What if the entire history of the franchise could be represented (more or less) in one image? The best teams, the best players, how each player played--all together in one screen... Well, with this Winshare area graphic , it's been done.

Just scroll to the bottom of the post at The Arbitrarian (read the post if you want to become familiar with the methodology), and click the last thumbnail. Then, scroll and zoom and pan to your heart's content across 50+ seasons of team history.

The basic concept is a geometric representation of player value--the taller a player's rectangle, the more he contributed to his team's success, the wider the rectangle, the better the team performed. Multiplying the two together gives the area of that player's rectangle, or his Winshares. Players with league-best Winshares are often chosen as MVP, and typically, the player with team-best Winshares is considered the most valuable to that team. The color of each rectangle is determined by the extent to which that player can be classified (according to their statistical profile) as a scorer (red), perimeter player (green), or interior player (blue)--and mixtures of each type translate into mixtures in color.

The historical graphic gives an interesting perspective, too. Note, for example, the career arc of Oscar Robertson, and how the team really excelled in Lucas' first season paired with The Big O. It's also interesting to see that Webber, typically an incredibly well-balanced player (his gray color indicates a playing type fairly evenly divided between scorer-perimeter-interior) had his best year in 00-01 when he focused more on the scoring and less on the perimeter stuff. Also interesting is the contrast between Stojakovic and Divac--whose colors appear to be essentially opposites. Stojakovic is close to a purely scoring-focused player, while Divac's tint indicates a clear interior player with a shade of perimeter ability as well. I would be interested to hear other insights gained from this graphical history, as well as whether or not you feel that the players are given appropriate credit by Winshares. For example, is Martin-Miller-Artest-Salmons-Garcia the correct order of value to the team for the 07-08 season?