How are the better players playing in the playoffs?

I did an offensive and defensive win contribution chart evaluating the performances of some of the more prominent players in the NBA playoffs. It takes a long time to calculate all of the numbers, so I left some notables off the chart, but tried to include as many as it struck me to include.

Click here to see the Win Contribution Chart

(Win Contribution Explained: Win Contribution is the equivalent of baseball's "Replacement Value over the Average Player", with +.000 representing the average player for my purposes. Anything over +.300 represents an excellent win contribution, and anything under -.200 is a pretty poor performance. Numbers over +1.000 are simply awesome ("Jabbar-in-Milwaukeeesque"... hence the picture). Offensive Win Contribution is calculated as the player's Win Score over Average multiplied by the player's percentage of overall playing minutes. Defensive Win Contribution is the same calculation only using the opposite of the player's "Counterpart's" Win Score over Average, using the "Counterpart" statistics compiled by 82games.com to do that calculation. Overall Win Contribution is just a compilation of the two: Offensive WC plus Defensive WC divided by 2.)

Discussion Points

1. Dirk Nowitzki did not really play poorly for Dallas. His defense was below average, but his offense was well, well above average. This year's playoff defeat cannot be layed on him.

2. Shaq and Steve Nash were both absolutely brutal. Shaq's numbers didn't surprise me, Nash's kind of did.

3. Kevin Garnett is holding up his end of the bargain. The Celtics are struggling to match their regular season standards because the other two "Basketeers" are slumping, and I'm particularly talking about Ray Allen.

4. Carmelo Anthony was pathetically bad... brutally bad. Can we finally stop calling him an All-Star now? He's not even close.

5. Chris Paul is the playoff's best Offensive Win Contributor, but Deron Williams ranks ahead of him in Overall Win Contribution because Paul's defense hasn't been very good, and Williams has, although Paul has faced some stiffer competition.

6. Kobe has been awesome, just awesome. Gasol hasn't been bad, but I expected his numbers to be better than they were. I wonder what Odom's numbers look like? I bet Luke Walton is doing well, also.

7. I'm getting sick of doing these charts and having Dwight Howard as the runaway leader. Its almost like he has some built in advantage. I guess technically he does -- he's awesome.

8. Tyson Chandler, according to me, is the guy who's really stepped things up for the Hornets. His defense has been off the charts, and his offense is pretty good too.

9. McGrady, as I expected, was not to blame for the Rockets failures. He was excellent on both ends.

10. Jason Kidd's offense was very good... but, ho, was his defense bad, though. "Off the charts" bad... "Life ain't worth living" bad... "Call my Mommy" bad...

11. Chauncey, on the other hand, has been pretty darn good. Duncan, though, has just been okay. He may be getting old. Parker and Ginobli must be doing awesome... I left them off.