Pricey players may be risky signings
Former MVP, backup guard on title team seeking big paydays despite subpar skills
The NBA’s free agent frenzy will officially tip off Saturday as teams throughout the league try to figure out a way to close the gap between themselves and the true title-contending teams like the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers.
Some, like the Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves, have already made trades to help, but most teams will have to rely on the free agent market to improve. But there’s always going to be some assets that are overvalued, with these five players among the riskiest in the free agent pool.
Derrick Rose, point guard, 28 years old
Rose, the 2011 NBA MVP, averaged 18 points, 4.4 assists and 3.8 rebounds in 64 games for New York before a meniscus tear in his left knee cut short his season. It’s now been six years since he’s appeared in more than 70 games.
In fact, you could argue his most valuable contributions to the team over the past six seasons have come during the 2012-13 campaign, the year he sat out with an injury — in every season since he has provided replacement-level performance or below.
If a team does decide to take a chance on Rose, it better have a strong defensive scheme in place: the New York Knicks gave up 111.1 points per 100 possessions with Rose on the court last season, five more than when he was on the bench, enough of a swing to cause an average defense to become one of the worst in the NBA.
Shaun Livingston, combo guard, 31
The backup guard averaged 5.1 points and 1.8 assists per game for the reigning champion Golden State Warriors last season. Playing with former MVPs Steph Curry and Kevin Durant has obvious benefits, but the team was outscored by 3.9 net points per 100 possessions when Livingston was on the court without those two superstars, roughly equal to the performance by the New York Knicks this past season.
Livingston also has an oldschool element to his game, preferring to post-up smaller guards rather than act as a floor general out of the pick and roll or in transition. Perhaps some of that is due to being part of a super team, but that doesn’t excuse his low output in the post (he scores 40 percent of the time, 13th of 16 guards with at least 20 possessions) nor his ineffectiveness as a spot-up shooter (25 percent shooting with a 20 percent turnover rate).
His average game score, a metric created by John Hollinger to give a rough measure of a player’s productivity for a single game, of 4.2 as a reserve ranks Livingston 42nd out of 46 backup guards playing at least 1,000 minutes in 2016-17.
According to ESPN’s Chris Haynes, Livingston will command a salary of at least $10 million with a maximum of $12 million on the free agent market. That would necessitate production similar to Dwyane Wade of the Chicago Bulls or Tony Allen of the Memphis Grizzlies (each with 3.5 wins above replacement in 2016-17), a level Livingston has reached once in his career (3.5 wins above replacement in 2013-14 with the Brooklyn Nets).
Rudy Gay, small forward, 30
The Brooklyn native averaged 18.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game with the Sacramento Kings last season but was only average in transition (1.1 points per possession) and below-average as the ballhandler on the pick and roll (0.8 points per possession).
Gay also isn’t good at distributing the ball — he had just 5.2 potential assists per game for the Kings last season — nor is he very willing to dish the rock — he averaged 34.9 passes per game, just the sixth-most on the team.
He’s also below average at defending jump shots (50.9 effective field goal percentage against), even worse when those jumpers come off the dribble (53.4 eFG% against) and downright awful at defending shots within 17 feet of the rim (1.18 points allowed per possession), putting him in the bottom 6 percent of the NBA’s defenders).
Gay declined to exercise his $14.3 million player option for the 2017-18 season, but his value on the open market for 207-18 based on his production above a replacement player is approximately $9.5 million.
Serge Ibaka, power forward, 27
The 6-foot-10 power forward transformed his game the past few seasons. Once a fierce rimprotector who led the league in blocks for four straight seasons en route to three all-defense team honors, Ibaka now spends more time on the perimeter, averaging four three-point shots per game last season with one of the lowest rebounding rates of his career (12.2 percent).
And when Ibaka does work down low in the post, he averages just 0.87 of a point per possession, 26th of 47 bigs with at least 50 possessions in the post. As a result, his overall value has dropped from seven wins above replacement during the 2013-14 season to four, 3.2 and 2.7 over each of the last three years. That pegs his value closer to $8 million or $9 million for the upcoming season, significantly less than the $12.25 million Toronto paid him.
Danilo Gallinari, small forward, 28
Gallinari averaged 18.2 points per game last season, the second-highest scoring average of his career, and was the only player in the NBA standing 6-foot-10 or taller to average at least five three-point attempts with a free throw attempt rate, the number of free throw attempts per field goal attempt, better than 50 percent last season.
His durability, however, is an issue — he played 70 or more games just twice in his eightyear career.
Gallinari also struggled outside the restricted area last season, converting just 37 percent of his shots within 17 feet of the basket, placing him 32nd of 39 forwards with at least 50 attempts this close to the rim.
He’s also in love with the midrange shot despite not being very good at making it (38 percent).
Gallinari would have earned $16.1 million for next year if he exercised his player option for the 2017-18 season, so it is obvious his camp feels he can make more on the open market this offseason.
But based on his value above a replacement player (an average of 3.8 wins above replacement the last three seasons) and the cost of a win ($3.2 million in 2017), he is worth closer to $12.1 million per year.