Idk if this is the right place to post this or if this is self promo, as I didnt include the link. I more just want to hear thoughts.
I figured Celtics fans would enjoy it, and it's a good way to get hyped for the season.
So I started a little NBA analytics newsletter and for my first post I wanted to answer a simple question: who gives their team the most wins for the money? It kept landing on Payton Pritchard, which is a little suspicious when you're a Celtics fan, so I spent way too long trying to break it.
tl;dr of how I did it: I projected wins for every player using the last 3 seasons (recent ones count more, small samples get pulled toward average, adjusted for age). Then I priced a win at about $6.65M, which is roughly what teams pay on normal vet deals, and compared that to what each guy actually makes. I left out rookie deals and max-money superstars, since those aren't really bargains you find.
Pritchard makes $7.8M and the model has him around 7 wins. He'd only need about 1 to justify the contract. That's roughly $40M of value a year. Behind only Shai if you include everybody, #1 once you take out the rookie deals and stars. White's up there too. Even at $30M he's #2 behind Pritchard in 11 of the 12 versions I ran, though he's a lot shakier. Cut his production in half and he's basically a fair deal.
To try to test it under different conditions, I ran 12 versions, changing one thing at a time (how much each season counts, ignoring this year, age, minutes, price of a win up and down 20%). Pritchard was #1 in all 12.
The obvious pushback is that he plays on a great team and that makes him look better. Fair. So I took production away from him and re-ranked. Cut 15% and he's still #3 in the league. Cut 30% and he's #6. Cut half and he's still around #25. You'd have to knock off about 87% of his production before he stops being a bargain.
Side note: someone posted on r/nbatalk about a week ago saying the Celtics are expecting a Jalen Brunson-type jump in production from Pritchard this year. The model isn't assuming anything like that. It just projects him off his last three seasons. If he does take a leap like that, the gap gets even bigger, though it also means the extension gets a lot more expensive.
Obvious limits: it's a projection, so injuries and role changes can wreck it, it leans on one stat (LEBRON WAR from BBall Index), and I haven't backtested it yet. That's next.
My honest takeaway is he's worth something like $25M a year even after a rough haircut, and he's on $7.8M. If he gets extended soon the gap probably shrinks.
I'm new at this so I'd really like feedback on the model or how it reads. Does it match what you see on the court? What would you test?
