APBRmetrics

How did you calculate your talent metric if you don't mind my asking?

aaronmarg wrote:How did you calculate your talent metric if you don't mind my asking?

Don't mind at all. It's actually very basic. I did a 50/50 blend of WS and BPM, since that was the easiest to grab from Basketball Reference. Then, I used the past 3 years of data, weighted by minutes and recency, to get a rate for this coming season. Something like 6/3/1, IIRC. Outside of the obvious limitations of WS/BPM, it provides me a really quick baseline.

Wouldn't the simplest way to calculate trade value be (estimated surplus value over contract per year) * (years remaining on contract)?

nbacouchside wrote:Wouldn't the simplest way to calculate trade value be (estimated surplus value over contract per year) * (years remaining on contract)?

In theory, yes, but it doesn't really work for the NBA. I mention an example a bit earlier in the thread, but Jae Crowder is the poster child for this. He's probably on the best contract in the league, but that doesn't mean the Pelicans would take him straight up for AD.

JoshEngleman wrote:

nbacouchside wrote:Wouldn't the simplest way to calculate trade value be (estimated surplus value over contract per year) * (years remaining on contract)?

In theory, yes, but it doesn't really work for the NBA. I mention an example a bit earlier in the thread, but Jae Crowder is the poster child for this. He's probably on the best contract in the league, but that doesn't mean the Pelicans would take him straight up for AD.

That's a fair rejoinder, but you could probably take that simple equation and give an extra credit for elite players. Essentially adjusting the surplus value piece of it to account for the scarcity and extra value provided by the elite of the elite.

nbacouchside wrote:

JoshEngleman wrote:

nbacouchside wrote:Wouldn't the simplest way to calculate trade value be (estimated surplus value over contract per year) * (years remaining on contract)?

In theory, yes, but it doesn't really work for the NBA. I mention an example a bit earlier in the thread, but Jae Crowder is the poster child for this. He's probably on the best contract in the league, but that doesn't mean the Pelicans would take him straight up for AD.

That's a fair rejoinder, but you could probably take that simple equation and give an extra credit for elite players. Essentially adjusting the surplus value piece of it to account for the scarcity and extra value provided by the elite of the elite.

How to do this properly is a very interesting question. It seems like some sort of balance between Value over Replacement Player and Value over Average player, where the latter is more important for the good teams. In other words--2 3-VORP players are not equal to 1 6-VORP player in actual value.

JoshEngleman wrote:For example, Jae Crowder is expected to produce 17.9 wins over the next 3 seasons, while making a total of $21.9m. Amazing deal. It would produce a surplus of $34.3m over that time period. Anthony Davis, on the other hand, will produce 34.8 wins over the next 4 seasons, while making a total of $105.1m. This is a total of $6.6m in surplus value. In a vacuum, you would rather have Crowder than AD.

Only with an assumption that teams can easily add more wins by spending the difference in their contracts [which is not true]...

JoshEngleman wrote:If you had Jae Crowder at the minimum for the next 3 years, how much closer are we to a straight trade for Anthony Davis?

IMO the answer to this question lies in the rules of salary cap.
Could Pelicans spend the difference between their salaries to improve the team?
Even if Crowder was on the minimum deal it would be hard which is why they would say "no"...

JoshEngleman wrote:In theory, yes, but it doesn't really work for the NBA. I mention an example a bit earlier in the thread, but Jae Crowder is the poster child for this. He's probably on the best contract in the league, but that doesn't mean the Pelicans would take him straight up for AD.

That's because he's worse on the court and savings are not the main goal when teams can have very different payrolls.

JoshEngleman wrote:I guess I should have been more specific in my original post, but I like a lot of the replies here. My original thought was more along the lines of Bill Simmons' old trade value columns. Boiling the combination of age, talent and contract down into one ranking.[...]
So, what is the next step? How can we best evaluate the components of a trade?

IMO the algorithm could look like this:
1) comparison of projected wins in a given year.
2) comparison of future projected wins [all picks would be included here].
3) comparison of contracts [including cash/tax savings and the outlook for cap space].
4) comparison of team's situations [need in terms of skill/fit/positions, how important are additional wins etc].

Add one point when team significantly improves in a given category [fractions when it's marginal] and trade would be deemed "fair" if both teams scored at least 1,5 points? Obviously the real problem here is balancing act between gains for both sides and how to discount future wins but that's just tweaking/teaching algorithm based on some data/examples... ;-)

Related to Daniel's point, I think at the high end of the win total spectrum each additional win is marginally more difficult to achieve, and large win increases from a baseline of an already high win% require something extraordinary: either the addition a truly superlative talent, or replacing a particularly terrible rotation player with someone pretty good.

Well, this BOS/CLE trade spits in the face of any discussion about surplus value for contracts.

It does for Boston. For Cleveland, it affirms it.

I am interested in seeing how high Celtics can & will spend. Their future will involve add a draft pick, lose a rotation guy over & over unless they are willing to pay taxes then even bigger taxes. Horford will go away at end of contract or before. If he stays, he'll have to take a big cut. Does Hayward get another contract there? Too early to say.

Cavs may well lose LeBron for nothing again but they are better off than before. Re-sign Thomas? I dunno. Probably not. Could get more value / surplus value other ways.


As for use of cap to get guys in general, there is best case get, average get and whatever get for how attractive your team & market are. Would be unwise to assume a get above your likely get level.