RealGM

NBA's most overpaid player

08:15 AM ET 06.18 | In the eyes of some, all athletes are overpaid, but a Southern Utah University economics professor put this to the test with a statistical method called "Wins Produced."
The list:
10. Tyrus Thomas, Charlotte Bobcats (overpaid by $12,459,225) ...
9. Deron Williams, Brooklyn Nets (overpaid by $12,784,867) ...
8. Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Mavericks (overpaid by $12,851,295) ...
7. Corey Maggette, Charlotte Bobcats (overpaid by $12,862,248) ...
6. Mehmet Okur, Brooklyn Nets (overpaid by $12,988,657) ...
5. Chris Kaman, New Orleans Hornets (overpaid by $14,613,480) ...
4. Amar'e Stoudemire, New York Knicks (overpaid by $14,918,309 ) ...
3. Antawn Jamison, Cleveland Cavaliers (overpaid by $17,402,350) ...
2. Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers (overpaid by $19,693,258) ...
1. Rashard Lewis, Washington Wizards (overpaid by $21,167,231).

Yahoo! Sports
http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumors/view/331175-nbas-most-overpaid-player?xid=cnnbin

JJ is overpaid, there's no doubt. But he is productive. He's led us in scoring every year he been in a Hawks uniform. He's a consistent All-Star. He's our best wing defender.

He'll never be a dominant, top-tier player. But we are at least a 'good' team in large part because of him. I'm guessing he's probably somewhere around 19 or 20 on this list.

The above list is based on a quantitative mathematical analysis that I won't even begin to try to understand. I agree with about 80% of this list.

But Kobe's worth in wins (and ticket sales) should keep him off this list. And Deron Williams should be exempt considering how terrible that NJ team was this year.

I saw the same article and wondered where Joe was on the list. I did some similar calculations using FIC from RealGM instead of Win Shares and he did show up around the same place as Nowitzki. I didn't finish doing the entire league though, just the 50 most productive players because I was inputting the salary info manually. I also got sidetracked trying to assess price/performance for the Hawks roster. (YES, I AM THAT MUCH OF A GEEK). FYI, it's hard to properly weight playing time.

Since I was only looking at the most productive players, those such as Lewis, Jamison, Stoudemire, Kaman, Maggette, Okur, and Thomas didn't make the list. I didn't check all the figures, but Tyrus Thomas doesn't even make 12.5M a year, so he must have really sucked. Deron Williams wasn't on my list either perhaps he missed too many games. Kobe shows up so high because he made 25M last year. If you factor in ticket sales and television appearances then he's underpaid, but statistically he's expensive. Other guys high on my calculations were Carmelo Anthony, Tim Duncan, Elton Brand, and Kevin Garnett. It's simply because they make so much.

When you look at the 50 most productive players some things stand out like rookie deals give the best bargain because of their low salary. Ibaka, Lawson, Teague, Anderson, and Jennings were the top 5 performance per dollar players on the list. They all produced over 300 FIC points per million dollars of salary (FPM). At #21 on my calculations was Josh Smith at 81.98 FPM. At #22 was Lebron James with 81.23 FPM. If Josh was paid like Joe he'd fall to around 56 FPM which is around Pau Gasol level. Joe is at 37.52 FPM. Maybe I'll finish the whole league and publish my own article.

The problem with the calculation is that it still doesn't account for Playing Time that well. FIC itself rewards being on court because you can't make stats without being on court. The thing is that being on the court a lot of minutes normalizes your stats (provides an averaging affect) and the FPM doesn't indicate the scalability of the figure. A sub like Ivan Johnson might score really high because if he isn't producing he gets yanked. You can't assume a linear scaling on his stats with more playing time. Likewise a sub like TMac might have a really good FPM but it wouldn't scale to Joe's minutes because he'd physically break down at the higher usage. Just want to be upfront about the limitations.

WP is a garbage stat that stated that Rodman was more valuable than Jordan in '92, I believe.

i.e. it's a completely garbage stat.

The list is based on this year I believe. Even his biggest detractors feel as though Joe is still performing close to his salary.......it's the fear of what happens in latter years where his price goes up and his production drops....

Can't argue with most of the list, mostly guys getting paid a lot to sit at the end of the bench (Tyrus) or in a suit (Shard, Kaman, Okur) or are tanking the season waiting on free agency to get a better team (Dirk, Deron coincidentally) or are getting in the way of younger guys or just their team in general because of their ego (Tawn, Amar'e and Kobe)

Joe is a strong regular season performer. Where he really fails to earn those max dollars is in terms of marketing (he doesn't have the name recognition or personality to sell) and playoffs (he struggles in post-season). Having said that he probably was in the next 10 players if they listed. The reason for that is simple, you get paid a lot you make the list.

http://wagesofwins.com/wins-produced/ho ... -produced/

I was going to break down their procedure but it started to give me a headache. I think they try to overcorrect for scoring to the point it disadvantages you to be the primary shooter for your team.