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Based on the last week, we really have began start to figure out what sort of value do scoring guard role players have or don't have.Just last summer, Gary Trent Jr had to take a vet min contract. D'Angelo Russell looks like he will be taking the taxpayer midlevel exception. We have recently seen both Colin Sexton and Anfernee Simons having a 2nd round pick attach to them to take on ether a washed up center(Jusef Nurkic) or to take on a productive, but overpaid player in Jrue Holiday.

If there's one thing that's starting to become clear is that scoring guard who don't play defense and are not all star quality simply don't have value around the NBA anymore. I think the Kings will be finding that out the hard way when other teams are ether asking them to take on ether bad players or players massively overpaid without getting a single asset back or having to pay assets just to get a mediocre player. Malik Monk likely going to get less money on his next contract compared to his current one. How much less? Who knows.

I think both Coby White and Austin Reaves are really overplaying theirs hands here when it comes to negotiations with their own teams. They really believe that teams will pay 25+ million dollars to score without playing defense. I don't see it happen and if a team does give them that amount of money, it will be instant regret and likely would need significant assets attach to their contract just to get them off of their team not long after those contracts are signed. Maybe Coby White case is different since we haven't really seen him in a playoff setting yet and he looked quite promising as a 3rd option on a good team post all star break. However he would need to continue to look really good in order to justify teams paying major money for him or trading anything of value for him.

This is basically leads to my point that scoring guard role players who don't play defense simply just don't have a lot of value anymore in the new CBA. It's a skillset that often doesn't translate into the playoffs and the market has reflected that. I think the Colin Sexton/Simons types are going at best valued as full midlevel exception players coming off of the bench and perhaps even less than that going forward.

Just a small tip, formatting (paragraphs/line breaks) will make the OP a bit more readable.

But agreed, I think we're seeing another pivot in the NBA where these raw scorers who don't do much else are going to be relegated to 6th man roles

That herro extension will tell us alot. Unlike simons, Trent, reeves, etc... people see herro as a franchise cornerstone. He's probably the posterboy of this archtype right now.

Crazy-Canuck wrote:That herro extension will tell us alot. Unlike simons, Trent, reeves, etc... people see herro as a franchise cornerstone. He's probably the posterboy of this archtype right now.

Hey hey hey… Herro is better than Ray Allen according to some people.

Yeah, league is talented enough that pure scoring doesn't have as much value as in the past, this is undeniable. You're either bad or with multiple players on your roster already capable of scoring a lot if they're put in that position.

I don't think it applies to Austin Reaves though, he's more efficient as a scorer and playmaker than other guys mentioned, and regardless of this year's playoffs - he's proven in high-level play on a very good team (WCF in 2023 as a 3rd option).

If they can't play defense, that does diminish their value greatly, you're right. A 3&D wing that can slide to the 2 every once in a while is a much better use of a roster spot. But it's the Hield/Beasley paradox. You need these guys to win in the long regular season, but in the playoffs they often fall apart and are exposed due to only being useful on one side of the court (thanks ConSarnit, I stole that line right from you, good take!). Non defensive roleplayers have their place, but it's certainly not the most or least valuable asset on a roster.

I think the league is correctly lowering their value to what frankly the analytics have been telling us. That said...scoring is always going to be overvalued and somewhat for good reason.

As with anything, there are multiple variables at play here. How old are the players? Do they have anymore untapped potential? The league currently has no cap space due to some specific circumstances (a lot of older players on their third/fourth contracts making a lot of money).

In the examples of D'Lo and Trent, their potential is considered realized. Now the salaries they will make moving forward is what their value is. So either keep improving or expect a paycut if you're a one-dimension player. Then again, a team might overpay someone like Duncan Robinson simply because he's taller. I'd still rather have Malik Monk.

Chuck Everett wrote:As with anything, there are multiple variables at play here. How old are the players? Do they have anymore untapped potential? The league currently has no cap space due to some specific circumstances (a lot of older players on their third/fourth contracts making a lot of money).

In the examples of D'Lo and Trent, their potential is considered realized. Now the salaries they will make moving forward is what their value is. So either keep improving or expect a paycut if you're a one-dimension player. Then again, a team might overpay someone like Duncan Robinson simply because he's taller. I'd still rather have Malik Monk.

Yeah, I mean... how good a scorer are you? How good a playmaker are you? Are you a disaster on defense? Are you over 30? What's your injury history like? Do you perform in the playoffs? What kind of size/positional options do you have? If you're 6'2 versus 6'6, you're lowering your value in a bunch of ways.

Lots of questions to ask and answer when looking at a scoring guard, with some sliding scales, right? If you're a quality playmaker, you can tolerate a little less efficiency. If you aren't chasing 30 a night but barely humping 20, you can tolerate a little less efficiency (or if your team blows and you're the only one initiating action).

tsherkin wrote:

Chuck Everett wrote:As with anything, there are multiple variables at play here. How old are the players? Do they have anymore untapped potential? The league currently has no cap space due to some specific circumstances (a lot of older players on their third/fourth contracts making a lot of money).

In the examples of D'Lo and Trent, their potential is considered realized. Now the salaries they will make moving forward is what their value is. So either keep improving or expect a paycut if you're a one-dimension player. Then again, a team might overpay someone like Duncan Robinson simply because he's taller. I'd still rather have Malik Monk.

Yeah, I mean... how good a scorer are you? How good a playmaker are you? Are you a disaster on defense? Are you over 30? What's your injury history like? Do you perform in the playoffs? What kind of size/positional options do you have? If you're 6'2 versus 6'6, you're lowering your value in a bunch of ways.

Lots of questions to ask and answer when looking at a scoring guard, with some sliding scales, right? If you're a quality playmaker, you can tolerate a little less efficiency. If you aren't chasing 30 a night but barely humping 20, you can tolerate a little less efficiency (or if your team blows and you're the only one initiating action).

Which then begs the question. What does Cam Thomas get in RFA this year from Brooklyn? He turns 24 in October. His QO is very low because he was a late-first rounder and then he missed a lot of games this season. His upside is that he just becomes more efficient at being a ballhogging bucket-getter. He does nothing else well. What is he worth?

I think it’s a symptom of the league talent level being so high now. Scoring is no longer a standout skill unless you’re truly elite. Bigs, defensive specialist, etc all have enough skill & shooting to provide more value than a scoring SG. You need to be able to pair scoring ability with playmaking these days to justify having the ball in your hands. Otherwise, your just an inefficient point generator.

Chuck Everett wrote:Which then begs the question. What does Cam Thomas get in RFA this year from Brooklyn? He turns 24 in October. His QO is very low because he was a late-first rounder and then he missed a lot of games this season. His upside is that he just becomes more efficient at being a ballhogging bucket-getter. He does nothing else well. What is he worth?

Perpetually-injured, mostly inefficient combo guard? Likely limited upside. 20 years ago, he'd be more interesting because he's a pretty nice mid-range scorer and FT shooter, but he's a weak finisher in close and he's a tepid 3pt shooter, so you end up running volume through a mediocre option. I wouldn't go too nuts with RFA over a guy like that. Brooklyn won 26 games this past year, and 32 last year when he played 66 games (during which they were ), and ranked 23rd on O. He's bootstrapping only so much. Which, fair, everyone knows he isn't a superstar. Most metrics show him as limply positive to mildly negative on offense, and defense definitely isn't his jam. So no sense tying up huge cap for a guy who really isn't doing enough to warrant it. Maybe he'd be all right as a 6th man-type scorer, but he's definitely not the dude you want collecting a huge proportion of your cap.

Yes, it's also why Zach Lavine at 50 million is potentially the worst asset in history.

Interesting point.

Orlando had to pay Memphis to take Cole Anthony and now they're having trouble shifting him to someone else. Cam Thomas will be another interesting case. Nobody has been clamouring to get him from BRK, that's for sure.

Playoff offenses are pretty ruthless at exposing weak links and the no-D scoring guard is your easiest favourable matchup.

ShouldaPaidBG wrote:Yes, it's also why Zach Lavine at 50 million is potentially the worst asset in history.

To push that idea further, the Bulls had LaVine and DDR, yet struggled to get above .500. Those guys then moved to the Kings and ditto. Not only were those guys among the best of the low-defense/high-scoring breed of wings (they each made All Star teams while on the Bulls), but there were two of them. Yet pffft.

Yeah. Good points in this thread. You have to at least be serviceable on D.
Undersized lead guards that can score and have defense deficiencies are a dime a dozen.

There is 0 reason to say Tyrese Maxey is a good player at 25% of the cap and Sexton is a bad one at 12.5%, I actually prefer Sexton at their relative prices.
There is 0 reason to say Darius Garland is a good player at 25% of the cap and Reaves is a bad one at 9%, I actually prefer Reaves at their relative prices.

Offensive guards are needed and the better you are at it the more crucial you become, undersized bench scorers have always been part of finals teams.

24 Celtics had Pritchard
24 Mavs would've killed for Sexton instead of Hardy/THJ.
23 Heat had Herro.
22 Celtics had Brogdon, Warriors had Poole.

Btw all the players mentioned in this thread in the last season in terms of BPM and on/off metrics:



Interestingly, only Reaves and Herro are visibly positive in both of these stats. I guess these players not getting any love from GMs is also a major consequence of analytics-first approach to players evaluation. You don't have to dig that much deep to actually find out almost none of them is really a positive player, especially considering most of them played on very mid teams.

So all the fit and playoffs talk aside - they're just not even too productive in boxscore consideration, if you include any other factor than raw points per game. The average BPM in the RS for this group is 0.1, so league average basically, lol, if you exclude Reaves/Herro - that's -0.3.

Ice Man wrote:

ShouldaPaidBG wrote:Yes, it's also why Zach Lavine at 50 million is potentially the worst asset in history.

To push that idea further, the Bulls had LaVine and DDR, yet struggled to get above .500.

To be fair, the Bulls in 2022 started out exceptional as they had the proper pieces around LaVine/DeMar in Caruso/Ball and finished 46-36. LaVine and Demar are different players than Sexton and Simons as they at least have size.

Duffman100 wrote:Just a small tip, formatting (paragraphs/line breaks) will make the OP a bit more readable.

But agreed, I think we're seeing another pivot in the NBA where these raw scorers who don't do much else are going to be relegated to 6th man roles

Is it new though?

Isn't that what happened with guys like Lou Williams, Jamal Crawford, Marcus Thornton, Ben Gordon, many others not coming to my mind. When they are younger they might get starting opportunities, but then teams are like, okay, all he can mainly do is score, and he's not an elite scorer, so his value only goes so far.