Last year Andrew Bogut led the Milwaukee Bucks with 8.9 Wins Produced (WP). If the universe of NBA players only consisted of Milwaukee Bucks, Bogut would deserve to be very well paid. And in such a universe, it may not be surprising to see Bogut receive $72.5 million over five years.
In the world we actually live in, though, there are other NBA big men who do not play for the Bucks. When we consider those players, Bogut’s contract appears quite puzzling. After all, Bogut’s WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] was only 0.157 last season. Yes, this mark bests the mark of an average player (average is 0.100). But relative to other big men, Bogut’s productivity doesn’t seem to justify his pay.
Or to put it another way, if Bogut’s salary is the new standard in the NBA, a number of big men should be seeing much bigger salaries. Assuming Bogut does not improve (and that may or may not be a great assumption), Bogut is going to be paid $1.62 million per win over the length of his contract. If this is the cost of each win, here are the five-year salaries for all the power forwards and centers that were more productive than Bogut last season (assuming their productivity also remains unchanged).
Dwight Howard [24.6 WP, 0.382 WP48], $200.1 million
Marcus Camby [21.0 WP, 0.365 WP48], $170.7 million
Tim Duncan [18.1 WP, 0.328 WP48], $147.5 million
Kevin Garnett [17.9 WP, 0.370 WP48], $146.0 million
Tyson Chandler [16.3 WP, 0.281 WP48], $132.6 million
Amare Stoudemire [16.3 WP, 0.291 WP48], $132.2 million
Lamar Odom [15.4 WP, 0.253 WP48], $125.0 million
Carlos Boozer [14.8 WP, 0.251 WP48], $120.5 million
Andris Biedrins [14.5 WP, 0.334 WP48], $117.6 million
Shawn Marion [13.6 WP, 0.281 WP48], $110.3 million
Dirk Nowitzki [13.3 WP, 0.231 WP48], $108.2 million
Al Jefferson [13.2 WP, 0.217 WP48], $107.4 million
David Lee [12.7 WP, 0.259 WP48], $103.3 million
Emeka Okafor [11.8 WP, 0.208 WP48], $96.0 million
Jeff Foster [11.6 WP, 0.296 WP48] $94.6 million
Antawn Jamison [11.5 WP, 0.180 WP48], $93.4 million
Samuel Dalembert [11.2 WP, 0.197 WP48], $90.8 million
Brad Miller [10.3 WP, 0.197 WP48], $83.7 million
Chris Kaman [10.1 WP, 0.233 WP48], $82.3 million
Chris Bosh [9.9 WP, 0.197 WP48], $80.9 million
Yao Ming [9.9 WP, 0.232 WP48], $80.4 million
Pau Gasol [9.8 WP, 0.200 WP48], $79.5 million
Joe Przybilla [9.0 WP, 0.239 WP48], $73.6 million
Al Horford [9.0 WP, 0.170 WP48], $73.1 million
If these 24 players were paid at the Bogut-rate over the next five seasons, they would collect $2.65 billion. Yes, that’s billion.
Of course, the Bucks are hoping Bogut will improve. After all, he is only 23 years old. So perhaps Bogut’s future numbers will justify this contract.
Before one goes too far down that road, though, we need to consider Bogut’s WP48 in his first three seasons:
Year One: 0.140
Year Two: 0.145
Year Three: 0.157
Yes, he is improving. But his first three years do not suggest that Bogut is going to post Al Jefferson numbers anytime soon.
Year One: 0.118
Year Two: 0.113
Year Three: 0.252
Year Four: 0.217
Or Emeka Okafor numbers either:
Year One: 0.137
Year Two: 0.103 (only played 26 games due to injury)
Year Three: 0.290
Year Four: 0.208
Each of these players posted a significant leap in year three. Such a leap didn’t happen for Bogut. And now that he has been given $72.5 million, his incentive to make such a jump just got reduced a bit.
Of course, all this is good news for Bogut. But if you are a Bucks fan, you have to wonder what kind of team you are going to see when so much of the team payroll is dedicated to a player that is “good”, but not likely to be “great.”
Update: Okay, maybe I should read what I said in the past before I post more stuff. A few weeks ago – in a post on the NBA’s Overpaid – I argued that a win in the NBA is worth $1.67 million. When we see this figure, Bogut’s salary doesn’t seem so strange (and this post doesn’t seem too “great” or even “good”).
– DJ
The WoW Journal Comments Policy
Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.
The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score
Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:
Simple Models of Player Performance
What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say
Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics
Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.
Wages of Wins Journal 
Joe
July 10, 2008
How much is Bogut worth in “The Gadzuric Economy”? Just wondering…
TK
July 10, 2008
Or the Bobby Simmons Economy.
Or the Charlie Villanueva Economy.
I think in the Yi Jianlian Economy, Bogut might be paid an infinite sum, since Yi was in negative territory!
Ugh. Hard times for a cheese-head like me.
Ryan
July 10, 2008
The big point you’re missing so far is that $72.5M includes all the incentives (suggesting he’d be producing more wins over the span), and the guaranteed rate is an even $12M every year for a total of $60M. I don’t know yet how likely the incentives are to be earned, or what they might be based on beside All-Star appearances.
But as a Bucks fan I generally agree with the main ideas and would be interested to see the numbers re-run based on what, $1.35M per win if you keep it simple and assume 8.9 wins and no improvement through the contract? I also have to add that he represents a greater chunk of the team’s bright spots than should be, and after suffering with this team a good while I have to be generally happy with the signing, although the team makes me pretty numb sometimes unfortunately and it can be hard to get really excited.
Adam
July 10, 2008
Big fan, but disappointed that you didn’t between $60 and $72.5 since that obviously has an effect on the entire contents of your post.
Jim
July 10, 2008
The whole problem about Wins Produced stems from the fact that Marcus Camby produced many more wins than Tim Duncan (and Kevin Garnett). Taking this to its logical conclusion, one would have to conclude that Marcus Camby is a superior player to Tim Duncan (and Kevin Garnett). I would challenge you to find one person in the entire universe that would go so far. Taking this to its logical conclusion, one would have to conclude that the Wins Produced metric is undervaluing something that Duncan (and Garnett) does. Maybe Wins Produced is not as infallible as many on this website seem to believe…Incidentally, PER by John Hollinger has Duncan and Garnett leading Marcus Camby comfortably…
Evan
July 10, 2008
Dear Jim,
If we negate the value of statistics because they don’t agree with our perception, then how do we verify our perception or correct it when research shows that our perception is very fallable.
Anon
July 10, 2008
Not that I necessarily think Camby is better than Kevin Garnett, but I believe it has been argued that one of the major failings of PER is that it basically is just a measure of popular perception. Regardless of whether or not WP48 is truly a useful stat, it’s pretty obvious that it’s superior to PER, at least in my mind.
Camby isn’t a good scorer, but he’s pretty good at everything else, and is almost definitely one of the most underrated players in the league. He is never really on bad teams. He’s a great complementary player.
And if WP48 is undervaluing something Duncan and Garnett do, it’s “creating shots” and “good defense without getting a block or a steal.” I believe those are the main attacks on the stat, based on the discussions that have happened repeatedly on this board.
Regarding the Bogut deal, it’s not totally unreasonable, and as a Bucks fan, I like that they’ve secured a good solid center. It’s a harder position to fill than SG or SF or something, because of the “short supply of tall people.”
Jeremy
July 10, 2008
Come on now Jim. PER is garbage. Hollingers PER stats gave him the Lakers in 6 in the finals. Obviously there is a major flaw there. Wages picked the Celtics to win at the beginning of the season, playoffs, and finals. Nailed it.
Also. Marcus Camby is an absolutely awesome, dominant player on the boards, and is arguably the best defensive player in the planey. Before you start trying to look smart and bring up the “infallability” of this site, I challenge YOU to read the “tragedies of KG and Paul Pierce,” and watch a Nuggets game or two.
You wont find many people on the planet who would say Camby is the best player on that team, but he is, by a long shot. If you are going to bring something to the table, use concrete numbers, or at least make a compelling point for why Duncan is superior to Camby other than having far superior teammates and being a bigger scorer.
Sounds to me like you are fallible like everyone else who watches hoops.
Tim
July 11, 2008
So it’s not that Bogut is or will be overpaid. It’s that all those other players you listed are exploited, right? I assume that salary caps on rookies and maximum salaries for veteran superstars are the primary cause, although some players may also be undervalued for other reasons, such as lack of scoring.
Does the exploitation of rookies and veteran superstars mean that above-average veteran roleplayers should look to be overpaid? And that teams should consider overpaying them? Or does it just mean that when they are paid what they are worth, it will look like they are overpaid?
Tim
July 11, 2008
Another question. If a multi-year contract is guaranteed, isn’t that also worth something to the player? It’s like disability insurance, which can be quite costly. Better yet, it also insures against bad performance, which usually isn’t covered by insurance. So shouldn’t a multi-year guaranteed contract be discounted considerably from what the player would be worth if the contract were not guaranteed?
The comments, for example, note that only $60 million of Bogut’s contract is guaranteed. That’s still alot, though. So figuring out a fair contract may not be as simple as multiplying wins produced by $1.67 million.
steve
July 11, 2008
I somewhat agree with Jeremy (above), in that Camby is the best, consistent player on the Nuggs. If he was not so old, I would say he is substantially underpaid. http://www.betsportsweb.com
Harold Almonte
July 15, 2008
“And if WP48 is undervaluing something Duncan and Garnett do, it’s “creating shots” and “good defense without getting a block or a steal.” I believe those are the main attacks on the stat, based on the discussions that have happened repeatedly on this board.”
The main attacks on the metric were an apparent bias to total rebounds, mainly because that “good defense without getting a block or steal” was assigned to the def. rebound stat, by regression. But, there should be a good correlation between good rebounders and good shot defenders, then when we talk about def. rebounds in this metric, we need to attach the shot defense (bigs end anyway defending the most of shots), the overrating is not as big as one could think.
But, more harmful and less controversial is the fact that scorers are punished not only every time they fail (with a full lost possession), but also every time they made the scoring, because the metric considers a kind of “original sin” that scorers need to take purge for the team “to lose” the possession after the scoring. Of course that undervalue high usage scorers and is interpreted as undervaluing ‘creating shots”.
Harold Almonte
July 15, 2008
An additional problem attached to total rebounds, is a problem which is inside all linear metrics based on the boxscore limited offer: Al positive acomplishments have a negative counterpart to penalize (it’s a zero sum game), except rebounds. Rebounds allowed is difficult to measure at the player level, and if it were boxscored, it would be more subjective than assists. Then all metrics show one only face with regard to rebounding, and the only reference is the position average (at grabbing). That’s not a bad procedure, but like rebounding shows out of scale compared against other (of the 4) factors, rebounding appears as the most important of those factors.