Dre Alvarez (@nerdnumbers) is a Co-Editor for the Wages of Wins Network and is also in charge of handling the stats data. He’s a long time fan of Colorado Sports, depending on the weather. He’s an even bigger fan of the stats, data and all things nerdy.
The Cap Guru’s Take
Here is a Tweet from NBA-CBA guru Larry Coon (@LarryCoon)
[Amnesty] helps from a competitive balance standpoint, but not from an overall revenue standpoint.
Larry is pretty much the only person in the world who understands all of the NBA CBA. When the new CBA is signed I am sure that fact will remain true. When it comes to competitive balance, though, I think he is wrong. Here’s how amnesty would work:
- You’ve signed a bad player to a bad contract, and this contract is tying up your cap.
- You get an option to pay the player some amount of money to go away.
- You now have cap space to sign better players and compete.
Let’s take a quick look into the idea of getting a better player.
NBA Great and Terrible Players
Great and Terrible.
I looked over each NBA position for players that fit the two following requirements:
- Played at least 1500 minutes in the 2010-2011 season
- Played at least 1000 minutes at the required position (PG,SG,SF,PF and C)
Table 1: Players who were more than 5.0 Wins Better than Average at Position
| Name | Team | Pos | G | MP | WP48 | WP |
| Kevin Love* | Minnesota | 4.5 | 73 | 2611 | 0.458 | 24.9 |
| Dwight Howard | Orlando | 5.0 | 78 | 2935 | 0.397 | 24.3 |
| LeBron James | Miami | 3.2 | 79 | 3063 | 0.356 | 22.7 |
| Chris Paul | New Orleans | 1.0 | 80 | 2880 | 0.348 | 20.9 |
| Dwyane Wade | Miami | 1.9 | 76 | 2824 | 0.309 | 18.2 |
| Pau Gasol | L.A. Lakers | 4.8 | 82 | 3037 | 0.268 | 16.9 |
| Zach Randolph | Memphs | 4.3 | 75 | 2724 | 0.288 | 16.3 |
| Blake Griffin* | L.A. Clippers | 4.5 | 82 | 3112 | 0.237 | 15.3 |
| Kevin Garnett | Boston | 4.0 | 71 | 2220 | 0.312 | 14.4 |
| Kevin Durant | Oklahoma City | 3.0 | 78 | 3038 | 0.227 | 14.4 |
| Al Horford | Atlanta | 4.6 | 77 | 2704 | 0.255 | 14.3 |
| Steve Nash | Phoenix | 1.0 | 75 | 2497 | 0.275 | 14.3 |
| Kris Humphries | New Jersey | 4.0 | 74 | 2061 | 0.332 | 14.3 |
| Paul Pierce | Boston | 3.0 | 80 | 2774 | 0.240 | 13.9 |
| Lamar Odom | L.A. Lakers | 4.0 | 82 | 2639 | 0.249 | 13.7 |
| Rajon Rondo | Boston | 1.0 | 68 | 2527 | 0.258 | 13.6 |
| Landry Fields* | New York | 2.5 | 82 | 2541 | 0.249 | 13.2 |
| Tim Duncan* | San Antonio | 4.5 | 76 | 2156 | 0.293 | 13.2 |
| Jason Kidd | Dallas | 1.0 | 80 | 2653 | 0.234 | 12.9 |
| Andre Iguodala | Philadelphia | 2.9 | 67 | 2469 | 0.240 | 12.3 |
| Tyson Chandler | Dallas | 5.0 | 74 | 2059 | 0.284 | 12.2 |
| Derrick Rose | Chicago | 1.0 | 81 | 3026 | 0.190 | 12.0 |
| Manu Ginobili* | San Antonio | 2.5 | 80 | 2426 | 0.234 | 11.8 |
| Kobe Bryant | L.A. Lakers | 2.0 | 82 | 2779 | 0.203 | 11.7 |
| Russell Westbrook | Oklahoma City | 1.0 | 82 | 2847 | 0.195 | 11.5 |
| Ray Allen | Boston | 2.0 | 80 | 2890 | 0.181 | 10.9 |
*Players that qualified in multiple positions
Table 2: Players who were more than 5.0 Wins Worse than Average at Position
| Name | Team | Pos | G | MP | WP48 | WP |
| Andrea Bargnani | Toronto | 4.6 | 66 | 2353 | -0.115 | -5.7 |
| Darko Milicic | Minnesota | 5.0 | 69 | 1686 | -0.082 | -2.9 |
| Jeff Green | Oklahoma City | 3.9 | 75 | 2427 | -0.038 | -1.9 |
| Brook Lopez | New Jersey | 5.0 | 82 | 2889 | -0.031 | -1.9 |
| Dante Cunningham | Charlotte | 4.0 | 78 | 1637 | -0.052 | -1.8 |
| Glen Davis* | Boston | 4.5 | 78 | 2298 | -0.033 | -1.6 |
| Travis Outlaw | New Jersey | 3.2 | 82 | 2358 | -0.030 | -1.5 |
| Carl Landry | New Orleans | 4.0 | 76 | 2008 | -0.031 | -1.3 |
| Michael Beasley | Minnesota | 3.2 | 73 | 2361 | -0.021 | -1.1 |
| Derek Fisher | L.A. Lakers | 1.0 | 82 | 2297 | -0.018 | -0.9 |
| Nick Young* | Washington | 2.5 | 64 | 2034 | -0.019 | -0.8 |
| Gilbert Arenas | Orlando | 1.6 | 70 | 1796 | -0.021 | -0.8 |
| Wesley Johnson | Minnesota | 3.0 | 79 | 2069 | -0.014 | -0.6 |
| Nenad Krstic | Boston | 5.0 | 71 | 1571 | -0.013 | -0.4 |
| Willie Green | New Orleans | 2.1 | 77 | 1674 | -0.003 | -0.1 |
| Mo Williams | L.A. Clippers | 1.0 | 58 | 1788 | 0.002 | 0.1 |
| Jamal Crawford* | Atlanta | 1.4 | 76 | 2297 | 0.006 | 0.3 |
| Charlie Villanueva | Detroit | 4.0 | 76 | 1666 | 0.008 | 0.3 |
| DeMar DeRozan* | Toronto | 2.5 | 82 | 2851 | 0.006 | 0.4 |
| Ryan Gomes | L.A. Clippers | 3.1 | 76 | 2095 | 0.010 | 0.4 |
| C.J. Miles | Utah | 2.8 | 78 | 1969 | 0.013 | 0.5 |
| Steve Blake | L.A. Lakers | 1.0 | 79 | 1581 | 0.017 | 0.6 |
| Antawn Jamison | Cleveland | 4.0 | 56 | 1842 | 0.020 | 0.8 |
| DeMarcus Cousin* | Sacramento | 4.5 | 81 | 2309 | 0.019 | 0.9 |
| Darrell Arthur | Memphis | 4.0 | 80 | 1609 | 0.029 | 1.0 |
| Andray Blatche | Washington | 4.8 | 64 | 2172 | 0.023 | 1.0 |
| Channing Frye* | Phoenix | 4.5 | 77 | 2541 | 0.020 | 1.1 |
| Spencer Hawes | Philadelphia | 5.0 | 81 | 1718 | 0.038 | 1.3 |
| Tyler Hansbrough | Indiana | 4.0 | 70 | 1535 | 0.045 | 1.4 |
*Players that qualified in multiple positions.
Here’s a rundown, position by position:
Point Guard
- Total Players: 43
- Average Performance: 2299 Minutes Played, 0.128 WP48, 6.1 Wins Produced
- Players with Performances 5.0+ Wins Produced Better than Average: 6
- Players with Performances 5.0- Wins Produced Worse than Average: 4
Shooting Guard
- Total Players: 46
- Average Performance: 2199 Minutes Played, 0.108 WP48, 5.0 Wins Produced
- Players with Performances 5.0+ Wins Produced Better than Average: 5
- Players with Performances 5.0- Wins Produced Worse than Average: 3
Small Forward
- Total Players: 45
- Average Performance: 2369 Minutes Played, 0.115 WP48, 5.7 Wins Produced
- Players with Performances 5.0+ Wins Produced Better than Average: 6
- Players with Performances 5.0- Wins Produced Worse than Average: 7
Power Forward
- Total Players: 43
- Average Performances: 2323 Minutes Played, 0.139 WP48, 6.7 Wins Produced
- Players with Performances 5.0+ Wins Produced Better than Average: 8
- Players with Performances 5.0- Wins Produced Worse than Average: 10
- Total Players: 41
- Average Performances: 2885 Minutes Played, 0.150 WP48, 7.1 Wins Produced
- Players with Performances 5.0+ Wins Produced Better than Average: 7
- Players with Performances 5.0- Wins Produced Worse than Average: 9
Why Parity Exists in the NBA
Good Players on the same team win.
Of our 181 players, most of them fall within a range of around 10.0 wins. This means when it comes to swapping out our players it can really just be Shuffling Deck Chairs. It might matter if you swap out an average player for for a great player (e.g. Quinten Richardson for LeBron James) or a terrible player for an average player (e.g. Jeff Green/Nenad Krstic for Kendrick Perkins).
The problem with both of these scenarios is the rarity of players at either end of the distrubition. In terms of player much better than their peers, there were only 26 players this last season. That isn’t even enough for one player a team. Not only that, certain teams have hogged several of these players. It doesn’t matter if we let teams try and upgrade their mediocre talent. There simply aren’t enough good players to replace them.
The same holds true with terrible players. Only 29 are really much worse than their peers. Again, that’s not even enough for one per team. Certain teams have more than one terrible players (Minnesota and Toronto for instance). Most teams, though, just don’t have an awful enough player such that a slight upgrade will magically fix everything.
Summing Up the Pay Problem in the NBA
But. . . we're paid like stars!
In the NBA many teams are perfectly willing to pay for a star player. The problem is there just aren’t enough of them to go around. A select group of players keep the really good teams good and the really bad teams bad. Even when a team manages to get a star it comes at the cost of another team (Miami and Cleveland anyone?). No pay provisions or clauses will fix this.
The issue comes back to a short supply of tall people. There will not be any provisions in the new CBA that are going to magically produce more elite talents. And that means competitive imbalance is probably going to continue (as it has continued for much of NBA history).
-Dre
Wages of Wins Journal 
Diana Madera-Olveira
July 31, 2011
In defense of Larry Coon he does say “help” competitive balance not fix competitive balance. Also, drawing the arbitrary line at 5 games better or worse than average is a little misleading. According to your numbers you could replace a 1.5 WP player with a 10.8 WP player and they fall within the range where you imply it wouldn’t make a difference. I suggest 9.3 wins or even something less than that would make a substantive difference to several teams.
anthony franco
July 31, 2011
The problem is not about PAYING bad players it is about PLAYING bad players. If GMs, coaches, and owners understood the concept of sunk cost most teams would be much better off. Case in point the Clippers could have just benched Baron Davis, but instead because of his large contract they decided to trade him and gave up the #1 draft pick in the process. Amnesty won’t help teams who continually play guys based on salary, and draft position rather than performance (looking at you Toronto). Even when teams do decide to play a low paid, low drafted guy like the Knicks did with Landry Fields, they eventually find a way to screw it up (look how the Knicks handled Renaldo Balkman, Trevor Ariza, and David Lee). Play your best players and stop overpaying for free agents, its that simple
Larry Coon
July 31, 2011
Thanks for the article — I appreciate your analysis. But I think you are making some assumptions that are different from mine,
I don’t think the amnestied players in the next agreement will consist solely of those from the “bad player/bad contract” (BP/BC) quartile. Of course, when GMs are eyeballing their rosters to see whom they want to amnesty, BP/BC would be the ideal — and also the no-brainer, unless the team has more than one such contract. But I don’t think this situation will be universal. For example, it wasn’t the case in 1995, when the Mavs used the luxury-tax amnesty provision to waive Michael Finley (you can read Mark Cuban’s commentary on the situation here: http://blogmaverick.com/2005/08/16/its-not-just-business-its-personal/).
What if a team has a BP/BC, and also a “good player/bad contract” (GP/BC). If the BP/BC makes a lot less than the GP/BC, then the decision isn’t so cut-and-dried. A GM might waive the better, more expensive player and keep the worse, but less expensive player, because salary cap economics under the new system dictate this course of action..
One of my underlying assumptions is that the more restrictive the new system (i.e., the lower the cap the “harder” it is, and/or the shorter the grace period), the more important the amnesty provision will be, and the more likely it will be used on better players. So the more radical the change to the cap, the more likely we’ll see better players being amnestied. And from everything I’ve gathered in investigating the labor situation, I’m pretty convinced that the changes will be radical.
Second, when these better players hit the free agent market, they will be more likely to sign anywhere in the league (i.e., be distributed to a random destination) than they would be under ordinary situations. The players will still be paid on their current deals (amnesty won’t relieve the team from the responsibility to honor the contract), so if they sign elsewhere, the new contract will constitute supplemental income. In fact, given the formula for set-off, there will be a degree of double-dipping. You’ll get players who are more likely to sign in the salary range from the minimum to the mid-level, which means such players will be more affordable for all 30 teams — and said affordability isn’t the case for the kinds of guys who aren’t franchise players but still want $10+ million salaries (under the previous agreement).
So overall, I expect the net effect to be that some GP/BC (the kind of guy who is likely to be the #3 or #4 guy on a big-market team) players will be reshuffled and end up on random teams throughout the league. You go on to dispute the effect this will have on competition, but that’s a different issue (which I’ll talk about below). Will you concede that irrespective of its effect on competition (measured in wins or whatever other metric you chose), the TALENT will be more equally distributed?
With that said, it then becomes a matter of to what extent the injection of this talent will affect the receiving team’s ability to compete (and also to what extent the LOSS of the same talent will affect the amnesty team’s competitive ability). Your use of win shares as a metric is a perfectly valid way of approaching the problem, but: 1) If it was definitive, then the only way for a team to rise would be to add a difference-maker. We have enough examples of teams having improved without having done so that we can’t limit ourselves solely to this method of improvement; 2) As the previous commenter said, there is also an issue of degree — “help” and “fix” are two different matters.
In summary — 1) An amnesty provision will cause the redistribution of talent; 2) This redistribution will be more likely to be symmetrical than the current distribution; 3) The more restrictive the rules in the next CBA, the greater the effect; 4) The redistribution of talent will have an effect on competitive balance; 5) The magnitude of that effect is open to debate — and my criteria are clearly different from yours.
Larry Coon
Patrick Minton
July 31, 2011
Anthony,
I could not agree more. And it’s not just playing time; GMs pick up the options on the final year of terrible lottery pick players all time. I even wrote an article about it that you might find interesting on the NBA Geek:
http://www.thenbageek.com/articles/nba-managers-need-to-learn-how-to-quit
An amnesty can’t prevent GMs from making bad decisions (and most of them do this all the time). Letting them take one of their bad decisions back is hardly going to prevent them from making future bad decisions. When your 3-year old runs wildly through the house and stumbles and falls and bangs up a knee (or a head), eventually as a parent, you stop comforting them when they cry, and instead say “Hey, we’ve told you not to run so wild.”
Dre
July 31, 2011
Larry,
Wow, thanks for responding! It’s an honor. If you ever want to continue this discussion in e-mail go ahead and hit me andres.h.alvarez@gmail.com, that way I can avoid giant comments or turning all the posts into cap arguments.
I’ll do a quick rundown of your sum up points
1. Amnesty might cause redistribution of some talent. The major issue is there isn’t enough talent to go around. Without a top player you can’t compete.
2. Coase Theorem (mentioned in the Wages of Wins) talks a lot about this. There is nothing to support that any policy rule will cause a symmetrical distribution of talent. In fact the takeaway is regardless of cap rules bigger markets tend to end up with the best talent. Check LA and Boston even before the new CBA and lottery rules were in place.
3) This might have an opposite effect if it is more restrictive. Consider LeBron James and Wade. Both are over 3X as good as an average player. Teams like Dallas and L.A. can compete with that because they can get lots of good players too. If we remove that then LeBron’s dominance gets heightened not lessened.
4) It might influence which teams win. (As most teams don’t that’s why I am sure many would be behind it) but a select few teams will still stay in control if they get a few stars. Also those stars will eventually wind up in big markets if they aren’t there already.
5) Agreed.
P.S. You made one note I’d actually love to make an article out of if you could supply me with some examples (“We have enough examples of teams having improved without having done so that we can’t limit ourselves solely to this method of improvement”)
Thanks again!
Dre
Devin Dignam
July 31, 2011
Larry,
I don’t think that amnesty would affect competitive balance that much. While the GP/BC group that you identified might have good enough players to help out some teams, usually these players are older (and not as good as they used to be) and looking to play for championship contenders. Your example of Michael Finley is perfect. Where did Finley go after the Mavs cut him loose? The Spurs.
“I expect the net effect to be that some GP/BC (the kind of guy who is likely to be the #3 or #4 guy on a big-market team) players will be reshuffled and end up on random teams throughout the league”
So I don’t think these players will end up on “random” teams. They will most likely end up on the teams that are already contenders, and on very small salaries. Not only do I disagree with you, I think that the opposite will be the case – the GP/BC players will actually make the league less competitively balanced.
Man of Steele
July 31, 2011
Ditto to what Devin said. While I think putting different parameters on the study may reveal varying levels of impact on competitive balance (as in anthony’s comment), the GP/BC guys will almost certainly negatively impact competitive balance.
Patrick, I completely agree about GMs picking up the options on useless players. My team, the Houston Rockets, will have seven useless players on team options after this coming season (disregarding rookies taken in this year’s draft). If they let all these players walk, they could have about $28 million dollars of room under the cap. Of course, this is a pipe dream; NBA GMs wildly overrate their own players, and are quite loathe to admit their mistakes.