If We Are Done, Are We Finished?

[DanSchwartzgan]

The Athletic posted their player ranks/tiers recently.  In their piece on 8/9 regarding players 80-125, they included this nugget about what it takes to be a "Championship Team".  BTW, Seth Partnow is the one who chose VORP, not me.  If you feel strongly that some other catch-all measurement is better (none of them are perfect), please feel free to do this analysis using your favorite metric instead (and maybe spare us the posts that say VORP sucks because Player X...who obviously sucks, is ranked higher than Player Y):


"The median championship team from 2010 to 2019 had players who summed to just over 15 “Championship Value Over Replacement.”  Looking at end-of-season rosters, the five most likely teams to win a title based just on their “star power” would have been

1. Brooklyn – 21.5 points
   
   
2. Milwaukee 14.75 points
   
   
3. LA Clippers – 12.5 points
   
   
4. LA Lakers – 12 points
   
   
5. Denver – 11.75 points
   

That feels about right, especially considering the degree to which one or two re-tierings of players who are on the border between two tiers up or down might rearrange the list completely. Phoenix was seventh at 10.5 points, suggesting they were a legitimate contender regardless of the good fortune from which they ultimately benefited en route to the Finals."


In case you are wondering, Luka is 4th in VORP at 5.0, KP is ranked 71st, Brunson is 89th, THJ is 90th, Bullock is 107th and DFS is 110th.  Of course, the moment I saw that, my mind immediately went to "I wonder where Dallas ranks...especially after the off-season.  Below are the VORP's for our top 8 players.  The list also shows each players all-time best in case you are wondering what happens "if Kidd brings out the best in Player X".

            2021    Best
Luka     5.0       5.0
KP        1.4       1.8
THJ       1.1       1.4
JB         1.1       1.1
Bullock  0.9       1.2
DFS       0.9       0.9
DP        0.7       2.1
Maxi      0.5      1.1

Tot:      11.6     14.6

Well, right off the bat, I notice 11.6 is pretty close to Denver at 11.75 (and Denver doesn't have its second best player right now...and LAC doesn't have it's first best player right now).  11.6 is also better than NBA finalist Phoenix at 10.5 (sometimes a little luck goes a long way).  We were 10.7 with JRich in place of Bullock.  If you could directly correlate those numbers, Bullock makes us 8.4% better.  Our record in 20/21 would have equaled 48 wins in a normal 82 game season.  8.4% improvement takes that number to 52 wins (take the over).

I did the "Best" column mainly to see what we might expect if KP was a better version of himself.  Frankly, I was hoping for more.  Even "Peak KP" is only ranked as the 52nd best player in the league.  You have to be careful with the "Best" column with many players.  It is a bit of a slippery slope.  Could KP return to 1.8...maybe.  It was just a year ago.  Might he become a 2.5 (which would move him to 31st in the league)?  There is nothing in his history to suggest that.  I do think KP at 1.8 is more likely than THJ at his 1.4 peak.  That is because that 1.4 was several years ago and is clearly an outlier compared to a very consistent level of about 1.1 since.  The same is true of Bullock.

Probably the biggest room for improvement comes from Maxi and Powell.  Maxi's 0.5 is an outlier.  The prior two seasons he averaged 1.0.  Note that "bad Maxi" returning to "average Maxi" of the two seasons prior is actually more potential improvement than "last season KP" moving up to "Peak KP".  Powell is a tougher call.  That 2.1 peak is definitely an outlier (Luka's rookie season where the top guys in minutes were Luka, DFS, Powell, Brunson, Barnes and Jordan in that order).  Someone has to put up numbers, even if you are the 20th ranked O in the league.  His other four VORP's in the last five years have been 1.0, 1.5, 0.9 and 0.7.  I suspect his post-ASG number last season is more like 1.0-1.2 (B-Ref doesn't give splits on VORP, but there is a huge jump in all of Powell's post-ASG numbers where they do provide splits).  

I don't think it unreasonable at all that we might get another 1.0 of improvement between Powell and Maxi normalizing around 1.0 and KP moving up even halfway back to what he was in 19/20.  That is another four game improvement to a hair over a 56 win pace (I'm telling you, take the over).  Much of that is health dependent.  Even rest games hurt as the drop off from KP to WCS is huge.  Same thing with all of the 9-15 bench guys.  They are all basically replacement players at best.  Are there clear paths to improvement?  LM doesn't help compared to Maxi/Powell except in terms of age.  Dragic doesn't help compared to Brunson or even S. Brown except for chemistry and a missing skill-set.  Those are nice things to have, but they don't move the needle any closer to a Championship VORP of 15.  Conley, DeRozan and Lowry would have helped as would Collins or Lonzo (but those last three not as much as you'd think).  I talk a lot about Batum, Crowder and Thaddeus.  All of those guys would have provided similar VORP improvement to some of the more highly paid headline guys.

If we are to get some improvement this season, it is probably more about making our ninth guy more than just a replacement player.  Right now our ninth guy is really three guys:

WCS behind KP/DP/Maxi

S. Brown behind DFS/Bullock

Burke behind Luka/THJ/Brunson

When you look at it that way, it is easy to see why they took a shot with Sterling and are rumored to have interest in LM and Dragic (but not in a way that it costs a top 8 guy to get it done).  BTW, another path to improvement would be Green passing Bullock as his game catches up with his athleticism.  Might be why Bullock is only partially guaranteed in year three.  Sterling is fully guaranteed for all three years and becomes the defensive version of Burke if Green passes him in a couple of years and makes Bullock expendable.