Overpaid vs. the Best Bang for the Buck

Statistics is in vogue recently. Talking heads tell us from the TV screen that the teams that pay more for the statistical analysis are more successful in the NBA. PtR wizards draw shot diagrams and enlighten us about PPS and the expected FG percentage of our favorite players. Being unable to contribute anything substantial, I feel nevertheless that I cannot stand completely idle. Recent and in particularly today's performance of several Spur players brought a new wood to the fire of the discussion about our most overpaid player. While RJ seemed to be an early run-away favorite for the MOP title, he has now competition not only from Mase and Bonner, but also from certain members of the Big 3. I am trying here to support this discussion with some relevant statistics.

First, I evaluated the player's offensive efficiency with points per minute (PPM) measure. PPS would be a good alternative too, but I have chosen PPM or "bang". Then I found out what is the cost of the bang unit for a particular player. This measure, cost of the bang, is what we can use for MOP discussion. Here are the numbers, in millions of dollars for point per minute (season 2010 so far):

 

Tim Duncan $37.926 M/bang

Richard Jefferson $36.545 M/bang

Kobe Bryant $32.334 M/bang

Tony Parker $24.131 M/bang

LeBron James $20.635 M/bang

Manu Ginobili $20.146 M/bang

Antonio McDyess $15.406 M/bang

Roger Mason Jr. $10.719 M/bang

Matt Bonner $7.883 M/bang

Keith Bogans $4.481 M/bang

Malik Hairston $2.832 M/bang

George Hill $2.575 M/bang

DeJuan Blair $2.042 M/bang

Ian Mahinmi $1.859 M/bang

So, in terms of their offensive efficiency, Tim Duncan is the most overpaid Spurs player, and Yawn Mahinmi is the Best Bang for the Buck, 20 times more efficient investment in scoring than TD. RJ is the closest player we have to Kobe Bryant, and Manu Ginobili is a bit more efficient than LeBron. Of course, these are only scoring-related numbers, and they ignore all other contributions by the players. But under the simplistic assumption that the players are paid to score, these numbers may be somewhat informative.