Queen City Hoops - A Charlotte Bobcats Blog

08/1/2008

The information superhighway has been slammed with Bobcats related material the last couple of days, as people opine about Charlotte resigning Emeka Okafor - finally. Here are some of links that I thought were worth while:

Dave Berri weighs in at the Wages of Wins Journal: Okafor finally signs. Considering how much win score favors rebounding, Berri naturally was in favor of the deal. But, not without reservation:

So Bogut and Okafor are both receiving $12 million per season. Here was my first thought when I saw the two deals were basically the same: “That seems wrong. One of these players is much more productive.” At least, that’s what I see when I glance at the numbers. (further down) Now if Okafor can stay healthy, it seems likely the Bobcats will got more bang for their buck. But Okafor's history with injuries - his fourth season was the first time he played in 82 games - probably cost him some money.

Rufus on Fire also takes a gander at Okafor's new money - and then tries to decide how overpaid Emeka is going to be. I just want to put together a couple of numbers and links to offer the counterpoint:
1. According to the Wages of Wins post The Most Overpaid in the NBA in 07-08, the average salary last season was $4.56M and teams paid $1.67M per win.
2. When using PER as a measure, each additional point adds one win over the course of 2000 minutes. In 07-08, Emeka played 2719 minutes and had a PER of 17.4 - 2.4 over average: Using these numbers, Emeka contributed 3.3 wins over the average player. Which would mean he "earned" $4.56M + 3.3 * $1.67M = $10.1M. Verdict - Overpaid by $2M. 3. However, in 06-07, those numbers were 2329 minutes, 20.1 PER, and 5.9 wins. Which becomes $4.56M + 5.9 * $1.67M = $14.4M. Verdict = Underpaid, despite playing fewer minutes.
4. When using WinScore to evaluate, an average player contributes 8.2 wins, assuming he plays every single minute of every game. Just for fun, we will stick with that as a comparison.
5. 07-08 for Emeka: 2719 minutes, 0.202 WS48 = 11.4 wins. 3.2 over average. So, nearly identical to what we got using PER, so again Emeka is slightly overpaid at $12M when producing as he did this year.
6. But, same great results in 06-07. 2329 minutes, 0.290 WS48 = 14 wins. 5.8 over average. So, Emeka goes back to being criminally underpaid.

If I was a gambling man, I would wager that Emeka bounces back some this coming season. And, if he stays healthy, I think the Bobcats will be getting the better of this arrangement. Not by a lot, but I do not think Emeka should be considered overpaid.
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David Arnott Says:		Thanks for the link! The first thing I see in the Wages of Wins blog post is that we're using two different sets of salary information, but that doesn't really affect the thinking behind it. Our average salaries are 400K off. The bigger issue is that Berri does not use marginal wins. His $/win is much higher because he doesn't include that NBA teams have a salary floor, and so he misses that the "true" cost of a replacement level team is far higher than the sum of minimum salaries. You can pay a guy to be less than replacement level. Therefore, NBA teams paid much less for wins than Berri asserts.
Sat Aug 02, 2008 11:05 am

Brett Says:		David, I guess what I most wanted to point out was that I did not think Emeka was being overpaid. Because of comparable players making similar money, I think the Bobcats paid what was necessary. The issue I had with the marginal wins is that it assumes all positions are equal, when it comes to a talent pool to fill them. I would say that it is harder to find a solid center or power forward than a small forward or shooting guard, so the salary pool should be weighted towards the group that has high more competition for their services.
Sun Aug 03, 2008 10:52 am

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