Winning separates Curry in NBA MVP race

This year's NBA MVP debate is fascinating because for once more than one or two players are in the conversation. I've read over the past few weeks convincing arguments for Stephen Curry, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and my guy, Kentucky great, Anthony Davis.

Curry plays for the team with the best record in the NBA and Harden has carried the Rockets without Dwight Howard to one of the higher seeds in the Western Conference. Westbrook's candidacy is built around the fact he has been churning out triple doubles like Magic Johnson since Kevin Durant was declared out for the season with a foot injury. Davis supporters point to a relatively new statistic -- PER or Personal Efficiency Rating -- to push his MVP credentials.

PER was developed by ESPN.com columnist John Hollinger. It "sums up all a player's positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player's performance."

Basketball-reference.com has used Hollinger's formula, which some assumptions for incomplete data of earlier years, to calculate PER ratings back to 1951-1952. Davis' PER this year with a handful of games to go is 30.70. He will finish the season as just the seventh player to top the 30 mark, joining Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, David Robinson, Shaquille O'Neal, Tracey McGrady and LeBron James.

That's rare company, but it is just one statistic to look at. There are three other advanced metrics that help you weigh a player's worth more accurately than the old points-rebounds-assists per game models.

There are win shares, which is derivative of baseball's Bill James. It's a highly complex formula that calculates points produced by a player and offensive possessions and an estimate of a player's points allowed per 100 defensive possessions. Unlike PER, which favors players who are the focal points of their team's offense, win shares favor players on teams with high winning percentages.

Then there is Box Plus/Minus, which uses a player's box score information and the team's overall performance to estimate a player's performance relative to league average based on a per-100-possession basis. Someone with a 0.0 BPM is league average. A -2 score is replacement level and 5 points or better is all-star level.

Finally, there is a Value over Replacement Player (VORP), which takes the BPM and measures it against the value of a player on a minimum salary and not a normal member of the team's rotation.

What is interesting about the 2014-2015 NBA season is that each of the most popular candidates leads in one of these categories. We've already discussed Davis and his PER rating. The leader in win shares with the playoffs just a few games away is James Harden at 15.8 over Chris Paul at 15.4. Curry stands third, Davis fourth and Westbrook is not in the top 10.

Westbrook though tops Box Plus/Minus at 10.66, followed by Curry, Harden, LeBron James, then Anthony Davis. Curry finally comes out on top of VORP with a score of 7.64 to Harden's 7.50. The next four are Westbrook, Paul, James and Davis.

To see which of the four stands out I weighted the categories. First place in a category was worth 20 points, second was worth 19 and so on down to getting one point for finishing 20th. The top 10 players using this method were:

Player (points for PER, WS, BPM, VORP -- Total)
1. Curry, 18, 18, 19, 20 -- 75
2. Harden, 17, 20, 18, 19 -- 74

3. Paul, 15, 19, 17, 17 -- 68

4. Davis, 20, 17, 15, 15 -- 67

5. Westbrook, 19, 8, 20, 18 -- 65
6. James, 16, 12.5, 16, 16 -- 60.5
7. Damian Lillard, 0, 14.5, 11, 14 -- 39.5
8. Jimmy Butler, 1.5, 14.5, 7.5, 10.5 -- 34
9. Rudy Gobert, 5, 7, 13, 8 -- 33
10. Marc Gasol, 4, 9, 6, 12.5 -- 31.5

So just based on these individual rating metrics, I have Curry slightly ahead of Harden for MVP. Of course, the ultimate goal of a basketball team is to win the game. And if you take a player's winning percentage -- the wins/losses of games he actually played in -- and add it to the equation then Curry is the clear choice. To do that, I took a player's winning percentage and multiplied it by 100 and added it the individual weighted points. My top 10 changes a bit once you add in winning percentage.

Player, individual rating points, winning percentage -- total

1. Curry, 75 individual points, 83 winning points (Curry is 64-13 in gamse he's played in) for 158 points.

2. Harden, 74 individual points, 69 winning wings, 143

3. Paul, 68 individual points, 67 winning points, 135

4. James, 60.5 plus 73 winning points, 134
5. Westbrook, 65 plus 59 winning points, 124

6. Davis, 67 plus 56 winning points, 123
7. Lillard, 39.5 plus 65 winning points, 105
8. Kawhi Leonard, 30.5 plus 72 winning points, 103

9. Marc Gasol, 31.5 plus 69 winning points, 101

10. Butler, 34 plus 60 winning points, 94

So that would be my NBA MVP ballot.