Rank value of Blazers 2020-21 Roster

1 Dame
2 CJ
3 Zach Collins - eligible for extension this summer... don't overpay
4 Jusuf Nurkic - rank #2 if healthy - one playoff series in career (NOP sweep)
5 Gary Trent - promising break out 2nd year
6 Nassir Little - promising rookie season
7 Trevor Ariza expiring - his tank might be empty
8 Anfernee Simons - very disappointing year, make him earn minutes

The rest have little to no value

Whiteside - maybe resign for MLE level dollars - if he wants more let him walk.
Carmelo - Maybe resign for minimum if no PF additions
Hood - Expiring, needs to prove he has any value over minimum player
Hezonja - garbage expiring

Neil needs to make improvements in the offseason;
A Get a valuable mid level free agent such as Wes, Mo Williams, Aminu, Ed Davis
B Trade for undervalued players such as Lopez, Plumlee, Mo Harkless
C Trade at the draft, future picks, youth for veteran help ie Camby or Gerald Wallace

Dame will be 30 in July, he is already past his physical peak. We need to content ASAP in the next two years or it might be time to move on from building a contender around Dame.

 

1. Lillard - duh
2. Whiteside - He was the #1 shot blocker and the #2 rebounder in the league in 2019-20. With it being unknown how Nurk will bounce back to his previous self, I think Whiteside is critical to the success of the Blazers over the next few years. If Nurk signed for around $12M/yr, I think Whitesides value should be similar. If we can sign him for less than $15M/yr, I say do it.
3. McCollum - solid contributor. Overpaid.
4. Nurkic - Key to the long term success. Unknown how much he can contribute his first year back on the court. Give him time.
5. Collins - Has shown flashes of potential. Only averaged 6.6 pts and 4.2 reb his last full year 2018-19. Next season is the time he needs to step up.
6. Hood - He was the top 3 pt shooter (49.3%) in the league when he went down with his injury. Can he come back and produce at last year's rate?
7. Trent - Solid second season. I was most impressed with his defensive effort last year. I think we all knew he had the offense in him. Can he improve on his progression from last year?
8. Ariza - Surprised everyone being Portland's 5th leading scorer last year at 11 points/gm. The Blazers should pick up his $12.8M option and bring him back. He has more left in the tank.
9. Carmelo - I enjoyed watching him more than I expected. If the Blazers can bring him back at a reasonable price, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing him on the roster next year.
10. Little - Meh rookie year.
11. Simons - Disappointing second year. Definitely has the talent/potential. Can he put it together and produce?
12. The rest - no interest.....

As for Dame being 30 and starting to think about building around someone else -



Each year I think we've seen Lillard's peak, and each year he proves me wrong. The Blazers should be building around this guy as long as he is wearing a Blazer uniform.

 

Dame
Collins
Nurk
CJ
Trent
Hood
Whiteside
Little
Ariza
Simons
Melo

 

To those who have already done the ranking: Did you factor in their contracts when determining the order?

 

1. Dame. An obvious choice here. If he can play like he did this season but next to a winning team then watch him become a MVP.
2. Collins. No matter how well everyone else play this team won’t truly become a title contender unless Collins break out into a star role player.
3. Nurkic. Will he be the player he was before the injury or will he struggle to return to form? If he struggle then the team won’t be as dangerous as they could be
4. Trent. Will he continue his break out by threatening CJ for the starting role. If so then this team got a 3D guard for the first time since Wesley Matthews.
5. CJ. We all know what we get out of CJ. A 20 point a night scorer. Because of the rise of Trent his value has diminish
6. Ariza. If he can continue to play like what he was doing then he should be a starter at small forward
7. Hood. He will be an important piece to whether or not we will be a deep team. If he play well we are dang deep, if not then pray that we won’t have as many injuries.
8. Nassir Little. Although I love him, he is stuck behind 2 veteran forwards and there is Mario who coach Stotts clearly has a man crush on. Since he has a great work habit I wouldn’t be surprised if he become a regular rotation player either.
9. Simons. If he never improve his playmaking game then he never gonna be the star that Neil claims he can be.
10. Whiteside/Melo. If both of them return then we have probably the deepest front court rotation since 2001 which we need with some uncertainty surrounding Nurkic and Collins
11. Mario. He will be the key to our bench celebration team. Can he be like Meyers and Pat or will he be busy fixing his hair?

 

Interesting question. When taking into account salaries, you have to balance that with production.

If we use Win-Share as a 'production' guide:



CJ is our least productive player per dollar spent, followed by Simons. Those 2 seem to be in a tier to themselves.

Trent is our best value considering the contract.

 

CJ and Zach have similar WS but half of Nurkic. One of these contributed this year and it's not a big.

I'm open to the idea CJ is overpaid. A ranking incorporating contract value could be interesting. But that table is close to worthless.

 

I don't think it's worthless, but I think you have to separate rookie contract players from veterans. Rookie salaries are artificially suppressed, so any decent or better rookie is going to look tremendous by dollar-to-winshare ratio. But you can't compete entirely with rookie contract players, because you only have so many first round picks a year, so veteran deals are necessary, even if they're "less efficient."

In that light, it's absolutely scary how bad Simons has been to still be such an awful deal on a rookie contract. And not even at top-pick money.

 

Good points. Often rookie contracts are looked upon as 'artificially low', but I think that may be because we tend to notice the top rookies that are playing well. 3 out of the Blazers 4 'least valued' contracts are on rookie contracts. Simons, Swanigan, and Little.

 

They are artificially low, by design. But that's why I said "any decent or better rookie" will look great by this measure. Simons, Swanigan and Little have been pretty terrible on the court so far. If you're bad enough, even rookie scale wages will be a poor deal.

 

Wouldnt you need to look at winshares per minute to get a gauge of value on the court. This is more of a measure of value per dollar isnt it?

 

Why? If you're not playing very much, whether due to injury or not being very good, you're not very valuable. I don't think this needs to be adjusted for minutes.

 

Well its a pretty common complaint that some guys are getting minutes they dont deserve and some arent. Little is a guy for instance that a lot of fans have been asking for more minutes. I am saying there are two things in play here. Value per dollar is a different measurement than value per minute, and if were judging on the court, judging their value per minute makes more sense.

 

I don't agree. Little has been terrible when on the court, so there's no particular reason to believe he should be playing more minutes. And, in fact, if he played more minutes, his numbers might be even more negative. Playing more bad minutes reduces your win shares, it doesn't increase them. I think per-minute numbers are interesting when you're trying to project what kind of raw production a player could have in more minutes but, from a value perspective, the minutes you play usually track with health and how well you're playing. Maybe not always, but generally. Little isn't, IMO, an example of a player who deserves more minutes and is getting screwed.

 

A lot of people would disagree with you me included. I think little for a rookie has actually been pretty good defensively his 3 point percentage was getting better, look at his shot at the start of the year vs march his mechanics got so much better. A lot of times Id rather have him on the court than Melo.

 

I think with more experienced players it's reasonable to say if you are good, you'll get more minutes. With guys under 20-22, though, you've got guys like Simons who have only ever really played high school basketball. Jermaine O'Neal was a poor value by that standard as well. It takes a while for younger guys to acclimate to the NBA game and NBA life. If your team isn't tanking, you just aren't going to play those guys a lot during the adjustment.

Overall, though, it's really interesting to see the WS/$ ratio. It's probably the single easiest way to identify cheap and overpriced talent.

I'm not surprised CJ's is so bad. I really feel like what he brings is pretty easily replaceable on our team, given how much money he makes.

 

I agree with you, but I feel that that's a separate issue. Jermaine O'Neal wasn't very good in his seasons in Portland, so he was a poor value from a "how many win shares are you generating per dollar spent." Now, I think if you want to develop talent, you have to be willing to play young players and let them take their lumps, even if they're not yet very good. But that's apart from how much on-court value you're generating from the money you're spending on salary. You may have to take a loss in that sense to try and develop some guys--that's the risk/reward proposition you're signing up for when you take a player who's very raw and young.

Ultimately, no one should be deciding who to cut from the roster purely from dollars-per-winshare. But it gives you an idea, right now, of where you're getting bang for your buck and where the soft spots in your roster are. You may, correctly, feel that certain "soft spots" are okay because it's a future investment, or the player had a fluke injury, etc.

 

I can't decide which I want gone more, Anthony or Ariza.