LaMarcus Aldridge #21 of the Brooklyn Nets in action against the Detroit Pistons; NBA (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
The salary cap is a long-standing feature of American sports. It was designed to limit the deepest-pocketed owners from simply buying the best team every year, thereby improving parity (and I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that it also artificially deflates player salaries, controlling costs for owners).
Regardless of the motives, the salary cap means that every NBA team is constantly looking for bargains. Player A might be a significantly better player, but if he is on too large a contract, maybe his production can be replaced by less-skilled, but cheaper, player B? This type of arithmetic is involved in every front-office decision that teams make.
The best contracts, by far, are players who can outperform the constraints of the maximum contract. For example, Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris are paid almost the same amount annually, as set by the maximum allowable contracts they each signed. And who would you rather have? (Oops, maybe that’s a bad example…)
Giannis is getting paid $45 million a year, the maximum the NBA collective bargaining agreement allows. Yet the numbers would say he’s actually worth far more than that for his production since inferior players are getting paid similarly.
NBA players out-playing their contract this season
If absolute superstars are the best contract value, the NEXT best contract values are young studs on rookie deals. What team wouldn’t love to have superstars like Luka Doncic and Ja Morant on an even more cost-controlled deal?
We’ve seen similar stories in the NFL, where teams are desperate to build around young QBs on cheap deals before they hit the open market and command the enormous salaries that they deserve.
These are well-known salary cap quirks. This piece is not about those kinds of players.
Instead, we’re going to be looking for veterans who are signed for cheap, often minimum contracts, but still having major impacts on winning.
Methodology: I took salary data from Spotrac and combined it with Basketball-Reference’s advanced statistics. I then filtered out players who haven’t played at least 150 minutes, and excluded players who would’ve fallen into the categories above.
From there, I looked at players’ Win Shares per salary dollar and Box Plus/Minus per salary dollar to see, using two different all-in-one metrics, which players have contributed the most for their salaries.
A quick note for those who want to understand the advanced metrics a little more (feel free to skip):
Win Shares (WS) is a stat that attempts to divvy up a team’s actual wins according to its players’ statistical contributions. Therefore, it’s always going to be more generous to teams that actually, you know, win games, and it also is often higher for players who play more minutes (since it’s an aggregate, not rate, statistic). At the end of a season, a team’s players will have individual Win Shares that total up to approximately the team’s actual win total, so it’s an interesting stat that takes actual team success into direct account.
Box Plus/Minus (BPM) is a rate statistic that tries to figure out, purely off traditionally available box-score numbers, how much better a team is with a player on the court than off compared to an average player. A value of +2.0 means the team is 2 points per 100 possessions better with the player on the floor than an exactly average player. For context, 6.0 is generally All-Star level, and 10.0 is truly historic.
Ok, thanks for bearing with me! Onward to the good stuff.
@MontePooleNBCS) <a href=https://hoopshabit.com/2021/11/17/nba-players-outplaying-contracts/"https://t.co/nkFeMpiSxN">pic.twitter.com/nkFeMpiSxN
<p>— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) <a href=https://hoopshabit.com/2021/11/17/nba-players-outplaying-contracts/"https://twitter.com/TheHoopCentral/status/1457830779124289542?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%22>November 8, 2021</a></p></blockquote>
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<p>Every time GPII gets in the game, he’s able to give the Warriors a boost with his effort level, and not just on defense. He cuts with purpose, attacks the rim with abandon, and has made just enough wide-open three-pointers (on meager volume) to be respectable.</p>
<p>The Warriors have used him much like the Nets have used Bruce Brown, another undersized, non-volume-shooting wing who acts like a center on offense. He basically never plays with a traditional big man on the floor, which lets him screen for shooters and then roll into open space.</p>
<p>When you only play 10-15 minutes a game, there’s no reason to hold back, and GPII leaves it all on the floor every night. He <a href=https://hoopshabit.com/2021/11/17/nba-players-outplaying-contracts/"https://www.nba.com/stats/players/traditional/?sort=STL&dir=-1&Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PerMode=Per36&CF=MIN*GE*150%22 target="_blank" rel="noopener">leads the league in traditional +/-, as well as steals per 36 minutes (min. 150 mins played).</a></p>
<p>Despite his scant minutes and unimpressive scoring numbers, Payton’s made major contributions to winning, and he’s going to be yet another interesting wrinkle for coach Steve Kerr to play with during the playoffs.</p>
<div class="next-slide slider"> <a class="next-slide-btn" style="background:#bb2c32" data-track="shortcode" data-track-action="next-slide-shortcode" href=https://hoopshabit.com/2021/11/17/nba-players-outplaying-contracts/"#"> <span class="title">Next:</span> LaMarcus Aldridge </a>
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<img class="size-full wp-image-438299" src=https://hoopshabit.com/2021/11/17/nba-players-outplaying-contracts/"https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/fetch/c_fill,g_auto,f_auto,h_2134,w_3200/http%3A%2F%2Fhoopshabit.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fgetty-images%2F2017%2F07%2F1236222612.jpeg" alt="NBA" width="3200" height="2134" srcset="https://hoopshabit.com/wp-content/uploads/getty-images/2017/07/1236222612.jpeg 3200w, https://hoopshabit.com/wp-content/uploads/getty-images/2017/07/1236222612-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 3200px) 100vw, 3200px"><div class="fs-center-img">
<p class="wp-caption-text" style="width:3200px;">LaMarcus Aldridge #21 of the Brooklyn Nets in action against the Indiana Pacers (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)</p>
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<h2>NBA players out-playing their contract this season: LaMarcus Aldridge</h2>
<p><strong>Win Shares:</strong> 1.3</p>
<p><strong>BPM:</strong> 2.5</p>
<p><strong>Salary:</strong> $2.641 million (vet minimum)</p>
<p><strong>WS / ($M):</strong> 0.492 (NBA rank: 10)</p>
<p><strong>BPM / ($M):</strong> 0.946 (NBA rank: 7)</p>
<p>Aldridge would be a surefire lock if the NBA still had a Comeback Player of the Year award. After joining the Nets last season, Aldridge unexpectedly had to retire due to a heart condition. He was told he could never play basketball again.</p>
<p>However, as last season finished and the offseason began, his condition improved. His medical staff gained confidence that he could return to basketball. And so, he ecstatically re-signed with the Nets.</p>
<p>He’s been arguably the best center option for the Nets in their strange season, shooting 58% from the field and 47% from three while averaging 12 points, five rebounds, and a block per game coming off the bench.</p>
<p>Aldridge has hit everything from his mid-range sweet spot and played passable defense. He’s shooting the most efficiently he’s ever shot in his career and rarely turns the ball over. Add it all up, and he’s second on the Nets in on/off point differential, behind only Patty Mills.</p>
<p>Basically, any lineup with the bench duo of Aldridge and Mills is torching opponents, <a href=https://hoopshabit.com/2021/11/17/nba-players-outplaying-contracts/"https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/team/3/lineups?on=2527&on=38#tab-four_factors" target="_blank" rel="noopener">outscoring them by more than 12 points per 100 possessions</a>. It’s safe to say that Aldridge’s unexpected return is one of the brightest spots of this uneven Nets season.</p>
<div class="next-slide slider"> <a class="next-slide-btn" style="background:#bb2c32" data-track="shortcode" data-track-action="next-slide-shortcode" href=https://hoopshabit.com/2021/11/17/nba-players-outplaying-contracts/"#"> <span class="title">Next:</span> Nicolas Batum </a>
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<img class="size-full wp-image-438300" src=https://hoopshabit.com/2021/11/17/nba-players-outplaying-contracts/"https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/fetch/c_fill,g_auto,f_auto,h_2134,w_3200/http%3A%2F%2Fhoopshabit.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fgetty-images%2F2017%2F07%2F1350148580.jpeg" alt="NBA" width="3200" height="2134" srcset="https://hoopshabit.com/wp-content/uploads/getty-images/2017/07/1350148580.jpeg 3200w, https://hoopshabit.com/wp-content/uploads/getty-images/2017/07/1350148580-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 3200px) 100vw, 3200px"><div class="fs-center-img">
<p class="wp-caption-text" style="width:3200px;">Nicolas Batum #33 of the LA Clippers reacts against the Portland Trail Blazers (Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images)</p>
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<h2>NBA players out-playing their contract this season: Nicolas Batum</h2>
<p><strong>Win Shares:</strong> 1.4</p>
<p><strong>BPM:</strong> 4.0</p>
<p><strong>Salary:</strong> $3.17 million</p>
<p><strong>WS / ($M):</strong> 0.442 (NBA rank: 14)</p>
<p><strong>BPM / ($M):</strong> 1.262 (NBA rank: 4)</p>
<p>Nicolas Batum contains multitudes. From promising young player on the Trail Blazers (where he teamed with the aforementioned LaMarcus Aldridge), to burgeoning star, to overpaid disappointment on the Hornets… Batum has seen a lot.</p>
<p>The Clippers signed him at the start of the 2020 season with low expectations, but he quickly became the glue guy he was always destined to be. He moved the ball well, knocked down threes, and defended anyone and everyone. Batum was a key piece of the Clippers’ shocking success without Kawhi in last year’s playoffs, especially while torturing Utah in the second round with a steady stream of triples and a ton of steals.</p>
<p>This year, he’s done all that and a little bit more. In Kawhi’s absence, Batum is averaging more points (9.6 vs. 8.1), rebounds (5.7 vs. 4.7), steals (1.2 vs. 1.0), and blocks (0.8 vs. 0.6) per game than last year, while shooting higher percentages, in the exact same amount of playing time.</p>
<p>Batum’s flexibility on defense and knockdown shooting make him the perfect 3&D role player for a team with title aspirations. The fact that he is on a bargain contract only makes him more valuable.</p>
<div class="fs-shortcode" data-type="StoryLink" data-theme="dark" data-text="5 surprising NBA stats" data-url="https://hoopshabit.com/2021/11/16/nba-stats-surprising/" data-call-to-action="Next"> <div class="story-link-next"> <a class="story-link-next-btn" style="background:#bb2c32" data-track="shortcode" data-track-action="story-link-next-shortcode" href=https://hoopshabit.com/2021/11/17/nba-players-outplaying-contracts/"https://hoopshabit.com/2021/11/16/nba-stats-surprising/"> <span class="call_to_action">Next:</span> 5 surprising NBA stats </a> </div>
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