Is Semih Erden The LSF's Top NBA Center?

I love having ridiculous post titles.

My Beantown Ballers welcomed the Sacramendy (Arrested Development reference appreciated?) Kings to Boston last night and made at least one former (?) group home kid cry himself to sleep while watching BET's Rap City (Rap-Ra-Rap City...Cit-City...City). The 119-95 victory showed that Paul Pierce and Ray Allen are still dominant forces even without the help of KG. And please, Kings fans, don't complain about not getting in to town until 3:30 am because of the blizzard. It just goes to show who God was rooting for (not you). The Celtics shot 52%, held the Kings to a 2 for 13 night from big boy land, were led strongly by their captain with 25, and benefited from 56 points off the bench. A special thank you goes out to the Clippers for beating the "Heatles" last night, (theme song: Dwayne Wade in the Sky with Diamonds?) making room for the Green Army to sneak back into the Eastern lead by .013%. 

With Kevin Garnett still out to injury, and a bunch of of Semih Erden and Shaq O'Neal filling in, I got to thinking about centers. And, all that thinking brought me to this question: Who is the LSF's top NBA Center? I'll focus on three stats to help explore the topic, all of which will try to get at the value of each player. We'll look at PER (Player Efficiency Rating, a standardized measure of per minute production where 15 is league average), USG% (Usage Percentage, an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player when he is on the floor), and WS (Win Shares, an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player). 

Celtic Centers-

Kevin Garnett: 21.6 PER, 21.7 USG%, and 4.1 WS

Semih Erden: 9.9 PER, 14.2 USG%, and 0.9 WS

Shaq O'Neal: 16.9 PER, 20.1 USG%, and 2.2 WS

Laker Centers-

Andrew Bynum (who is Black, I remind you): 20.5 PER, 20.0 USG%, and 1.4 WS

Pau Gasol (Mr. Fakie Asian Eyes): 23.8 PER, 21.2 USG%, and 7.4 WS

Theo Ratliff: 5.2 PER, 6.0 USG%, and 0.0 WS

Clipper Centers-

DeAndre Jordan: 15.2 PER, 11.6 USG%, and 2.4 WS

Chris Kaman (that Anti-American, wannabe German): 11.1 PER, 24.1 USG%, and -0.1 WS

Jarron Collins: 2.1 PER, 7.2 USG%, and 0.0 WS

Looking at those numbers, and trying my best to put my bias aside, I present my ranking of the LSF NBA Centers:

1. Kevin Garnett
2. Pau Gasol
3. Andrew Bynum
4. DeAndre Jordan
5. Shaq O'Neal
6. Semih Erden
7. Chris Kaman
8. Theo Ratliff
9. Jarron Collins

I actually filled that list in from the bottom up, if you'd like an inside look at how this blog is written. I'll say this first, as I try to defend my rankings: Pau Gasol, to my limited knowledge, isn't really playing as a true center all that much, and thus, his numbers reflect his play as a forward (mostly). He is clearly the best overall player on the list, and if Bynum didn't exist as the Lakers main center, he'd be ranked ahead of Garnett in my table. Second, the Clipper situation is a little noteworthy, as Kaman has been hurt, and surely would not have a negative win share number if he was playing (he also has the top USG%, if you noticed). 

With all of that in mind, I'm sure you'll all agree, without argument, that my main man The Big Ticket is the best LSF NBA center at the present time.

Let the argument begin.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē