Ranking The Best Value Contracts Of The NBA Season

Every NBA fan wants their team to assemble the superstars. But if there is anything we can take from this year’s postseason, it has been the complementary pieces and developed talent that has been the deciding factor.

Players like Jordan Poole, Jose Alvarado, and Robin Williams have been the “under the radar” players appreciated by the media, but who really provided the most value for their team while not breaking the bank?

Excluding the rookie deals, a helpful statistic to look at the value of a player’s contract is Basketball Reference’s Value Over Replacement Player compared to the Average Annual Value of their contract.

With a replacement-level player being below -2.0, anything above that mark is a player worthy of being on the floor. For example, Nikola Jokic led the NBA in VORP this season with 9.8, while having just the 43rd-highest AAV at $29.5 million.

Dejounte Murray (SAS)

San Antonio’s Dejounte Murray takes the cake in terms of a bargain with this comparison, making his first All-Star game in his age 25 season.

Murray set career-highs in points per game (21.1), steals (2.0, leading the league), and effective field goal percentage (.500). He accumulated 7.3 Win Shares on a team that only had one other player over 5.

So, in terms of VORP, Murray finished ninth in the NBA with 4.4, barely cracking the top-100 in AAV at $16 million. This was the biggest gap between VORP and AAV in the NBA this year.

If there is any team that historically knows how to make the most of a lower payroll, it’s the Spurs.

Just look at the last Spurs dynasty. In the Duncan-Parker-Ginobili era, they won 575 regular-season games and 126 postseason games together, and the most they ever paid the three in one season was a combined $44.2 million.

Even though the current state of the Spurs is not near the peaks they rose to earlier in the 21st century, Brian Wright might be cooking a similar recipe to come.

Looking ahead to next season, the Spurs will retain 6 of their 8 10+ point per game scorers, with the chance to still bring back Lonnie Walker IV. If they continue to receive the value they have from Murray, whose steady increase in all three shot attempts corresponded with percentage increases as well, the Spurs could find themselves building another affordable core for their future.

Robert Williams (BOS)

Even though Boston’s Marcus Smart took home the Defensive Player of the Year award, he alongside the rest of the Celtics team would not have been as strong defensively without Robert Williams.

Williams may have averaged 10 points and 9.6 rebounds a night, but his presence in the paint was the main factor in him racking up 3.4 VORP (21st in the NBA) in just 61 games last year.

Producing 2.2 blocks and 0.9 steals per game were just a portion of his 103.4 defensive rating, which all came on a rookie extension deal of 4 years, $48 million. Per year, this puts him at 128th-most in the league.

The Celtics, 2nd-best Defensive Rating in the NBA, allowed just 104.5 points per game under first-year Head Coach Ime Udoka, which was the lowest in basketball.

Similar to Murray, these numbers were the best of Williams’ young career, which could be due to a combination of Udoka’s leadership and William’s earning the starting spot.

And when Williams is involved on the offensive side, he is efficient with his chances, shooting 74% from the floor. This was the highest field goal percentage from a player with over 6 shots a game.

Gary Trent Jr. (TOR)

Trent had a career year after being resigned by the Raptors, averaging 18.3 points per game, and 38% 3-point shooting in 35 minutes per night.

He was signed to a 3-year, $51,840,000 deal ahead of 2022, making him the fourth-largest cap hit on the team ($17,280,000 AAV).

Trent finished one spot lower on the team’s Win Shares ranking (5.6) but made much more of an impact than just that.

With a .511 eFG%, he left something to be desired when it came to scoring inside the arc, averaging just 3.4 makes per 7.7 a game.

However, he was the most efficient outside shooter on the team (with more than 2 attempts per game), averaging three a night on 7.8 attempts, giving him 1.3 VORP. That 1.3 VORP is 4th on the team, and within the top-100 in the NBA.

In fact, Trent finishes exactly 91st in the league in VORP, and 94th in the league in AAV.

So, despite the Raptors getting claims of overpaying for the team’s starting shooting guard, his career year had them get a solid return on the price they paid.

Kyle Lowry (MIA)

For a team to have the best record in their conference, you’d expect most of their contracts to have paid off. With only 5 players over the NBA average salary of $4.3 million, their depth was a major catalyst in their success.

Whether we’re talking about Tyler Hero’s 20.7 points per game on a $4 million dollar contract, Max Strus’ .602 eFG% while earning just $1.7 million, or even Caleb Martin being 5th on the team in terms of Win Shares (4.0) while making just over half a million this year.

But the story of this year’s 1 Seed in the East would not be this way if it were not for Kyle Lowry.

Lowry was the right-hand man in the backcourt with Jimmy Butler, averaging 13.4 points and 7.5 assists a night while making $26.9 per year, guaranteed for the next 3 years.

Lowry finished the year with a 2.1 VORP, which was 44th-best in the league, while his per-year contract ranks 48th.

Domantas Sabonis (SAC)

For yet another season, Domantas Sabonis was able to produce under-the-radar impressive numbers with the Pacers and Kings.

Sabonis produced the 23rd-best VORP in 2021-21, sitting at 3.2 while only having the 80th AAV at $18.7 million.

The Gonzaga alum has always been one for volume statistics, which shows just how active he is in the three statistical assets of the game.

This is how he has been able to total 34.6 win shares and 11.1 VORP in just 415 games.

Even though the league has become position-less in the new “sprawlball” era, the adjustments Sabonis made transitioning from a center in Indiana to power forward in Sacramento were reflective in his numbers.

Even though his threes per game shrunk from 0.7 to 0.3, it was because he was used more off the dribble, improving his usage percentage from 21.7% to 24.4%.

While his points per game fell from his career-high last year, Sabonis became a much more efficient shooter inside the arc. Once he has a full season of the newer style of play with the Kings, his three-point shooting is expected to rise with the experience, while his contract will stay exactly the same in 2023.