Why are our valuations so off?

[Alatan]

What’s wrong with the Luka for Davis + Flagg deal? Looks pretty fair to me.

Flagg was not part of the deal. At least not officially.

[brackdan70]

Not everyone here is off all the time.
In general there are some biases that affect views on valuation. Age, box score stats, player size etc. also sometimes we think a contract is bad because we are stuck in the past a bit.

[jazzfan1971]

I seem to be holding onto a belief that large expirings hold value. I think this false notion is hurting my valuations.

[shrink]

Internet posters don’t have million dollar GM salaries on the line. This causes many to be far more risk-tolerant, and compared to actual GMs, over-value prospects and picks, and under-value consistent high (not superstar) level performers.

The NBA shows us they value older star players with high salaries and more trade value than we predict. But we refuse to accept that, and often call those guys “over-priced negative contracts,” while we fall in love with the upside of every rookie or sophomore prospect that shows any nba skills whatsoever.

[nykballa2k4]

3) Less nuanced player evaluations and less thought out development plans. We make snap judgements of guys based on what they done. Very few actually scout to the extent a team would. We say a guy sucks at 3 point shooting; an actual GM/scouting team might think he's being asked to shoot off the dribble too much and would be fine as a supporting piece where it's more catch and shoot threes. We rely on statistics which are, in large part, driven by what your teammates do. You teammates shoot like ****, you look like a ball hog with a low assist %. Your teammates can't defend - you have a poor defensive rating. Teams probably watch the on court play and don't make that entirely an individual evaluation.

To add to this, I think the board has two intermingled issues:
A) Fans tend to think in black/white logic. Quickly placing guys into specific pigeon holes rather than looking at what they do overall. Joe Ingles, Trey Lyles, SloMo -- i don't think most on this board would ever have been trying to get any of them for real value, but on a team they have actual value. A player is put into very narrow categories - ie "oh a shooter who can't create of defend? Those are all Korver, Redick, Allen Ray, etc"

This brings us to the next point
B) The echo chamber effect. My best example of this is Julius Randle. He is objectively a good player. he has been good for several years now. he is actually a fair defensive player. He is not a lock down, shot blocker but he holds his own. Athletic, mobile, strong, doesn't do much of the dumb reaching (KAT), and his rebounding ends the play on defense and secures possession. Because he is not elite on defense, he is not seen as a paint protector, stopper etc being mid quickly becomes bad, becomes poor, becomes "human turnstile." This sort of thing leads to my another one of my favorite griping points -- when this board thought Grant was a prized asset or when the Nets shouldn't trade Cam Johnson for a top FRP, or trade Mikal Bridges for the pick that became either Scoot Henderson or Brandon Miller. Once something gets out there like "Nets reject 2 FRP from good playoff team"(fairly logical to reject that for a starter) then the board kinda goes off.


I agree with many of the points mentioned: competing interests between ownership/management/fans. Fans may want to do the process, owners may want to treadmill. GM's don't want to get fired.

Some GM's are just terrible.

I would think that every team has a numerical grade for each player similar to 2K that influences their trades whereas fans are more likely to simply assign a letter or a 3 dimensional pass fail (shooting, offense, defense) ie "Westbrook can't shoot, can't defend, all he can do is score"

[meekrab]

T&T board posters don't have NBA Owners demanding they sell tickets this year or compete every season or whatever it is owners demand.

[165bows]

Not everyone here is off all the time.
In general there are some biases that affect views on valuation. Age, box score stats, player size etc. also sometimes we think a contract is bad because we are stuck in the past a bit.

Yeah I’m satisfied with my performance lol

[Scoot McGroot]

Think honestly CBA killed free agency. Sign and trade is so limiting now. Players have way less options driving down their value. Getting rid of the 125 percent rule makes it so much harder to dump money.

Think we seeing similar value driven down in trades. Players have less options on the open market. Not as many teams could make a trade for stars now like they could on old CBA .


Players use to be picking from 6 to 10 teams in free agency or trade market. Now you lucky if 2 or 3 teams can afford you.

Actually the CBA did exactly what it was designed to do - level the playing field.

The actual fans that are ticked off about this are Lakers/Boston et al who can no longer simply out spend the smaller markets to steal players and treat the small markets as farm teams.

And look at this past finals - two small market teams. Definitely a successful result.

Lakers haven't been outspending teams. And in fact spending has not a ton to do with market and more about the specific governor, right? Clippers started spending with Ballmer, but didn't before. Chicago hates paying tax. Houston doesn't pay a lot of tax. OKC has been a big taxpayer before and almost certainly will be again. Minnesota has a very high payroll, etc...

I don't think its really a market thing. Yes big markets have real financial advantages, but its not like baseball where that tends to dictate the haves from the have nots pretty exclusively.

With the right governor, the Kings could be a big spender too, just the Maloofs went broke and the new guy isn't willing to spend huge either.

Yup. Lakers haven’t spent in years. And have specifically made transactions that hard cap themselves at lower spending limits.

But this is also indicative of another thing we miss. Ownerships/governors have directives. And ownership is expensive now, so there’s a LOT more minority investors involved all with different spending limits on a year to year basis. Markets go up and down, and owners get older and older, and we don’t always know what their directives are to personnel management. For example, the Buss’s have almost all their wealth tied up in the Lakers franchise and have had to progressively sell more of the franchise. Simon has gotten older in Indy and has sold part of his stake as he’s prepared for the survivorship of the franchise for his son to inherit (but is still largely invested in the open market with his wealth, and largely divested from malls for years now).


There’s just too many people involved, all with their own motivations and interests, to be able to speak as uniformly about the market at large as we tend to in this forum.

[KembaWalker]

agent relationships matter as much as on the court productivity

[BK_2020]

agent relationships matter as much as on the court productivity

Kinda disagree with this along with all similar opinions holding that real NBA transactions are more the result of agent relationships, GM incompetence, owner incompetence/cheapness, or other factors divorced from player value as a function of Performance x Cost x on-court Fit x Cap Fit. Imo the vast majority of the transactions are logical whereas the vast majority of fan reactions are illogical.
Like 90% of fans will tell you, in 2025, that the Jazz ripped off the Wolves in the Gobert trade and that the Lakers fumbled the bag in trading for AD.

[kobe_vs_jordan]

Actually the CBA did exactly what it was designed to do - level the playing field.

The actual fans that are ticked off about this are Lakers/Boston et al who can no longer simply out spend the smaller markets to steal players and treat the small markets as farm teams.

And look at this past finals - two small market teams. Definitely a successful result.

Lakers haven't been outspending teams. And in fact spending has not a ton to do with market and more about the specific governor, right? Clippers started spending with Ballmer, but didn't before. Chicago hates paying tax. Houston doesn't pay a lot of tax. OKC has been a big taxpayer before and almost certainly will be again. Minnesota has a very high payroll, etc...

I don't think its really a market thing. Yes big markets have real financial advantages, but its not like baseball where that tends to dictate the haves from the have nots pretty exclusively.

With the right governor, the Kings could be a big spender too, just the Maloofs went broke and the new guy isn't willing to spend huge either.

Yup. Lakers haven’t spent in years. And have specifically made transactions that hard cap themselves at lower spending limits.

But this is also indicative of another thing we miss. Ownerships/governors have directives. And ownership is expensive now, so there’s a LOT more minority investors involved all with different spending limits on a year to year basis. Markets go up and down, and owners get older and older, and we don’t always know what their directives are to personnel management. For example, the Buss’s have almost all their wealth tied up in the Lakers franchise and have had to progressively sell more of the franchise. Simon has gotten older in Indy and has sold part of his stake as he’s prepared for the survivorship of the franchise for his son to inherit (but is still largely invested in the open market with his wealth, and largely divested from malls for years now).


There’s just too many people involved, all with their own motivations and interests, to be able to speak as uniformly about the market at large as we tend to in this forum.

Good point there. The minority investors would want a return on their investment. Lakers might be a case study of why not to pass down the team and just sell. Jerry was a rich man then his empire got divided by 6. None of them generate their own income outside of the lakers either. Glad the buss family finally selling.

[GatherStepGuru]

I’ve seen quite a few hits on here; like Poole for CJ. Some things I maybe underestimated are:

-Relationships: Some GMs might just not like some players/agents based on off-court relationships

- The inflated value of 2nd round picks, especially for teams with their core set; they’re giving up valuable guys below value

Overall, it seems like the CBA is forcing teams to decide who is and who is not a part of their next championship run core, and willing to let productive vets go a lot cheaper than in the past

[tmorgan]

It has been reported that while Troy Weaver was GM in Detroit, teams were calling him for deals because they knew they could get over on him. And they did. Over and over again. He would have been better served reading our message board and running trade scenarios with our input. I guess my point is, not all GM's are as good at their job as you'd expect them to be at the highest organizational levels. You can say the same thing for a lot of executives in many industries (and government).

Troy Weaver is a scout that managed to get over-promoted. Happens outside of basketball all the time. You’re good at something, you get more responsibility, you can’t handle it, you get fired. Then you go back to what you’re good at.

Now, giving Weaver a second GM job like this… well, that’s on Dumars and the Pelicans. Joe D appears to be insane.

[jbk1234]

Internet posters don’t have million dollar GM salaries on the line. This causes many to be far more risk-tolerant, and compared to actual GMs, over-value prospects and picks, and under-value consistent high (not superstar) level performers.

The NBA shows us they value older star players with high salaries and more trade value than we predict. But we refuse to accept that, and often call those guys “over-priced negative contracts,” while we fall in love with the upside of every rookie or sophomore prospect that shows any nba skills whatsoever.

In the last 12 months, the Clippers let PG walk, Ingram had to accept less than the max, Beal and Dame were bought out, the Heat refused to extend Butler (despite the fallout), Jrue and Porzingis were essentially salary dumped, the Clippers traded Powell for a song, and the Lakers don't appear to have offered LBJ an extension for the first time in his career.

Perhaps the delta between the fans and front offices isn't as great as you make it to be.