Paging mister Hollinger
Since I wrote the post on Antawn Jamison I’ve been thinking about this “contract year” phenomenon. Seems like most of the players in the NBA suddenly find themselves extra motivated when they are in a contract year. I guess it’s easy to stop caring and play disinterested when your money is guaranteed. But sometimes the difference is eye-popping. And it’s not an isolated thing. There are many players who got paid a shitload of money after just one good season. Sometimes after one good half a season or even less (Jerome James comes to mind). And right after they got their money, they reverted to their donkey balls sucking ways.
Here are some examples:
- Erick Dampier
- Michael Olowokandi
- Bobby Simmons
- Larry Hughes
- Tim Thomas
- Rashard Lewis
But how can GMs fall for this time after time after time ? Are they really that stupid ? Well, it seems they are. So they need a tool to tell them a certain player is playing this well only because he’s got his sights set on a new fat contract. So who’s best at creating tools that analyze statistical information ? Well, none other then John Hollinger. He’s got the PER, formulas to predict the evolution in the NBA of college players and foreign players (they require ESPN Insider), the playoff odds and is pretty much the stats guru amongst the well known NBA analysts.
I think John Hollinger would be the best to figure out a formula to red-flag players who are “coincidentally” playing the best ball of their career in their contract years. Such a task may seem easy at first, after all guys like Dampier or Olowokandi are so easy to spot only someone like Kevin McHale would think they gonna keep playing like that or even improve on that. But then there are guys like Caron Butler who just had his best season in his young career in the 2004-2005 season. He then signed a 5 year, 46 million contract and he kept improving his game and this season he’s basically playing at superstar level while leading Washington to an unexpected 4th place in the Eastern conference.
How to differentiate between players who are only playing better because they look for more money in the summer and players who are going to keep working hard and improve on that after getting their new contract ? Well, here are a few things that should be taken into account when deciding if the improvement is legit or not:
- the improvement must be of at least 10-20%: the increase in production usually comes in points per game and rebounds. For example Rashard Lewis’ rebounding last season went up to 6.6 per game despite the fact that it went from 6.5 in 2003-04 to 5.5 in 2004-05 to 5.0 in 2005-06. That’s a 32% increase. He also had an increase of 11.44% in scoring from 20.1 to 22.4. It helps spot a contract year if the player is setting career bests, especially the 2 categories mentioned above. A prime example of this is Erick Dampier, whose rebounding almost doubled (from 6.6 to 12) and whose scoring increased by about 50% (from 8.2 to 12.3). He also had a career best (at the time) in FG%.
- there is spike in rebounding: unlike scoring which requires talent and plays getting called for you, rebounding takes first and foremost the will to go get the ball. You have to want that rebound more then anyone else on the court. So a player who is suddenly getting more rebounds in his contract year must have some extra motivation to go for all those rebounds. Unfortunately that motivation will evaporate before the ink dries on his new contract.
- there is a spike in FTA: a spike in FTA shows the player was more aggressive then usual. Just like with rebounding, once his motivation is gone, so will his aggressiveness. Here are a bunch of players who scored big contracts after a good contract year and their FTA for their contract year (in bold), a few years before that and the year after: Larry Hughes (3.6, 2.8, 5.5, 7.4, 5.4), Bobby Simmons (1.0, 3.0, 3.6, 2.7), Rashard Lewis (4.5, 3.4, 4.0, 5.5, 5.3, 3.4) - in this case Rashard may have tried to get an extension in the previous year which would explain the 5.5; as soon as he got his contract though he’s back to 3.4, Erick Dampier (2.9, 2.9, 2.7, 4.5, 3.9)
- player must be over 26 or have at least 6 years of experience: it’s expected from young players to improve on their stats, so if a young player does NOT improve his stats even in a contract year, or if the improvement is hardly noticeable, it probably means he reached his ceiling and the GM should not count on much improvement of the player’s per minute stats in the future
- numbers must be adjusted on a per minute base and take into account the pace at which the team is playing: scoring 15 points per game for Phoenix, Denver or Golden State is nowhere near the same as scoring 15 per game for Detroit or San Antonio
- the improvement must come against a trend set over the last few years: in the example above, Lewis’ rebounding was going south before his contract year. Naturally, after signing his huge contract in the summer of 2007, he’s currently averaging 5.1 rebounds per game. Sometimes players have a couple of good years, the contract year and the one before. Most likely explained by them trying to get a reach extension, and when they don’t get it they play even harder the next year for a new contract. For example Larry Hughes had a good year in 2003-04 with the Wizards. His scoring went up from 12.8 to 18.8, his rebounding went from 4.6 to 5.3. But the next season, in his contract year, he played even better recording 22.1 points, 6.3 rebounds, raising his assists from 2.4 to 4.7 and his steals from 1.6 to 2.9. As a result, he’s not able to steal the Cavaliers’ money. About 12 million per season. This requirement should filter out players like Caron Butler whose improvement continued a trend, a trend that kept going even after he signed his new contract.
- the improvement can not be (fully) explained by increased playing time, faster pace of the team, playing in a new system and/or for a new coach: Bobby Simmons received about 50% more playing time during his contract year and he upped his scoring from 7.8 to 16.4. That’s a 110% improvement and it can’t really be explained just by the increase in playtime. From 12.73 points per 40 minutes he went to 17.59. After signing his contract, he went back to 15.86 points per 40 minutes.
- the improvement can not be explained by increased role on the team (for example as a result of an injury to a star player): in case of Antawn Jamison his extra 1.5 points per game can be explained by his bigger role in the offense with Arenas out. But that doesn’t explain his career best 10.4 rebounds per game which represent a 30% increase over the 8 rebounds per game he got the previous season.
Now that the foundation is settled, is up to Mr Hollinger to come up with a formula that will let everyone know if a player will keep up his level of play or not after signing a contract. And, of course, it will be up to the GMs of the league to use that information for the benefit of their teams. But they won’t be able to say they were not warned or that they did not see that coming.
