After two years as the Rockets’ stopper,
P.J. Tucker is looking to secure the bag. Tucker has two seasons and $16.3
million left on his current contract, at the
end of which he will be 36 years old. Tucker’s motivation in seeking a contract
extension is entirely sensible; his market value is high, meaning he is
deserving of a raise. Signing an extension now would also guarantee his income
into the final phase of his career. Asking for an extension is the smart move
for Tucker, but what should the Rockets do?
In the last four seasons, P.J. Tucker has
compiled 17.3 Wins, an average of 4.3 per season. 14.4 of those wins (83.2%)
have come on the defensive end, and Tucker is known by reputation around the
league as a defensive specialist.
Yesterday I outlined a method to accurately grade offseason moves based on an analysis of the cost of wins in the NBA, the relationship between performance and salary, and a rubric to help the grades make sense. Today, I’m presenting the first annual NBA Offseason Data Crunch, in which I evaluate every move made by every team this summer. Before you dig in, there are two caveats:
In what follows I will evaluate all acquisitions in terms of the player’s value relative to the value of his contract. This means that for trades, we are not interested (right now) in figuring out which team won or lost the trade. There is a time for evaluating trades in that manner, but today’s analysis will consider moves purely in terms of cost efficiency.
The data crunch will deal only with players who are likely to impact winning or losing NBA games this year, and players whose impact we are able to reliably estimate. Rookies and future draft picks, as they do not have any NBA data, are difficult to forecast with the same accuracy as existing NBA players, so I will leave them aside for now.
Los Angeles
Lakers trade NOP for Anthony Davis
Let’s
start with the easiest transaction to grade. Acquiring AD was a home run for
the Lakers. Davis is projected to make over a little over $27 million next
season, followed by a player option for 2020-21. In the three seasons prior to
last year, Davis averaged 12.6 wins per season. At that rate, we would
anticipate AD to generate roughly $118.3 million worth of value, meaning that
the Lakers are getting a 91 million dollar surplus from trading for AD. Of
course, they did have to give up something to get him …
