The Blazers Would Feast. Production Based Salary.

by postup on Aug 3, 2009 11:12 AM PDT

As Ben linked in the Full Court Press, Mr. Ziller over at sactownroyalty did a piece on what the Kings' players would earn if their salaries were based on their court production during the regular season as a theoretical alternative to what they were guaranteed by their contracts. I thought that this was an interesting idea and was curious to see how the blazers would do if this theory was applied to them.

If you haven't read Ziller's piece yet, I recommend doing so first. He basically breaks it down like this: The league brought in $3.6 billion last year, and according to the CBA, 57% of that figure is the max that can be paid out in player wages (or $2 billion). The blazers had 54 wins last year of the 1,230 regular season wins, or 4.39% of the wins in the league. This would then entitle the blazers roster to 4.39% of the $2 billion, or $87.8 million.

Mr. Ziller then uses win shares to determine each player's contribution, so I'll do the same. STATISTICS DISCLAIMER: I don't like using win shares. I think there's too many possible sources of error in the computation, and the very idea of quantifying what constitutes a 'win' from box scores of individual contribution seems fairly rediculous, but here we go. If you just want to say what a bad metric it is, I already agree with you.

The winshare data comes from basketball-reference.com. PRECISION DISCLAIMER: Since they only carried the winshares to 1 decimal place, there's some rounding error. The winshares tally to 54.9 instead of 54, so already these charts will have a little under 2% error, and that's making the big assumption that winshares are an accurate metric.

Here's the table (clicky for a larger view):

via i32.tinypic.com

....and here's the chart (also clicky):

via i32.tinypic.com

'08-'09 contract info taken from Storyteller's site here. Notice that Martel and The Shav are missing since they earned a whopping 0.0 win shares this season. Mr. Ziller, for the purpose of keeping these calculations practical, recommends a league minimum salary of $1 mil, that the league would pay the difference of $1 mil minus their earned share instead of the team if the player didn't earn up to their $1 mil. This covers players that are out for injury, actual ended up with a negative win share, or whatever else without dipping into the pool of earnings for the rest of the roster. Also since this is contributions made during the season, no money for Darius, Steve Francis, or RLEC or contracts floating on other teams' books.

So how would this affect last years blazers? Whereas sac would only have one player who benefited from this system, most of the blazers would benefit enormously. Ruffin, Ike, and Bayless would have decreased earnings and qualify for the minimum, and channing would join them as the 4 blazers who made less than their contract gaurenteed.

The rest of our guys would be gettin PAID. Even sergio would make more than his contract. Thanks to the rookie scale, Rudy and Nic would be making several times their salaries. Greg, Travis, Steve, and Joel would be sitting very comfortably, and LMA would already have close to the equivalent of a max level contract at a very nice $14.23 mil. Brandon's sheer awesomeness would net him a whopping $20 million last year, which is an astounding jump of $17 mil from his contract of last year.

All in all our roster (once again contributing players, not darius, francis, rlec) made $39.5 mil last year. Their combined salaries under this production based system would get them almost $50 million more combined. Does this work for the kings in Ziller's post? Heck no. Would this work for the blazers? Yes sir! I like this idea because I believe it would give players a much greater motivation to perform given that every year is a contract year. On the minus side, as Mr. Ziller points out it would probably be impossible to implement without completely restructuring the NBA's financial model. What are your thoughts?

Tweet Comment 16 comments | 10 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Unless the NBA

started paying Player contracts, instead of Owners, this could never happen. But it is kinda cool, thanks for doing the leg work.

Ben II Blazersedge.com || New to Blazers' Edge?

by usmcr3049 on Aug 3, 2009 11:21 AM PDT reply actions

the teams are not very profitable

I don´t see how can the players be underpaid.

by Falcao on Aug 3, 2009 12:53 PM PDT up reply actions

Cool stuff

nice use of excel. I was surprised that even Greg’s limited production exceeded his cap figure. Rec.

The Michael Ruffin of BlazersEdge, cuz Amlmart said so.

by BlazersOrBust on Aug 3, 2009 11:36 AM PDT reply actions

His productuion may have been "limited"

But he still outperformed his contract by this measure.

Not perfect, but it’s still good.

I know less than half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

by haildablazer on Aug 4, 2009 11:57 AM PDT up reply actions

Super interesting

But I can imagine this producing all kinds of bad outcomes and motivations. I mean, you have swings in your pay by factors of five or ten (and already in the millions) based on your stats, how do players not become obsessed with playing to boost that stat? Their agents would come up with the best way to maximize that stat, probably to the detriment of the team.

What about something like this as a bonus on top of the existing salary? The NBA could set it up so 50% went to player salaries, and 7% to bonuses. The bonuses would be calculated by some sort of formula that rewarded good play and wins, and penalized things like technical fouls and suspensions.

That way some 2nd round pick that breaks out but is getting paid relative peanuts could get nice bonus from the NBA. I would think this system would have to exist outside the salary cap, as it would penalize teams for having young breakout players if a bonus payout suddenly thrust them over the tax line.

by matthewcc on Aug 3, 2009 12:31 PM PDT reply actions

Actually implementing a system like this....

…..would have all kinds of challenges and unintended consequences. I really wasn’t thinking about any of that when I was writing this up, the purpose of this post is more to show that such a performance reward based system would definitely have financially benefited our active players much more than their current contract situation does.

In order to actually do this, the players would have to be paid by the league like usmcr said. For an actual financial model, that means the league would take that 57% of all revenue plus whatever they currently get to support the league staff, advertising, whatnot. I have no idea what that last figure is, but let’s just say that the league takes 2/3 of all basketball related income (BRI) including ticket and merchandise sales. Is the remaining 1/3 enough to cover teams’ operating expenses plus staff salaries plus whatever other expenses? I don’t know that either, but I’d bet teams would be happy having their players’ salary come out of a league pool instead of their own pockets. Memphis would probably just fire their entire staff and only pay electric and water for their arena and hire maybe 2 security guards and pocket the rest of the 1/3 of the revenue they generate (does Memphis generate revenue? at all?)

This would also have the fun effects of making the caps disappear and requiring some other metric for balancing trades and acquiring free agents, making the sidebar an even more hellish nightmare right before the trade deadline. Getting rid of ridiculous contracts would be another benefit, but there is no way the players association would agree to a system where players don’t have guaranteed contracts.

The bad part is, like mad matt says below, there’s still a haves and have nots with teams, as a team like LA, which has much higher ticket prices and total tickets sold than a place like say Milwaukee, would be able to afford much better coaches, scouts, trainers, med staff, etc. Also i don’t see how there would be a truly fair method of regulating player trades and signings.

Skadoosh

by postup on Aug 3, 2009 1:59 PM PDT up reply actions

of course that 57% of league BRI is also just a number supplied by the current CBA

it could and probably would go downwards since there wouldn’t be the waste of cash that is bad contracts going to injured or inactive players.

Skadoosh

by postup on Aug 3, 2009 2:04 PM PDT up reply actions

Can you say Haves and Have Nots?

Imagine if you are a free agent who could be:
a) mega-star on a bad-team (projected 40 wins) , WS 15
b) a third or fourth option on a great team (projected 60 wins), WS 10

I added back in the specific #s, and I’ll admit to being too lazy to do the math – but I would think that option #B wins out and is probably involved less risk. Wouldn’t that mean less league parity? Already we have free agents settling for less $$ with better teams so that they have a shot at a ring. Take away the negative of having to sign for less $$, and wouldn’t we have even more players begging to get in to that winning team?

by Mad Matt the Road Warrior on Aug 3, 2009 12:41 PM PDT reply actions

Excellent observation

"Life is a meaningless sequence of events in between Blazer championships"

by broggerboy19 on Aug 4, 2009 7:01 AM PDT up reply actions

Well done.

Thanks for your hard work. Cool stuff.

"Ain't nothin' in this world for free."

by Arby on Aug 3, 2009 2:56 PM PDT reply actions

Dang, I'm always so amazed when I see stuff like this.

Many thanx for your considerable effort.

Brandon Roy just destroyed everything in his path. There's your rational analysis -- Dave

Also: COMCAST SUCKS!

by TwoDeep on Aug 3, 2009 7:05 PM PDT reply actions

all i see

is that bayless isnt the answer and that sergio is the man. fyi on nba live 2008 sergio is a 73> la is 70. go sergio.

fire nate before its too late

by pipgras on Aug 3, 2009 7:14 PM PDT reply actions

Under this system the team is utterly destroyed

I am not usually a pessimist but the concept, while intriguing and entertaining this would remove the culture we prize so much from the Blazers (and every other team as well). Think of a team with Starbury, Steve Francis, Q-Rich, Jamal Crawford, Jalen Rose, Eddie Curry, Qyntel Woods, Jerome James, Nate Robinson and Penny Hardaway all together . . . oh wait – that happened!

Since there is no money to pay development players (except $1M) most would go overseas to play and have hefty buyouts once they are ready to earn WS in the NBA. Players would not want to be subs “for the good of the team” because if they do not play they can’t earn WS. The league would have to collect all the revenues but who wants to fill the arenas with expensive tickets to watch ball hogs and stat stuffers?

And since the bottom feeders would be unable to pay most of their players, those teams would be so bad as to eliminate them from the pool (13 guys earning $1M each?), causing fewer games a declining BRI, ever decreasing salaries and more back-biting.

I appreciate your work as I wondered whether it would be worth doing this for myself. You have done a masterful job of carrying the concept over to the Blazers. I realize you are not endorsing the concept itself and thanks for reading my rant.

by lee3022 on Aug 3, 2009 10:28 PM PDT reply actions

How about this?

Pay players bonuses based upon team wins and minutes played during the regular season and playoffs (I believe they do partly for the latter). Set the salary cap low enough to make such bonuses significant. This puts lots of power into the hands of coaches; the players must buy into the system. It encourages team play, since the coach divvies out the minutes; it discourages StatBo and related hijinks.

(I think the league should refuse to uphold clauses in contracts tied to stats or all-star game appearances, but make such non-guaranteed income count against the cap, to discourage such practices—but not outlaw them).

As concessions to the Player’s Association: keep guaranteed salaries; institute generous insurance policies for players with injuries; institute generous pension and retirement funds to give players security. If the bonuses were guaranteed from a league pool, the owners might well raise the cap+bonuses+benefits above the current 57% on the assumption that the overall product would become better. The two sides could quibble over such issues as whether bonuses or salary are contingent on participating in team events (practices, summer league, mini-camps, community outreach).

(After further consideration, perhaps the team share of internet and TV money should be based partly on wins, too?).

Problems with this approach:

1. Lack of Parity. Free agents would flock to teams with a good coaching system. Teams that are unsuccessful and/or poorly coached are potentially locked in a losing spiral. I don’t consider this a “problem,” but a feature.

2. Egalitarianism leads to risk for the scrubs. Bonuses may not make up what a superstar rightly deserves for compensation; such athletes might justifiably demand a higher percentage of team salary. This may lead to guys at the end of the bench playing for considerably less guaranteed money than they are making now, and relying on the performance of superstars so they can cash in. Depending upon your point of view, this also might be a feature.

3. Politics rule the locker room. Competition for minutes becomes intense. The great power coaches wield could be abused. Players are quick to criticize coaches who don’t play them and who don’t win. Things here could get ugly in all but the most successful organizations.

What other problems are part of this approach?

Honor Alaa Abdelnaby.
First in the NBA. At least alphabetically

by OhOhOden on Aug 4, 2009 12:02 AM PDT reply actions