HOW WE SCORE TRADES
THE QUESTION
Who got the better end of the deal?
Not predictions, not draft-night grades, not what the trade “should have been.” We measure what each team got.
THE FORMULA
Every player is scored on what they produced on the acquiring team, after the trade. Pre-trade stats don’t count. Stats on other teams don’t count.
+ (Playoff Win Shares × 1.5)
+ Championship Bonus (contribution-weighted)
+ Accolade Bonus
The team with the higher total won — but only if the margin exceeds 1.5 points. A 0.8-point edge could flip on one decent season.
WIN SHARES
Dean Oliver’s stat. Divides team wins among players based on their contributions. One Win Share ≈ one win. Available back to 1977.
Team-dependent: a player on a 60-win team has more wins to divide than the same player on a 30-win team. If a player gets traded to a bad team and the team keeps losing, the trade didn’t produce wins.
PLAYOFF WIN SHARES × 1.5
Same math, playoff games, 1.5× weight. Teams that go deeper play more games and accumulate more. A trade that reaches the Finals produced more than a first-round exit.
CHAMPIONSHIP BONUS
Carry 35% of the postseason workload, get +1.75 per title. Ride the bench, get a fraction.
ACCOLADE BONUS
Awards catch what the box score misses.
| Award | Bonus | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| MVP | +5.0 | Captures dominance that cumulative stats understate. |
| Finals MVP | +3.0 | Best player on the biggest stage. |
| DPOY | +2.5 | Primary correction for defensive value. |
| All-NBA 1st Team | +2.0 | Top 5 player that season. |
| ROY | +1.5 | Immediate contributor — relevant for picks. |
| All-NBA 2nd Team | +1.2 | Top 10 player. |
| Sixth Man | +0.8 | Best reserve. |
| All-NBA 3rd Team | +0.7 | Top 15 player. |
| MIP | +0.5 | Breakout season. |
| All-Defensive Team | +0.5 | Broader defensive correction than DPOY alone. |
| All-Star | +0.3 | Partially a popularity contest. |
| All-Rookie Team | +0.2 | Minor signal. |
Awards double-count great seasons. They should. A player who leads the league in Win Shares by a wide margin gets the same WS credit as one who barely leads. The award captures the gap.
WHAT THIS SYSTEM DOESN’T CAPTURE
WHY WIN SHARES
- PER: Overvalues high-usage scorers. Outdated.
- VORP: Ignores team quality. We want team quality.
- BPM: Rate stat. We need cumulative production.
- EPM / RAPTOR / LEBRON / DARKO: Proprietary, defunct, or only from ~2014.
- Raw box score: Doesn’t account for efficiency, defense, or winning.
DATA SOURCES
All from Basketball Reference. Stats count only after the trade, on the acquiring team.
- Regular season: 23,500+ player-seasons (1977–present)
- Playoffs: 9,100+ player-seasons
- Championships: 49 verified champions
- Accolades: 2,500+ awards
- Trades: 1,935 (1976–present)