There’s no doubt that LeBron James is the best current basketball player on the planet, but when it comes to the NBA’s best bargain, it isn’t as clear-cut.
But, thanks to ESPN.com, we now have a pretty interesting way to solve that dilemma.
ESPN’s Luke Knox and Micah Adams recently looked into every NBA player making more than $10 million annually, and they whittled the list to Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry through six rounds of cuts.
Players with below-average plus/minus numbers on offense and defense got the ax first — 20 in total. They then cut any players not in the top 20 for points, rebounds, assists, blocks, steals or 3-pointers per game. That left only 60 players.
Many of the highest-paid players were the next to go, as a player’s PPG or RPG+APG+SPG+BPG had to exceed their salary, which is hard to do when you’re making close to $30 million per season. Seventy-five down, 32 more to go.
Eight more players were cut in the next round, which was all about playing time, and performance and peer salary were the topics for Round 5, which resulted in nine more players being eliminated.
The final cut for the top 15 is sort of technical, so we’ll let ESPN explain it.
“The formula for picking the best value: scoring + non-scoring contributions divided by salary and multiplied by percentage of games played,” Knox and Adams wrote.
And that left them with Curry, followed by Kyle Lowry and Kemba Walker, respectively. However, Curry and Lowry won’t be bargains for much longer, as ESPN pointed out, so Walker soon will be No. 1 on this list.
Thumbnail photo via Sergio Estrada/USA TODAY Sports Images
