures. But, I did manage to capture the basketball data from last week (plus a day … oops). Obviously, I’m cutting the analysis short here due to time restrictions (and exhaustion) so I’ll just say this: this Dallas Mavericks fan is happy to see Dirty Dirk Nowitzki end up in the MVP area again (the top 3) for the first time in almost three years! (Interestingly enough, that was the last time I did an analysis on each individual Top 10 player).

Biggest Jump: Marc Gasol (5)
Biggest Fall: Kevin Durant (7)
Hello: Kobe Bryant, Al Horford
Goodbye: Dwight Howard, Chris Kaman
Ineligible: Pau Gasol, Kevin Martin, Richard Hamilton, Antawn Jamison

NBA Top 10 (by APP+)
Rank	Prev	Player	Team(s)	Pos.	GP	APP	APP+
1	1	LeBron James		F	14	↑ 36.33	↑ 27.62
2	2	Chris Paul		G	10	↓ 33.39	↑ 24.54
3	6	Dirk Nowitzki		F	13	↑ 29.98	↑ 21.27
4	3	Chris Bosh		F-C	14	↓ 31.20	↓ 20.92
-	-	Pau Gasol (Ineligible)		F	2	28.12	19.41
5	4	Dwyane Wade		G	13	↓ 27.55	↓ 18.61
-	-	Kevin Martin (Ineligible)		G	5	↓ 27.53	↓ 18.59
6	9	Carmelo Anthony		F	13	↑ 27.29	↑ 18.58
7	5	Andrew Bynum		C	11	↓ 27.29	↓ 18.12
8	12	Tim Duncan		F-C	10	↑ 28.10	↑ 17.82
-	-	Richard Hamilton (Ineligible)		G-F	1	↓ 27.08	↓ 17.32
9	8	Deron Williams		G	11	↑ 25.37	↑ 16.43
10	15	Marc Gasol		C	14	↑ 24.37	↑ 16.23

Just Outside
Rank	Prev	Player	Team(s)	Pos.	GP	APP	APP+
11	-	Kobe Bryant		G-F	13	25.83	16.07
12	13	Josh Smith		F-G	14	↑ 26.15	↑ 16.06
-	-	Antawn Jamison (Ineligible)		F	3	24.31	15.60
13	14	Steve Nash		G	14	↑ 24.28	↑ 15.34
14	7	Kevin Durant		G-F	14	↓ 24.76	↓ 15.00
15	-	Al Horford		C	14	22.92	14.78

APP – Adjusted Pace Performance
A weighted formula for combining everything a player does on the basketball court into one number. This number is then adjusted based upon the players’ team pace to provide a balanced way to compare players’ performance.
APP+ – APP Above Positional Average APP
Player’s weighted performance minus the performance of an average player at his same position.

Players are considered ineligible if they fail to play in 60% of their team’s games.

APP for an average NBA player for the 2010 season: ↑ 9.87
APP+ for an average NBA player for the 2010 season: ↑ 0.99
Stats through 11/23/2009