I've never looked at the "Wages of Wins" methodology before, but it seems kind of dumb to me. Of all the metrics he uses to compare Kidd and Harris, there are only two that Kidd is better than Harris: rebounds and assists. The rebounds are mostly irrelevant. Nearly 90% of Kidd's rebounds come on the defensive end; in probably 80-90% of those cases, if Kidd didnt get them, a Net teammate would have. He averages only about one offensive rebound a game, which matters more. The difference between Kidd and Harris in the rebounding department is roughly 0.5 offensive rebounds and 5 defensive rebounds a game. Ignoring, for the moment, the effect of pace of play and defensive efficiency (which somewhat determines rebounding opportunities), Kidd will probably add roughly ONE more rebound per game to Dallas' totals, the way I see it--the half of an offensive rebound and the roughly half a defensive rebound that would have turned into an offensive rebound for the opposition. Stated another way, Kidd will simply be taking defensive rebounds away from Josh Howard (that is, if Dampier is devoted to boxing out instead of grabbing them himself, as Collins was). That's worth maybe two points per game, which is completely swallowed up by Harris's five more FT attempts per game.
So, we're down to assists, the value of which is dependent on the offensive system used by the team.
Kidd is really good, and adds a lot of immeasurable tangibles--but if you are looking solely at hard stats, I can't see how you can conclude that Kidd is better than Harris when you put his contributions into a team context.
