Orlando Magic Daily
Fansided

Assessing Channing Frye’s value

By David Iwanowski

Dec 28, 2015; Orlando, FL, USA; Orlando Magic forward Channing Frye (8) reacts to making a basket during the second quarter of a basketball game against the New Orleans Pelicans at Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 28, 2015; Orlando, FL, USA; Orlando Magic forward Channing Frye (8) reacts to making a basket during the second quarter of a basketball game against the New Orleans Pelicans at Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 5
Next
Channing Frye, Orlando Magic
Jan 6, 2016; Orlando, FL, USA; Orlando Magic forward Channing Frye (8) shoots against the Indiana Pacers during the first quarter at Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports /

Frye compared to the league

I wanted to see how Frye is performing relative to other players in the league, and from there determine how his contract looks at this point.

One potential reason his contract may not look as bad as it did last season is because of the jump in salary cap.

The salary cap was at about $63 million in the 2015 season, and that jumped to $70 million for the current season. The cap is then expected to jump to about $90 million next season, and perhaps even up to $108 million in 2018.

An $8-million-per-year contract in 2015 is a lot more significant and takes up a lot smaller proportion of the cap than it will in 2018. Especially when you consider Frye’s contract was front loaded and decreases in the contract’s life.

I wanted to do a k means cluster model to see which players are most similar to Frye, and from there get a gauge of what his appropriate yearly salary should be based solely on his contributions on the court.

I wanted to use a few advanced stats that express a player’s overall impact on the game, as they are most correlated to winning, rather than just box-score stats.

I gathered all players’ stats for this season from Basketball-Reference. I then chose Player Efficiency Rating, True Shooting Percentage, Usage Percentage, Win Shares and Box Plus Minus as the stats to cluster.

I chose those stats because they are important numbers in Basketball-Reference’s collection of advanced stats.

PER is a linear equation of box score stats that measures a player’s overall contribution.

True Shooting percentage measures a player’s overall shooting efficiency, and it factors in the value of threes and free throws. This is an important stat to include when evaluating someone whose strength is shooting.

Usage percentage is an estimate of the plays where a player is used. This stat is important, because you don’t want to pay a premium for a player who isn’t important to the team and you don’t involve much in your game plan.

Win shares attempts to measure a player’s contribution to team wins, and Box Plus Minus measures a player’s impact compared to an average player.

Using these variables, I performed a cluster model to find who the most similar players to Channing Frye are.

Next: The model comparisons