2016-17 Celtics

[Rd11490]

Who beyond Crowder do you see as a great value player?

[Crow]

Amir, Olynyk to name two likely to walk. Great previous values. May be good values on next contract.

[JoshEngleman]

Amir, Olynyk to name two likely to walk. Great previous values. May be good values on next contract.

I think both of those guys fall into a very specific problem. They likely can't be on the court as the playoffs progress. Both guys are great values for the regular season. They'd be good guys to have on teams that don't have true title aspirations. Not trying to focus on the small sample size, but Amir was dreadful in the 2nd Round/Eastern Finals. Olynyk was solid in the 2nd round and largely non-existent vs. the Cavs. As the Celtics continue to try to consolidate their talent, these are the type of guys that get pushed out. They're simply not good enough when all of the chips are on the table.

[Crow]

And M Brown and Tatum will be better, equal or worse in next 2 years?

And doesn't Hayward have the same far worse in the playoffs syndrome?

[JoshEngleman]

And M Brown and Tatum will be better, equal or worse in next 2 years?

And doesn't Hayward have the same far worse in the playoffs syndrome?

Amir is 30. Olynyk is 26. While Olynyk can conceivably get a little better, he's not exactly a freak athlete looking to put the pieces together. He is what he is. The expectation should be that Brown & Tatum improve over the next 2+ years.

Hayward was solid against the Warriors this year; really good vs. the Clips. You can't compare Hayward to Amir/Olynyk, though. That's just silly. He's coming from a much higher baseline. Hayward can't be played off the court.

[Crow]

Brown has a long, long way to league average on any metric. Johnson and Olynyk have multiple years way above average on RPM.

Hayward in playoffs... I might have been thinking of someone else. Have to to re-check.

[Rd11490]

They do have many years at above average RPM, but those days are coming to an end for Johnson. He got played off the court in the playoffs this year.
I think something to keep in mind for Olynyk is what you value as a team. Do you want to pay 50 for a 70 player or 100 for a 90 player? Of course someone could give him a huge offer this offseason and this entire argument becomes moot.

[jgoldstein34]

My salary model expects Amir to get paid ~$8.7M per year and Olynyk ~$15.8M per year.

Those both seem a bit high to me, but around the range to expect.

[JoshEngleman]

My salary model expects Amir to get paid ~$8.7M per year and Olynyk ~$15.8M per year.

Those both seem a bit high to me, but around the range to expect.

I think you're a little low on Amir. I see the deals that Gorgui Dieng and Ian Mahinmi signed in the past 18 months and see him more in line with a $10-15m year offer, depending on length. Completely agree on Olynyk, though.

[shadow]

Salaries are truly out of control if Olynyk gets 15.8 million per year. His median RAPM rating is 0.72 so far in his career and he's averaged 20 MPG. Based on those numbers he's only been worth around 3.2 wins per season by my quick estimation (he had 3.54 RPM wins this year for comparison). The average team paid 2.4 million per win this past season, which would mean he'd be worth around 7.68 million.

I've also never understood the logic behind teams having to up their offer to players just because another team overpaid for a different player. If teams want to cripple their cap situation to sign an overrated player to a bad deal, it doesn't mean I have to follow suit by paying someone more than I think they're worth.

[JoshEngleman]

Salaries are truly out of control if Olynyk gets 15.8 million per year. His median RAPM rating is 0.72 so far in his career and he's averaged 20 MPG. Based on those numbers he's only been worth around 3.2 wins per season by my quick estimation (he had 3.54 RPM wins this year for comparison). The average team paid 2.4 million per win this past season, which would mean he'd be worth around 7.68 million.

I had a back and forth with Crow about this a few months ago re: $/win. Using all of the deals signed last year, there were 129 guys paid $1.12b. I used AAV for the contract for simplicity sake. I did this in March, so I pro-rated my numbers, but I was looking at 308.6 wins for those 129 guys, or $3.6m per win. My expectation for this off-season is $4.0M per win. If we say Olynyk will provide 3.2 wins, I'd expect $12.8m.

[shadow]

Gotcha. That approach makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

[JoshEngleman]

Gotcha. That approach makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

No problem.

I just refreshed everything, just to double check. I'm using the real minutes played for '16-17, which isn't necessarily the best way to handle this, but I think the issues smooth themselves out over 127 guys.

Contracts signed: 127
Sum of AAV: $1.113 billion
Expected Wins: 316.5
Actual Wins: 298.4
Expected $/win before '16-17: $3.5m
Actual $/win in hindsight: $3.7m

[shadow]

Just curious, what metric are you using for expected & actual wins (winshares, RPM wins, etc.)?

[Crow]

I guess I disremembered about Hayward. I might have been thinking of Galinarj or it could have been somebody else.