I haven't seen in discussed here yet, so I just wanted to get some opinions. In his latest piece Bradford Doolittle projects the WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player) for every big man in the league. As most would expect, Dwight Howard and Kevin Love are #1 and #2. Who is #3? Well, that would be Ryan Anderson. Andrew Bynum is #4- a full game behind Anderson, then Blake Griffin, Josh Smith, and Anthony Davis at #7.
Here is the article if you have insider:
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story...od_nba_xxx_xxx
Doolittle is one of the best writers in the sport and we were lucky enough to have him on the podcast. He stated time and time again that Anderson is underrated and his career arc is most similar to Dirk. Now, I know every stat, projection, etc is flawed but all of those other guys sound like the best bigs in the game, so is Anderson's projection just a fluke? To me, he is one of the top 6-8 bigs in the game and almost every advanced metric says the same thing. Yet, it just does not perceived by most as elite.
He was the best big in the league last year (and third overall) in point differential when on the floor vs. off. He is third in projected WARP, had the best PER of any free agent (including Deron Williams) and yet nobody really sees him as elite.
Tons of food for thought- just wanted to get everyone's POV on this