WS/salary comparisons

[stooley]

So, I promised this in a thread yesterday. I made a spreadsheet of various advanced stats along with each player's (every single active player's) salary. I made the spreadsheet a while ago, but decided it wasn't as useful as I'd hoped.

Oh and I've got info for 2012-2013 and 2013-2014. For now I'll only post stuff from this year though.

I can do a bunch of stuff with this, or upload it somewhere if anyone wants to mess around with it, but, for now, I'll shoot a few lists out:

Top 10 players in WS/$1,000,000:

Name	WS	Salary	WS/$1,000,000
1. Isaiah Thomas	6.4	884k	7.237
2. Chandler Parsons	6	926k	6.476
3. Lance Stephenson	6.2	1,000k	6.169
4. PJ Tucker	3.9	884k	4.410
5. Jimmy Butler	4.1	1,112k	3.684
6. Patrick Beverley	2.9	788k	3.676
7. Patrick Mills	3.7	1,134k	3.263
8. Mike Scott	2.5	788k	3.169
9. James Johnson	2.1	680k	3.087
10. Kyle Singler	3.2	1,045k	3.062

So, as you can see, it's basically all just productive players with super low salaries.

A game I was thinking of playing, was figuring out the most effective way to fill out a 14 man roster that pays 62 million dollars this year.

I'm having my first busy day at work in ages, so will put some more lists up when I have time.

I'm planning on doing all-stars, and the raptors, and maybe I'll think of something else.

[TSF]

Really cool list- Interesting that there's non-rookie contracts on there when rookie contracts are the best value in the nba. I wonder how the list changes with a minimum minute level (ex 25 minute minimum?)

Also, as always, #9- COOOOLLLLLAAAAANNNNGEEEELLLOOO

[planetmars]

Great job.. really interesting to see where the Raptors rank in the overall list. Fields has probably got to have one of the worst rankings in the league.

[stooley]

Really cool list- Interesting that there's non-rookie contracts on there when rookie contracts are the best value in the nba. I wonder how the list changes with a minimum minute level (ex 25 minute minimum?)

Also, as always, #9- COOOOLLLLLAAAAANNNNGEEEELLLOOO

The top 10 list, when sorting out players who average less than 25mpg is:

Isaiah Thomas
Chandler Parsons
Lance Stephenson
PJ Tucker
Jimmy Butler
Patrick Beverley
Kyle Singler
Terrence Jones
Andre Drummond
Kris Middleton
11. Kenneth Faried
12. Paul George
13. Miles Plumlee
14. DJ Augustin

[CalgaryRapsFan]

The top 10 list, when sorting out players who average less than 25mpg is:

Isaiah Thomas
Chandler Parsons
Lance Stephenson
PJ Tucker
Jimmy Butler
Patrick Beverley
Kyle Singler
Terrence Jones
Andre Drummond
Kris Middleton
11. Kenneth Faried
12. Paul George
13. Miles Plumlee
14. DJ Augustin

Another interesting filter might be to exclude players on rookie deals, since any contributing rookie will almost certainly fly up the list because of the salary rules related to rookie-scale deals. Those players are obviously going to command big raises from their current teams, once their initial rookie deal is up.

I'm sure these types of comparative analyses are used when determining how much to re-sign rookies for. A reasonable fair market salary maintains the players' value, as far a contribution per dollar. However, overpaying could see a player tumble down this list, decreasing his relative value.

It would be tricky to filter, unless you go through and have a column to indicate Y/N for rookie-scale contract - you could probably go by draft year, but it would take some work to go through player-by-player.

Nice work!

[stooley]

Various Raptor Rankings. Landry Fields is not at the absolute bottom because there are several guys with negative WS. As far as I can tell, the >25mpg doesn't affect much, since WS is a cumulative stat, you have to be good AND have played a lot to have a high WS.

Name	Overall Rank in WS	WS	Overall Rank in WS/$		WS/$mill
Kyle Lowry	6th	8.9	69th		1.433
Demar Derozan	27th	6.1	166th		0.642
Terrence Ross	109th	3	85th		1.120
Amir Johnson	51st	4.5	151st		0.692
Jonas Valanciunas	73rd	3.8	93rd		1.078
Patrick Patterson	95th	3.2	98th		1.030
John Salmons	217th	1.4	317th		0.185
Greivis Vasques	195th	1.7	130th		0.791
Tyler Hansbrough	171st	2.1	163rd		0.660
Chuck Hayes	254th	1	320th		0.175
Steve Novak	279th	0.8	306th		.213
Landry Fields	330th	0.3	327th		.048

Also, all of the flaws that accompany WS (and more) also show up here. So, of course, Amir is underappreciated.

[stooley]

Another interesting filter might be to exclude players on rookie deals, since any contributing rookie will almost certainly fly up the list because of the salary rules related to rookie-scale deals. Those players are obviously going to command big raises from their current teams, once their initial rookie deal is up.

I'm sure these types of comparative analyses are used when determining how much to re-sign rookies for. A reasonable fair market salary maintains the players' value, as far a contribution per dollar. However, overpaying could see a player tumble down this list, decreasing his relative value.

It would be tricky to filter, unless you go through and have a column to indicate Y/N for rookie-scale contract - you could probably go by draft year, but it would take some work to go through player-by-player.

Nice work!

That's a tougher filter to throw on. I can probably do it, but it'll have to wait until I get home. I've become quite proficient with excel after messing around with this for long enough

[planetmars]

So next year Paul George will be making $13.7M. If he maintains his WS of 8.7 his WS/$mill would be 0.635.

So DD at $9.5M and a WS of 6.1 is a better value

[CalgaryRapsFan]

That's a tougher filter to throw on. I can probably do it, but it'll have to wait until I get home. I've become quite proficient with excel after messing around with this for long enough

Completely understandable. I just think it would also be interesting to see how players compare excluding rookies, since those rookies will have big salary increases within a couple seasons.

One great example of this is DeRozan:

2013-14: WS/$ = 0.642

Had he still been on the rookie deal he was on last season, when he was making roughly $3.3M, his WS/$ would be around 1.85.

Since DeRozan is in his first season off his rookie deal, his WS/$ number takes a hit, whereas a player like Ross enjoys an inflated value thanks to still being on his rookie deal.

[stooley]

Best value contracts with a minimum of 5 WS and sorting out rookie contracts as best i can:

1. Kyle Lowry
Robin Lopez
Goran Dragic
Stephen Curry
Wesley Matthews
George Hill
Kevin Durant
Kevin Love
Deandre Jordan

10. Trevor Ariza
Marcin Gortat
Mike Conley
Joakim Noah
14. Demar Derozan
James Harden
Lebron James
Blake Griffin
Serge Ibaka
David West

20. Nicolas Batum
David Lee
Pekovic
Chris Paul
Lamarcus Aldridge
Camelo Anthony
Roy Hibbert
Dirk Nowitzki
Dwight Howard
Chris Bosh

[Scraptor]

Nice list. I think one of the tricky things about this analysis is that incremental wins above the league mean are much harder to obtain. ie. Lebron's seventh through tenth win shares are much more valuable because he is a certain number of standard deviations above the mean. To obtain a better true value ranking, you may wish to go $/standard deviation and see what that produces.

On a side note, I expect Kyle Lowry to hit fourth overall in win shares in the next week or two, behind KD/Love/Lebron. He should pass Blake and Steph and then I think we're going to start finally seeing a flurry of love for him in the media.

I just wonder how his excellence is going to affect his contract status this summer. Now would be an excellent time to start using the Jurassic Park technique of making him lysine-dependent so he can't leave the city.

[Nilanka]

Nice work, stooley. Very interesting take.

[stooley]

Nice list. I think one of the tricky things about this analysis is that incremental wins above the league mean are much harder to obtain. ie. Lebron's seventh through tenth win shares are much more valuable because he is a certain number of standard deviations above the mean. To obtain a better true value ranking, you may wish to go $/standard deviation and see what that produces.

On a side note, I expect Kyle Lowry to hit fourth overall in win shares in the next week or two, behind KD/Love/Lebron. He should pass Blake and Steph and then I think we're going to start finally seeing a flurry of love for him in the media.

I just wonder how his excellence is going to affect his contract status this summer. Now would be an excellent time to start using the Jurassic Park technique of making him lysine-dependent so he can't leave the city.

One of the biggest problems about this stat is just all the flaws that accompany WS in the first place. I also have PER and a bunch of others that I could calculate if people want.

One interesting thing that this stat does show is that the best value contracts are generally max-contracts for 'transcendent players' or minimum contracts.
This is the path that a lot of GMs have been either trying to take or taking lately.

Once you leave those two categories, the difference in contract value is so tiny that it doesn't really make a huge difference. Generally players are fairly well priced by the market, with a few exceptions.
I'd imagine intangibles like chemistry, rim protection, fit and style all become more important if you aren't nailing those ultra-value guys.

The reason why I brought up summing salaries to 62 million in the original post is to simulate building a team.

You want a few max contract guys to fill out the cap and to surround them with the best value, most efficient contracts out there.

[CalgaryRapsFan]

One of the biggest problems about this stat is just all the flaws that accompany WS in the first place. I also have PER and a bunch of others that I could calculate if people want.

One interesting thing that this stat does show is that the best value contracts are generally max-contracts for 'transcendent players' or minimum contracts.
This is the path that a lot of GMs have been either trying to take or taking lately.

Once you leave those two categories, the difference in contract value is so tiny that it doesn't really make a huge difference. Generally players are fairly well priced by the market, with a few exceptions.
I'd imagine intangibles like chemistry, rim protection, fit and style all become more important if you aren't nailing those ultra-value guys.

The reason why I brought up summing salaries to 62 million in the original post is to simulate building a team.

You want a few max contract guys to fill out the cap and to surround them with the best value, most efficient contracts out there.

It definitely speaks volumes about the impact of building through the draft and being able to make the right pick in the draft. The biggest bang for your buck is high-impact players on rookie-scale contracts, which also provides maximum flexibility to build a roster around those types of players.


Not only does this type of analysis provide a comparison of players, it also provides a comparison of GMs. For example, which GMs are able to lockup high quality players at/below market value VS GMs who overpay for their production? That could be an interesting study, that would require a ton of additional research.

[mike, prague]

Best value contracts with a minimum of 5 WS and sorting out rookie contracts as best i can:

1. Kyle Lowry
Robin Lopez
Goran Dragic
Stephen Curry
Wesley Matthews
George Hill
Kevin Durant
Kevin Love
Deandre Jordan

10. Trevor Ariza
Marcin Gortat
Mike Conley
Joakim Noah
14. Demar Derozan
James Harden
Lebron James
Blake Griffin
Serge Ibaka
David West

20. Nicolas Batum
David Lee
Pekovic
Chris Paul
Lamarcus Aldridge
Camelo Anthony
Roy Hibbert
Dirk Nowitzki
Dwight Howard
Chris Bosh

This is proof of what we have known for a long time:

Demar > LeBron

I am also surprised to not see a single Spur on that list.