No offense to Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes, but the WNBA's last two draft classes represent the next evolution of women's basketball. The existing stars have earned their place in history by getting the league off the ground, and many of them will be headlining all-star teams for seasons to come.

	Tamika Catchings is perhaps the league's most impressive rookie from the past two seasons.

But the rookies of 2001 and 2002 are the first generation born and bred on the WNBA. Mere days before Jackie Stiles arrived in Springfield, Mo., for her freshman year at Southwest Missouri State, Cynthia Cooper and the Houston Comets knocked off the New York Liberty to capture the WNBA's first title. Stiles, Tamika Catchings, Svetlana Abrosimova and the rest of that freshman class took the floor for their first collegiate practice knowing something that no previous freshman class had known: a pro career within the borders of the United States was within their grasp.

So it's not completely arbitrary to give that class and the subsequent class of 2002 a little extra attention. After all, these players are the future of the league. Cooper & Co. were gifts, and the ABL's demise provided another much-needed talent infusion, but these players are truly the WNBA's own generation.

Not surprisingly for a league as new as the WNBA, statistical analysis isn't always easy to find. Despite the best efforts of those who cover the game, women's college basketball often suffers from a lack of resources. Fans are lucky to get box scores with points, rebounds and assists, let alone more detailed stats. Some might think that the absence of "number crunchers" is part of the game's charm, like respectful players and reasonable salaries (far too reasonable by some accounts), but numbers aren't a bad thing to have on your side when arguing about which player or group of players is better than another.

Settling on a single comprehensive statistic is the easiest way to compare player value, regardless of position. Without an overall rating, comparing players from different positions becomes difficult at best, a muddle of meaningless numbers at worst. Are Natalie Williams' 7.4 rebounds per game worth more than Dawn Staley's 5.1 assists per game? It's hard to say. But a tool that measures each player's entire contribution, both strengths and weaknesses, is more useful.

Some inadequacies are immediately apparent. Defense is a tough thing to measure with statistics. Steals and blocks are defensive statistics, but they don't always represent great defense. A player who goes for steals on every pass is likely to come up with plenty of thefts, but she's also likely to cause innumerable defensive breakdowns when an unsuccessful attempt leaves her out of position. Similarly, plenty of events take place on the offensive end that aren't accurately tracked. How many picks does a player set, and are they quality picks? Did a player make the right cut against a zone defense, leaving a teammate open for a 3-point attempt on the skip pass? Other than through direct observation, those elements are tough to quanitfy.

And while no rating system is complex enough to factor in all of basketball's countless intangibles, elite players are rarely paid to take care of the intangibles. Sheryl Swoopes might be influenced by whether Kelley Gibson sets a solid screen, but the ultimate responsibility of hitting the shot lies with Swoopes. Teams can scrap and hustle all they want, but without rebounds, assists, blocks, steals and most importantly points, all they'll earn is a moral victory. Sure, statistics leave a lot of ground uncovered, but they also do a fair job of assessing a player's major contributions.

Here's a simple formula for measuring a player's complete statistical contribution, using per-game averages: (converted points + rebounds + (assists x 1.5) + three-pointers + steals + blocks) - turnovers.

Assists are given extra value because they lead directly to the ultimate positive result, a made basket. All of which might leave you asking, what are converted points?

Field Goals: This is the trickiest part of the equation. The only number that matters at the end of the game is the final score, and so it follows that the most important contribution a player can make is to put points on the board. But are all points equal? If Lisa Leslie and Lauren Jackson each score 20 points, but Leslie needs 15 shots while Jackson needs 20 shots, are their contributions really equal? Couldn't Leslie's teammates have scored on at least a couple of their five extra possessions? Multiply each player's field goals by their shooting percentage and the result is a better representation of the value of their shots. Leslie's 10 field goals on 67 percent shooting equal 6.7 converted field goals (10 x 0.67), while Jackson's 10 field goals on 50 percent shooting equal 5.0 converted field goals. In other words, Jackson gets credit for scoring the points, but she's penalized for poor shot selection.

Free Throws: The same holds true for free throws. Consider the NBA for a comparison. Shaquille O'Neal hit 5.9 free throws per game, and Paul Pierce hit 6.3 foul shots a night. That's pretty close to the same contribution on the scoreboard, but Pierce's free throws were more valuable than O'Neal's. The big guy wasted 4.8 charity attempts per game, while Pierce missed just 1.5 free throws per game. Any rating of their overall contribution must take into account that while O'Neal contributed more free throws per game, he cost his team an almost equal number of points.

Enough with the math, how about some rankings? First, a look at some of the WNBA's established elite, to use as a reference point. Ratings are for the 2002 season, based on statistics through the All-Star break (these are five randomly selected stars, not the season's five highest-rated players).

WNBA Ratings
Player	Team	Rating
Chamique Holdsclaw	Washington	25.85
Lisa Leslie	Los Angeles	24.12
Ticha Penicheiro	Sacramento	23.81
Sheryl Swoopes	Houston	20.05
Katie Smith	Minnesota	16.14

With those ratings as benchmarks, how did the last two rookie classes fare in their debuts?

2001 Rookies
Player	Team	Drafted	Rating
Lauren Jackson	Seattle	1	18.97
Svetlana Abrosimova	Minnesota	7	15.22
Jackie Stiles	Portland	4	12.09
Marie Ferdinand	Utah	8	11.92
Ruth Riley	Miami	5	9.38
Penny Taylor	Cleveland	11	9.45
Kristen Veal	Phoenix	13	9.0
Katie Douglas	Orlando	10	8.61
Semeka Randall	Seattle	17 (2)	8.23
Amanda Lassiter	Houston	15	7.31
Deanna Nolan	Detroit	6	6.84
Kelly Schumacher	Indiana	14	5.82
Kelly Miller	Charlotte	2	2.9
Coco Miller	Washington	9	1.44
Laquanda Barksdale	Portland	12	Incomplete
Camille Cooper	Los Angeles	16	Incomplete