CHIPS

I have an obsession with player legacy and Hall of Fame criteria. Why do some players end their careers as royalty, while others don’t get the same credit? Should the Hall of Fame be a way to recognize players who might otherwise be forgotten (Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony), or should it be a more exclusive club for those we can’t forget?

The Hall of Fame should only include players who were in some way the best. The easiest way to be recognized as the best is to win a CHIP:

CHIP = The Clear Best Player on a Championship Winning Team

Winning a CHIP is the easiest way for a player to cement their legacy. But it’s not so simple to pull off. To win a CHIP, you need enough help from teammates to win it all, but if one of those teammates is too good, you split the credit. There are no split CHIPs. You need to be the Batman to the Robin, not one of the Wonder Twins. Wonder Twins can enjoy the satisfaction of a team victory, but to get the CHIP, you need to be driving the Batmobile!

Methodology

How do you determine the best player on the championship team: the Batman? Winning a championship means winning enough games in the regular season to get to the playoffs, get an advantagous playoff seed, advance through the crucible of 3 playoff rounds, and then finish the job in the finals. The best player is the one who contributed most to that overall effort.

And how do you determine that? Awards such as MVP, Finals MVP, or placement on an all-NBA team are subjective populariy contests. That won’t do. So we turn to the numbers, trusty all-in-one impact measures. These are flawed models, but they are impartial, and do a pretty good job separating quality from fan appeal. Most importantly, they are easy to get off of Basketball Reference! We’ll see if they pass the smell test. Here’s our recipe:

• Regular season Win Shares plus VORP
• Double Playoff Win Shares plus VORP

That’s it. Win Shares and VORP are cumulative, rather than per-minute measures, so they measure a players overall contribution to winning, combining quality and durability. This accounts for a player’s contribution to the slog of the regular season, with extra weight put on playoff performance. There’s no fluking into scoring highly on this. Here’s Shai in 2024-25, for example:

Now that we have a way of measuring who the best player is, how do we determine if that player is clearly the best? The clear best player has a total score significantly greater than his best teammate. How significantly? 10%? 20%? Let’s use the golden ratio (φ = 1.618) here, nature’s way of measuring the next jump in size:

A player with impact metrics 1 / φ (62%) of another’s is an archetypal Robin. But where’s the line? Let’s say half way between those two:

Robin threshold: (1 + 1 / φ) / 2 = 0.809 = 81%

A player with impact metrics below 81% of their teammates’ is a Robin, making their superior teammate the Batman. At 81% or above, the players’ impacts are on the same relative level, making them Wonder Twins:

Let’s look at some examples:

In the example of the 2024-25 Thunder, J-Dub’s score is only 49% that of Shai’s, a clear Robin performance. This makes Shai the Batman, earning him the CHIP.

Shai: 🪙

The 2013-14 Spurs had two relatively equal contributers, with Duncan easily clearing the Robin Threshold with 95%. Kawhi and Duncan were Wonder Twins here, splitting credit for the title, and neither getting a CHIP.

Season by Season

Ok, let’s go through each season this century and see who was worthy of a CHIP:

After Shaq played Batman in 1999-20, the millenium opens with Kobe narrowly joining Shaq for 2 seasons of Wonder Twins. No CHIPs awarded.

Duncan puts in the ultimate Batman performance in 2002-03, after Wonder Twinning with David Robinson 4 years earlier. CHIP to Duncan.

Duncan: 🪙

The Pistons win the championship with an ensemble cast, led by Billups and Ben Wallace. No CHIPs awarded.

In 2004-05, Ginobili’s contribution rises to the level of Duncan’s. This was a Wonder Twins victory, no CHIP awarded.

The next two seasons see CHIPs go to two of the 2000s biggest stars, with Wade Robinning his teammate Shaq hard. Duncan wins his second CHIP, Wade his first.

Duncan: 🪙
Wade: 🪙

Timberwolves-era Garnett would have been un-twinnable, but slightly post peak he needs Paul Pierce’s help to bring the Celtics a title. No CHIP awarded.

Missing out on the CHIP with Shaq a few years earlier, this time he teams up with Pau Gasol for another 2 seasons of Wonder Twins titles. Kobe gets all of the adulation, but the impact metrics say that Pau was his equal. No CHIPs awarded.

After being doubted his whole career, Dirk is knighted with a CHIP, cementing his legacy.

Dirk: 🪙

The Heatles were more like Destiny’s Child, with LeBron in the Beyonce slot. 2 CHIPS for King James.

LeBron: 🪙🪙

Kawhi joins Duncan in an all-time team effort to beat LeBron’s Heat. No CHIP awarded.

A new Batman emerges in Curry, standing head and shoulders above his awesome group of teammates. CHIP to Curry.

Curry: 🪙

LeBron counters with his own Batman performance to beat the Warriors. 3rd CHIP for LeBron.

LeBron: 🪙

The Warriors win two more, with Curry and Durant Wonder Twinning the first, and Durant carrying a less than healthy Curry on the second. It’s hard to give Durant the CHIP after joining an already mighty Warriors team, but there we are.

Durant: 🪙

Previous Wonder Twin Kawhi changes teams to get his first CHIP with the Raptors.

Kawhi: 🪙

Fans gave aging LeBron most of the credit, but this one was a team effort. No CHIP given.

3 Batman seasons from Greek Freak, Chef Curry, and The Joker.

Jokic: 🪙
Curry: 🪙
Giannis: 🪙

Brown won the MVP, but the impact metrics say that Tatum and White were the main engines behind the Celtics title. Tatum misses his best chance for a CHIP.

Another great team in the young OKC Thunder, but Shai was the clear best player by a mile.

Shai: 🪙

I developed this model before these playoffs, and I was pretty pleased with it. For the most part, it passed the smell test over 25 reps. The impact metrics show relatively equal contributions by Towns, Brunson, and OG, making them Wonder Triplets. But then in the final game we have this:

Brunson scores half of his team’s points, putting the team on his back, as he had all year, getting a bucket every time it was needed, steadying his team psychologically, undoing a 50 year curse, bringing complete adulation to a basketball obsessed city of 17 million people. Towns scored 2. Sometimes it’s hard to be on the side of the analytics…

Cashing in the CHIPS

If we count up the CHIPS, this is what we end up with:

Lebron	🪙🪙🪙
Duncan	🪙🪙
Curry	🪙🪙
Wade	🪙
Dirk	🪙
Durant*	🪙
Kawhi	🪙
Giannis	🪙
Jokic	🪙
Shai	🪙

This is basketball royalty, the Oscar winners of the NBA. This matches our intuition, with these players having an unimpeachable case (except for maybe Durant?) for greatness at the highest level. The three multi-CHIP guys occupy a stratum above the rest, the biggest winners in the game.

Some great players missed getting a CHIP, either by being a Wonder Twin (eg. Garnett, Ginobili, Tatum), or never being on a championship team (eg. Paul, Harden, Nash). The toughest ommisions are Kobe and Brunson, who didn’t get the analytic nod, but meant so much to their massive markets, earning their immortality by being the right guy in the right place at the right time.