2019/20 Players' Transactions: Breaking News , Trades, Free Agents, And Rumors

watching the video of the injury and seeing the way Rudy couldn't even stand up and had to be carried off the court by teammates in the locker room further amazes me and solidifies the insanity of what Kobe did that night he tore his achilles: He tried to pull the tendon back into place, walks back on the court, hits both important FTs and walks off with no assistance. Incredible.....

This isn't a knock on Rudy or anyone else that needs assistance from tearing their achilles. That is no joke of an injury, but it puts Bryant in a more amazing light.

 

The video is too short, if it was longer you would hear the Kings announcers quickly come to realize its an Achilles injury after looking at it again.

 

I came up with a value system to track whether players live up to their contracts. Interested in your thoughts.

Here is the data for Centers:


Before you read on, this includes ONLY THIS SEASON'S VALUE.


Worst to Best
21. Jordan Hill
20. Miles Plumlee
18-tied. Festus Ezeli
18-tied. Ian Mahinmi
-Only Mahinmi is 30 years of age or older, but at least two of these players look finished this season.

17. Meyers Leonard
16. Tyler Zeller
15. Boban Marjanovic
14. Timofey Mozgov
13. Tarik Black
--Four of these players are 28 or younger, so Zeller and Black might grow into their contracts. Mozgov is already 30.

12. Justin Hamilton
11. Al Jefferson
9-t. Joakim Noah
9-t. Roy Hibbert
--Hamilton is only 26, and it's only a one-year deal. Noah is playing well, but that contract is huge. Jefferson is in a similar spot. Hibbert isn't playing poorly, and he's earning millions less.

Around here is where I start to think that these are good contracts.
8. Zaza Pachulia
7. Al Horford
-Two vets fitting in well in their situations, at least for this season.

6. Andre Drummond
5. Dewayne Dedmon
--One highly paid player and one bargain bin player. Both playing very well.

4. Hassan Whiteside
2-t. Pau Gasol
2-t. Dwight Howard
--Three highly paid vet players who are playing incredibly well.

1. Marreese Speights
--Making less than $2M but scoring 10 points per game, outplaying his counterpart big time, and cruising with a 20.2 PER, Speights is 112th in the league in +/-. He's been the best signee for this season at the Center spot, in terms of value.

 

I was looking for eye test before telling you how I calculated it, as value has a relative component.

It's three criteria for this one because it's only a single-season value. It's based off the average salary the player is earning on the deal (that's not exactly a criterion).
Criterion #1: it's PTS+AST+REB, so we get one value that reflects how much you literally pay per point, assist, or rebound.
Criterion #2: it's Value Over Replacement Player-based. So you see how many wins that player contributes relative to a backup player.
Criterion #3: It's PER-based, so I compare the player's PER vs. his counterpart's PER, and then I multiply it by minutes played. This shows how much the player contributes vs. his counterpart over the course of a season

I rank all three of these characteristics 1-21 (because there are 21 players in the list), and you get a relative value - how much of those three things you get per the $ spent.

If I do a full-contract one, it includes age at the time of signing, as that's important. But age doesn't matter for this set of data, nor does # of years signed. Those numbers just affect future contract value.

 

They came up as PFs rather than Cs. I'll get to them I'd wager Biyombo's is going to be middle of the pack, close to Mozgov.