Re: Joe Smith deal?

[Andy Shaw <shaw@transmeta.com>]

   From: "Kevin Crawford" <176012@email.msn.com>
   Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 12:33:29 -0000

   Minnesota paid Garnett 18 million per year for 17 pts, 8 rebounds, and 2
   blocks per game, and Garnett is putting up virtually the same numbers this
   year, so why does it sound so surprising that Smith will recieve 10-12
   million for very similar stats? ( 17 pts, 7 boards, and 1 block, and 1
   assist)    I don't think either player is worth the money, but the sad fact
   is that they both will get it.

Look at the Tendex numbers for these two players -- they can be easily
retrieved from Doug Smith's home page:

http://shell.rmi.net/~doug/97-98Tendex.html

   Player           Pos  G M/Gm  FGm  FGa  PCT  3m  3a  PCT  FTm  FTA  PCT  AVG
 2 smith,joe         PF 47 33.8  331  767 .432   0   7 .000  158  206 .767 17.4
 3 garnett,kevin     SF 47 38.9  341  673 .507   3   8 .375  145  190 .763 17.7

   Player             AS AS/g  ST ST/G  TO TO/g  BK BK/g  TND  OR OR/g  TR TR/g
 2 smith,joe          65  1.4  42  0.9 101  2.1  37  0.8 13.7 134 2.9  320  6.8
 3 garnett,kevin     193  4.1  79  1.7  97  2.1  92  2.0 24.4 117 2.5  432  9.2

Although at first glance, it seems that they're similar, all of the
little things add up -- the field goal percentage, the assists,
steals, blocks, and rebounds.  In the end, Joe Smith is barely above
average for NBA power forwards at a Tendex of 13.7.  There are more
than 20 power forwards with a better Tendex rating than Joe Smith.

Garnett, on the other hand, has the 3rd highest Tendex in the NBA.
His Tendex is almost twice as good as Smith's.

In a study I did about 2 years ago, I determined that NBA salaries are
approximately linearly proportional to Tendex ratings.

http://www.csg.lcs.mit.edu/~shaw/publications/papers/nba-analysis.ps

As such, Smith should only be paid about half of what Garnett is being
paid.  However, this linear proportionality makes no sense to me from
a business point of view.  In my opinion, Smith should be paid even
_less_ the linear predictor dictates, because superstars should get a
premium for their high Tendex ratings.  I think this is happening more
now, and if I have the time, I'll re-run the numbers with the current
salaries and Tendex numbers.

-Andy