Assessing value on the Orlando Magic roster: Introduction and Role Players

Finding out how to predict and assess value is the Holy Grail of NBA analytics. As the Magic begin their season, we take a deep look at one measure of value

It is the great holy grail in basketball analysis: How do you translate statistical value into a monetary figure? Can you predict what a player should be paid?

That would help solve a lot of the calculus of knowing when to let go of and keep players. How much to pay them and how much not to pay them. A lot of teams would love to know exactly how much to pay a player.

Really assessing value comes down to comparing players and figuring out whose productions is worth more or whose production is worth less or how exactly to value it. Value is not an easy thing to figure. There are a number of factors. And nothing is perfect.

And as many people like to point out, a championship is not won on a spreadsheet.

The point of this post is to look at the Magic’s roster and determine if players are producing appropriate to their salary.

There is no clear way to do this. For the last few years, I have taken a cursory look at PER as a function of salary, thinking a player’s $/PER said something about their “value” or how appropriately they were paid. It is a random and imperfect measure for sure (and for a number of reasons).

It does hold some value correct? If we are to assume PER does encapsulate a player’s total production (a dubious claim, but one that serves a purpose here), can we determine a monetary amount that player should make based on his efficiency? How much money should a player make per PER point?

So, I took down every salary from the NBA during the 2015 season using Basketball-Reference’s database (that decision was more for convenience, I usually go to Eric Pincus’ database on Basketball Insiders for my salary information). I used their PER measures too (again, more for convenience).

When comparing total salary to PER, there is virtually no correlation. That is pretty fair and not completely unexpected. There are guys getting paid a lot of money that produce very little in terms of what PER measures. They skew the numbers.

However, when comparing PER and $/PER, there is a slightly stronger correlation — a .804 correlation coefficient. That is not a perfect line, but it is a stronger correlation. It seems that this is where we want to start assessing value a bit more.

With that in mind, including the database, we can begin to compare similar salaries and determine where Magic players fit on that line and whether the Magic are getting a good bang for their buck.

And perhaps make a few predictions too.

I am going to take some things in turn here. We are going to split this up into a bit of a series, looking more closely at the value of the Magic’s bigger players — Nikola Vucevic, Victor Oladipo, Tobias Harris, Evan Fournier and Elfrid Payton. Along with some projections.

For the rest of this post, we will focus on the Magic’s role players — Devyn Marble, Channing Frye, Aaron Gordon, Andrew Nicholson and Dewayne Dedmon. We will deal with the newcomers — C.J. Watson, Mario Hezonja, Jason Smith and Shabazz Napier — in the next set before getting to essentially the starters (including Fournier in that group more to analyze his potential for receiving an extension than anything else).

OK, let’s see what we find.

Next: Aaron Gordon

Aaron Gordon

Aaron Gordon is both a good and a weird player to start with in doing this analysis.

Rookies are always on notoriously friendly contracts. The market-controlled contracts are set in the collective bargaining agreement and players have no choice but to sign them — or go play in Europe for three years when the rookie contract restrictions get released (still surprised no major player has threatened to do that yet).

Essentially, when it comes to rookie contracts, getting any production from a rookie is a positive and will lead to a team getting positive value for him.

Gordon for his part last season, recorded a below-average 11.4 PER (remember, PER is normalized so that the league average is 15.0). That is the place we start with. But considering Gordon’s salary was a relatively reasonable $4 million, that is not necessarily a horrible thing. He posted $350,178.95/PER (about 8.8 percent of his salary).

Comparing him to other players at or near his salary playing a similar position, Gordon appears to perform maybe a bit under how he should have been expected to perform:

Ordered by Salary

Ordered by PER

Of course, there is a reason for this — Gordon was on the shelf for much of the season and was a rookie. Among the players with similar salary, Gordon brought back the worst expected value of the group above. Among players with the same PER, only Anthony Bennett seemed to deliver less value for his dollar (and he is also a sophomore playing for his second team in two years).

For his production, based on last year’s stats, it seems like Gordon probably should have been paid a little bit less, but things get very variable at his production level in how much guys are getting paid.

Again, that is expected with how Gordon’s season went down. It is clear he has a lot of room for improvement.

So what can we expect from Gordon this year? What would make him more successful?

A median PER of 15.0 at next year’s salary of $4,171,680 would put him at $278,112.00 $/PER. That would be a much better value compared to these comparable players. For a role player like Gordon, that could be viewed as a success.

On a rookie contract, all the team can ask for is continued improvement.

The Verdict: Too Early To Assign Value

Next: Channing Frye

Channing Frye

When the Magic signed Channing Frye last summer, he became the highest profile (and highest paid) free agent. The Magic expected him to come in, spread the floor and help mentor the young players in a more supporting role.

Frye delivered some on the offensive end, but came woefully short on defense. His offense was not enough to make up for his defense and he quickly became too much of a liability.

There were also issues on how the Magic used Channing Frye as they reverted him to too much of a catch-and-shoot option and really did not move him around or take advantage of all of his skills.

It would be easy to look at Frye’s first year in Orlando and immediately say he was overpaid. That would probably be right:

Ordered by Salary

Ordered by PER

Frye is getting paid like a rotation player but is producing like an end of the bench guy or a surprisingly productive player on a minimum contract. It is not a good spot for Frye or the Magic. He simply did not produce to his value and it is painfully obvious even from this rudimentary message.

If Frye is going to continue to produce at a $/PER of $860,576.42, his PER would be expected to be something pretty crazy. Frye simply did not produce last year commensurate to any type of salary measure.

So how does Frye fix this? What is an appropriate value for him? What are reasonable expectations?

The first thing to realize is Frye’s salary for the 2016 season decreases to $7.8 million. At that level, Frye’s production level does pull down to $821,850.42. That is still unacceptable for his salary.

If Frye were to play at his career PER of 13.3, then Frye’s value is a little more acceptable at $587,036.02. That gets him into Ryan Anderson’s ballpark.

The question is at 32 years old: Can Frye reach that production again? Can he improve?

The short answer is that he can certainly improve some again if the Magic change the way they use him. He clearly was not used as effectively as he was in Phoenix and it limited his production. The Magic, in other words, did not use him the way they paid for him.

But getting Frye to play at the level that he played in Phoenix might be too much of a stretch to ask. The Magic certainly should get more from him.

The Verdict: Overpaid

Next: Dewayne Dedmon

Dewayne Dedmon

Among the Magic’s role players, Dewayne Dedmon is the one who shows the most promise and played the best. Dedmon is still such a blank slate as a basketball player. He has all the athleticism to affect the game defensively, but very little of the control that warrants playing him major minutes.

James Borrego, in his effort to make the Magic a bit more defensive-minded, started Dedmon to end the season alongside Nikola Vucevic. It was successful in making the Magic a much more respectable defensive team, but it was hardly something the Magic want to sustain considering how poor the offense was with them playing together (not to mention what it took away from Vucevic statistically).

Dedmon though remains extremely intriguing. He was signed to a very cap-friendly multi-year deal in the 2014 season. He is essentially playing at the minimum, so any positive production the Magic get from him feels like a bonus.

The fact the Magic have him in their rotation shows they are getting the most out of his value. The question for Dedmon is how much more can he provide?

Ordered by Salary

Ordered by PER

There are several players on minimum contracts who had strong years last year. Dedmon is definitely one of them. He had the third highest PER for a player with his salary. So he was one of the most productive players at his paygrade.

You can see by the second chart, that he was an uncompromising steal for the production he created. He was up there with first round picks in Alex Len and Noah Vonleh and solid reserve centers like Miles Plumlee and Ryan Hollins. They are all of a similar type — athletes still growing into their bodies and abilities while learning the NBA game.

Dedmon is a value player right now.

How much more value could he provide?

According to the regression model (remember, there is a relatively strong linear relationship between), he would expect to produce $63,321.08 $/PER at a 13.3 PER. Dedmon is gaining a bit less than that, so his production seems to be about average. His salary takes a slight uptick this upcoming season.

If Dedmon continues to make even modest improvements, he will continue to be a great value on the Magic. Undoubtedly, he is one of the most productive and best value players on the Magic’s ledger.

Verdict: Bargain

Next: Andrew Nicholson

Andrew Nicholson

Andrew Nicholson has become the enigma for the Magic. His stellar rookie season showed so much promise and potential on offense with a skill that so few big men have in the NBA anymore.

For whatever reason, Orlando pushed him to the perimeter and made him almost exclusively a 3-point shooter. He was inconsistent at that at best — 31.5 percent for his career after not taking a 3-pointer in his rookie year. Nicholson never really found a fit and lost some of his touch in the post and within the arc — 52.7 percent on 2-pointers his rookie year, 46.3 percent the last two years.

Nicholson went from player with a unique skill to a lot of empty production or lack thereof. The Magic have to find a way to resurrect Nicholson and get something from him or his NBA career could very well be over (he will be a restricted free agent after this upcoming season).

He is on a rookie contract though, so some poor production is not a killer against the books.

Ordered by Salary

Ordered by PER

There are a few things to look at with Nicholson when determining his value.

The other players on these lists are mostly older guys. They were mid-level guys with better production off their rookie contracts who began to tail off. So, in that sense, the Magic are getting decent value it seems for Nicholson’s production. Looking at the players who have similar PER to Nicholson, Nicholson provides a pretty good value.

The only problem is that the guys who are surrounding him are all veterans. They got their paydays and then tailed off. Nicholson is on his rookie contract and trying to establish his career.

It all leads to this conclusion about Nicholson — which, frankly does not take a genius or any advanced analytics to find out: If Nicholson wants to get a payday (or rather, earn that payday), he needs to have a better season this year. He needs to show that there is more in the tank and produce at that level. Otherwise, he is probably not going to get a contract much larger than his rookie deal is worth.

Judging by these numbers, Nicholson is probably properly paid. But the Magic certainly expect more and he should certainly expect more from himself if he wants that payday in free agency next summer.

Verdict: Properly Paid, but disappointing

Next: Devyn Marble

Devyn Marble

Devyn Marble is still an interesting player for the Magic. He has not gotten a ton of playing time and is on a minimum contract. So really with Marble you take what you can get.

He averaged 2.3 points per game on a 36.4 percent effective field goal percentage. He did average 13.0 points per game and 5.2 rebounds per game in six D-League outings.

Marble does most of his work on the defensive end of the floor. His offense is still a work in progress. He will have to fight to make the roster for the Magic this year.

Ordered by Salary

Ordered by PER

We are at the bottom of the barrel for the NBA. Among players with his minimum salary, Marble had the highest PER. So he has that going for him. The Magic are getting good value for him on that front.

And that is to say, anything from him. There are a lot of guys on this list who are getting paid virtually nothing or are vastly underperforming their contracts. At his production, Marble is about where he needs to be.

That will take care of the end of the bench players. We will dive into the newcomers next before digging into the starters and key players in future parts of the series.

Verdict: Any production is good production

Next: Orlando Magic Daily Podcast: Expectations for the season