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Following up on the last analysis of Okafor for Chandler, we will today be looking at another aspect of Okaforce's (No?) contributions. Emeka's long term deal for big bucks was the primary reason he was traded away from Charlotte, and has been one the biggest concerns amongst Hornet fans since his arrival in the Big Easy.

When discussing if a player is overpaid, it's common to look into the future, especially in regard to the years remaining on a contract, but with Okafor only 27 years old and still trying to fit into a new system, it's unclear how he will fare in the next couple of years. That being said, let's take a look at how Emeka's salary and performance compare against other centers, this year specifically. I'll be using a statistic that I think I made up called Salary Value, or S-Value if you will. For now this is a very raw formula, really for use in evaluating guys who play the same position. In the future I will certainly spend some time getting into more detail.

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Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that I'm rather fond of metrics like Wins Produced.  Recently, Dave Berri of the Wages of Wins produced two articles I think you all will enjoy, and so I decided I'd draw your attention to them with a full on blog post, rather than dropping them in the news section.

Professor Berri's first post addresses the sexy new NBA metric: Adjusted +/-.  As a prime exhibit as to the inherent oddities of that metric, Dave Berri details the production of the Hornets very own Darius Songaila.  To summarize, Songaila has posted pretty consistent numbers across his career according to most traditional metrics.  However, according to +/-, his impact has varied wildly, producing a significant positive impact in Washington, and a significant negative impact in New Orleans.

As a result of that post, I had a brief email exchange with Professor Berri about two other Hornets we've been focusing on the past month or so:  Our rookies.  That discussion spurred his latest post about the Hornets, addressing the rookies, a brief comparison of Collison to Paul, one of his general breakdowns of the Hornets production on the whole, and even includes a response on our own Joe Gerrity's post about Emeka Okafor.  Good Stuff.

I am a little surprised by the rookie results.  While it doesn't surprise me that over the course of the entire season Collison and Thornton have been a little below average - they did start off the season shooting poorly -  I would not have guessed that Collison would have ranked lower than Thornton.  Collison's assist and scoring numbers have been impressive, and Thornton is almost exclusively a scorer.  Traditionally, one trick ponies don't rank that high in Wins Produced.  Not the case in this situation.

Of course, that just illustrates the impact of minutes.  Buckets and his recent standard of 20 efficient points in 24 minutes is crazy, and Collison has been wracking up huge minutes to go with his huge numbers, which mitigate them somewhat.

Enjoy.

Lately there has been more than a little Emeka Okafor bashing, with some even going to far as to say that an injured Tyson Chandler is better than a healthy Okafor. It's time that we get into some real detail about Okafor's play, and how much worse he has really been than Tyson.

First let's take a look at Tyson's first year in NOLA compared to Emeka's. Seems fair since it obviously takes some time for centers to adjust to playing a pick and roll offense, especially in a point guard dominated offense. Granted Tyson was a bit younger than Okafor when he started with the Hornets, but they both had accumulated about the same amount of NBA experience prior to coming to the Hornets. Here are some basic stats.

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Yet again, the Hornets lost to the surging San Antonio Spurs, who completed a season sweep of the Hornets for the second time in the last four years. Even worse, the Hornets dropped below .500 for the fist time since January 2nd.

It's becoming increasingly clear that missing their leader is wearing on the Hornets, as even big nights from the rookies go unrewarded in the win column. As great as Collison has been, and again was tonight, the drop off between solid point guard and superstar player has been simply too much for the Hornets. On the year they dropped to 10-16 without their superstar, and 21-16 with him. I personally count the game they blew against Portland as being without him, since his injury led to Portland's comeback. You don't like my math? Tough.

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On the day I write about Darren Collison for ESPN.com's Daily Dime, the rookie point and his "pedestrian" 22 and 10 was upstaged by fellow rookie Marcus Thornton pouring in 37 points in 31 minutes.  On 22 shots.  Oh, and the 23 points Thornton scored in the second quarter surpassed Peja's 2006 record for most scoring by a Hornet in a single quarter. Lil' Buckets enters the record books.

Outside of the personal exploits, however, I was happy on the whole with the way the team played.  The rookies played with poise beyond their years, the coaches were throwing every gimmick in the book at the Cavs to keep them off balance, and despite being massively undersized against a frontcourt of Shaq, Varejao, Jamison and LeBron, the Hornets actually won the battle of the boards as the entire team contributed.

Marcus Thornton

Thornton unleashed the demon tonight, scoring every way imaginable.  He started the second playing point for Collison, and quickly realized that Mo Williams was not up to defending him.  Soon, any pretense of being a point guard was by the wayside, and Thornton was in full attack mode.  He would push the ball hard, and if the drive wasn't there, he'd stop at 10 feet and hit a pull up.  After a few of those went down, the Cavs started playing up on him, and he started driving to the basket, nailing floaters, and an amazing array of quick shots.  In the fourth the Cavs ended up flat out double teaming him, and eventually turned him into a three-point shooter with their quick-footed and always impressive perimeter defense.

If there was anything Thornton highlighted tonight, it was his incredible ability to release the ball at any point on his drives without any decrease in his control.  He launched floaters from his hip, at shoulder height, and the classic above-the-head "teardrop".  As an undersized shooting guard, that skill is a must, as it keeps the shot from being blocked.  Many undersized guards never master it.  Thornton is already there.

As much as his game was a joy to watch tonight, I do have to call him out for one back-breaker play at the end of the game:  After being blocked by Delonte West, he came down the court, checked Delonte once at the perimeter and then basically left him there, cheating to the opposite side of the court and looking for a steal.  Two passes later, Delonte received the ball and had all the time in the world to knock down his three.  6 point game with just a few minutes to go.

The Frontcourt Puzzle

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