Getting back on topic....

I've been there done that (from a fan's perspective) with pretty much the highest level of team quality you can get at without winning the championship - and we did it with a player who is much better than the likes of Joe Johnson, Rashard Lewis, Pau Gasol. It resulted in 0 championships and even though we were a top 5 team in the league several times, the result was 0 championships.

I'm not trying to disregard the value of getting one of those guys, but if that caliber of player is your best guy, to what end are you getting him in the FA market? To lose in the 1st or 2nd round of the playoffs year after year?

Your odds of pulling the caliber of player you need to win it all are much better in the draft than via FA statistically. Granted, the odds aren't great, but if this year - if Wade or Lebron don't leave - and those are the only two guys who can be that guy for a championship caliber team on the market - that's just another blow against it.

If I have a guy who can be the best player on a championship team, yes, by all means overpay for a JJ/Lewis/Gasol. But if not, I'd rather not waste the money and my cap space and build up through the draft a cohesive team that plays together - and build with value and maintain the flexibility to make the play for those guys when the time is right.

Nash was the best FA signing this decade - and he will in all likelihood not win a championship.

So yes, I do have a championship or bust mentality - part of that is from the 1st decadeish of my basketball fandom.

Even if you want to buy the championship or bust mentality, the Hawks had a non-zero chance of winning a title during JJ's contract when they first inked him. I already noted that they were loaded with young talent that could have progressed in a variety of different ways. If they didn't screw up the Marvin pick, they just might have won one.

3 Methods:

1) Assume a 15 mpg stiff; the value is the value over the stiff. The per minute output of the stiff is = to the 262nd most productive player per minute - so basically an average 9th man.

1. Lebron (18.7 M VORP)
2. Wade (14.2 M VORP)
3. Durant (13.5 M VORP)
4. Kobe (12.6 M VORP)
5. D Williams (11.3 M VORP)
6. Dirk (11 M VORP)
7. Bosh (10.6 M VORP)
8. G. Wallace (10.6 M VORP)
9. Melo (10.5 M VORP)
10. Rondo (10.5 M VORP)
11. Howard (10.4 M VORP)
12. Duncan (10.4 M VORP)
13. Igudola (10.2 M VORP)
14. Josh Smith (10.1 M VORP)
15. Lee (9.9 M VORP)
Dampier (900 K VORP)

2) Assume a stiff who keeps a constantly low per minute output; the stiff (or combination of stiffs) is subtracted from the value. So essentially - a stiff with excellent stamina.

1. Lebron (13.4 M VORP)
2. Wade (9.6 M VORP)
3. Durant (8.2 M VORP)
4. Kobe (7.4 M VORP)
5. Duncan (6.9 M VORP)
6. D Williams (6.6 M VORP)
7. Dwight Howard (6.1 M VORP)
8. Dirk (6.0 M VORP)
9. Bosh (6.0 M VORP)
10. Rondo (5.8 M VORP)
11. Josh Smith (5.7 M VORP)
12. Nash (5.6 M VORP)
13. Billups (5.6 M VORP)
14. Ginobili (5.6 M VORP)
15. Melo (5.6 M VORP)
Dampier (181 K VORP)

3) Assume that the more you have to use the stiff(s) in replacement of the player in question, the lower the output per minute goes. The starting value of the stiff in low minutes starts out higher than the other stiffs - but his output dips the more you use him.

1. Lebron (16.0 M)
2. Wade (11.8 M)
3. Durant (10.8 M)
4. Kobe (10 M)
5. D Williams (8.8 M)
6. Dirk (8.4 M)
7. Duncan (8.3 M)
8. Bosh (8.1 M)
9. Howard (8.0 M)
10. Rondo (8.0 M)
11. Melo (7.9 M)
12. G. Wallace (7.8 M)
13. Josh Smith (7.7 M)
14. Iguodala (7.5 M)
15. Billups (7.5 M)
Dampier (445 K)


In each case, Lebron ends up 20-60 X Dampier.

His value over the 15th highest valued player is between 2-2.5 X.

I think that you can make cases for the different VORPS - but overall the VORP formulas here make sense; it's not that the initial value sucked - it's more of the # hadn't had some sort of VORP formula applied to it.

And in case you're wondering, I'm not exactly Joe Johnson's biggest fan to begin with - most stat metrics have him as the 2nd or 3rd best player on the team.

If the Knicks signed him to more than 4/50 I would be pretty ****** off. If we have to jettison Lee to get him, I won't be happy either.

Quote: Originally Posted By firehawk122 on 5/07/2010

Quote: Originally posted by deanod on 5/07/2010 I see a couple of flaws in your system. First, it doesn't distinguish between a FA contract and a rookie scale deal. So when you have a guy like Durant who's producing like a max player for $5M, it tricks the system into thinking that you can get a stud like him for $5M on the open market, which deflates all of the fair values.

Second, LeBron is worth way more than 5X Dampier. He's worth like 25-30 wins on his own (although it's a tricky subject in basketball because WARP isn't exactly linear), and Dampier was never a 6-7 win player. So maybe there should be a steeper curve (i.e. an exponential one).

Any system that doesn't value LeBron north of $50M is flawed.

1) Only stat inputs were put in - the player's actual salary wasn't calculated - obviously the #'s were input after the fact - but if you get enough sample points you can get an idea of where a player will peak at and fall off at.

2) I would have to make the formula exponential in order to drive up Lebron's value. Dampier's peak WS was 8.9; Lebron has been at 20.3 in '09 and 18.5 in '10. Wade was 14.7 and then 13. This year Dampier's WS was 3.7.

So it is in fact roughly proportional to WS

but the flaw is that the 70 million is warped by rookie contracts. in a league without a rookie wage scale the average team salary is much closer to 80 or 90 million. In a league without a maximum individual contract the average salary is much closer to 125 million (dean is right Lebron alone would be paid 50 million+ in a totally uncapped league and Kobe would probably still be on one of those contracts, I mean Jordan was signing for 30 million plus annual contracts in the 90's).

dean is also right, Joe Johnson as a top 20 player in the league is worth the maximum contract.

And if the Knicks don't land Lebron, Wade, Bosh, or Amare, what exactly do you want them to do fire, nothing and suck *** again. Adding Joe Johnson and Carlos Boozer (or whatever) would make the Knicks highly competative. Perhaps they get lucky and land a Rajon Rondo or Tony Parker type player near the end of the first round (or an Al Jefferson in the middle of the first round) and get a player that makes a Johnson and Boozer led team a contender.

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Quote: Originally posted by moranis on 5/08/2010dean is also right, Joe Johnson as a top 20 player in the league is worth the maximum contract.And if the Knicks don't land Lebron, Wade, Bosh, or Amare, what exactly do you want them to do fire, nothing and suck *** again.  Adding Joe Johnson and Carlos Boozer (or whatever) would make the Knicks highly competative.  Perhaps they get lucky and land a Rajon Rondo or Tony Parker type player near the end of the first round (or an Al Jefferson in the middle of the first round) and get a player that makes a Johnson and Boozer led team a contender.

They can't add JJ and Boozer and keep Lee. Read between the lines - I'm not OK with adding two guys of that caliber to jettison Lee.

"If we have to jettison Lee to get him, I won't be happy either. "

Lee is younger than both Boozer and JJ and more productive than either (don't just go by my #'s - everything except for +/- has Lee > JJ or Boozer). So me saying championship or bust isn't just an indictment of paying someone of JJ's caliber that much money - it's also an indictment of JJ being that caliber of player - if you consider him their best player (and I don't), you have to add two ADDITIONAL guys of that caliber just to get a 2nd round exit? Jesus, I'd hate to see what happens if you took away Horford or Smith.

And yet, that's exactly what you're proposing - adding JJ and Boozer - and taking away a player superior to them (who btw, happens to be younger).

Quote: Originally Posted By firehawk122 on 5/08/2010

Quote: Originally posted by moranis on 5/08/2010
dean is also right, Joe Johnson as a top 20 player in the league is worth the maximum contract.

And if the Knicks don't land Lebron, Wade, Bosh, or Amare, what exactly do you want them to do fire, nothing and suck *** again. Adding Joe Johnson and Carlos Boozer (or whatever) would make the Knicks highly competative. Perhaps they get lucky and land a Rajon Rondo or Tony Parker type player near the end of the first round (or an Al Jefferson in the middle of the first round) and get a player that makes a Johnson and Boozer led team a contender.

They can't add JJ and Boozer and keep Lee. Read between the lines - I'm not OK with adding two guys of that caliber to jettison Lee.

"If we have to jettison Lee to get him, I won't be happy either. "

Lee is younger than both Boozer and JJ and more productive than either (don't just go by my #'s - everything except for +/- has Lee > JJ or Boozer). So me saying championship or bust isn't just an indictment of paying someone of JJ's caliber that much money - it's also an indictment of JJ being that caliber of player - if you consider him their best player (and I don't), you have to add two ADDITIONAL guys of that caliber just to get a 2nd round exit? Jesus, I'd hate to see what happens if you took away Horford or Smith.

And yet, that's exactly what you're proposing - adding JJ and Boozer - and taking away a player superior to them (who btw, happens to be younger).

actually with the cap at 56 million I believe the Knicks could keep Lee and sign JJ and Boozer. Lee's cap hold is around 9 million which puts salary on the books at 26 million (or so), which gives them 30 million in cap space. Now starting a contract at 15 million for Booz and JJ isn't exactly a full maximum, but it is pretty damn close.

Those salary curves look nice, Hawk. Just for a rough calculation off the top of my head, if you pro-rate the #10-15 guys to align with real-life:

11. Pau Gasol LA Lakers
$16,451,250
-. Andrei Kirilenko Utah
$16,451,250
13. Kevin Garnett Boston
$16,400,000
14. Yao Ming Houston
$16,378,325
-. Amare Stoudemire Phoenix
$16,378,325

LeBron's fair value in each system is appr.

1) $30M
2) $39.5M
3) $34M

This is a shoddy system and some rough mental estimations, but I just wanted to see what the ballpark was.

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Quote: Originally posted by deanod on 5/08/2010Those salary curves look nice, Hawk. Just for a rough calculation off the top of my head, if you pro-rate the #10-15 guys to align with real-life:

11. Pau Gasol LA Lakers
$16,451,250
-. Andrei Kirilenko Utah
$16,451,250
13. Kevin Garnett Boston
$16,400,000
14. Yao Ming Houston
$16,378,325
-. Amare Stoudemire Phoenix
$16,378,325

LeBron's fair value in each system is appr.

1) $30M
2) $39.5M
3) $34M

This is a shoddy system and some rough mental estimations, but I just wanted to see what the ballpark was.

Thanks, Deano.

And upon reconsideration, I decided that my $100M estimation of LeBron's fair value was way too high. If you want to say that his value is roughly on par with three #11-20 players, that would put him around $45-50M.

Quote: Originally Posted By moranis on 5/08/2010actually with the cap at 56 million I believe the Knicks could keep Lee and sign JJ and Boozer. Lee's cap hold is around 9 million which puts salary on the books at 26 million (or so), which gives them 30 million in cap space. Now starting a contract at 15 million for Booz and JJ isn't exactly a full maximum, but it is pretty damn close.

I'm with firehawk here...no way in hell can the Knicks keep David Lee in New York for 9 mil a season...give yourself a break.

That's not what he was saying- the Knicks can keep Lee's Bird Right's for a cap hit of 150% of his previous salary ($7M * 1.5 = $10.5M).

Of course, the issue here is that the Knicks are definitely renouncing Lee- no way they take the cap hit to keep their Plan D of JJ, Boozer, and Lee remotely possible while entirely blowing up Plan A of LeBron and Bosh.