Each week during the 2024-25 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.
[Last week: The NBA needs more 3-point specialists]
Fact or Fiction: The NBA’s 2024 free-agency class was a dud
No team spent more on salary this past summer than the Philadelphia 76ers, who own the NBA’s worst record through the season’s first month — indirect evidence that the 2024 free-agency class was a bust.
Let us dive deeper into that question to see if teams managed to salvage some value.
First a reintroduction to Cost Per Win (CPW), a statistic created here in 2016 to measure the cost of each player’s contributions to a team’s success in a given season: We take the average annual value (AAV) of a player’s contract, divide it by that player’s win shares (WS) and extrapolate the data out to a full season. This provides us with an estimated account of how much teams are paying their players for each victory.
We separated the 56 free agents who changed teams over the summer into four categories: big-ticket ($12,859,001+), mid-tier ($5,183,000-$12,859,000), low-cost ($1,157,153-$5,182,999) and two-way players. It is harder to equate value across tiers. Teams expect to pay more per win for max-salaried players. Usage varies. Roles are different. Minimum-salaried players do not stabilize organizations. In fact, the addition of a high-priced free agent has been known to attract lower-cost ones, as was the case in Philadelphia.
2024 big-ticket NBA free agents
|
PLAYER |
AAV |
WS |
CPW |
|
1. DeMar DeRozan, SAC |
$24,630,000 |
1.5 |
$3,003,659 |
|
2. Klay Thompson, DAL |
$16,666,667 |
0.7 |
$4,355,401 |
|
3. Tobias Harris, DET |
$26,000,000 |
1.1 |
$4,900,222 |
|
4. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, ORL |
$22,000,000 |
0.7 |
$6,132,404 |
|
5. Isaiah Hartenstein, OKC |
$29,000,000 |
0.1 |
$56,585,366 |
|
6. Paul George, PHI |
$52,896,235 |
0.1 |
$90,310,645 |
Eighty-eight players have registered at least a single win share through the season’s first month, and just two of them — Sacramento Kings standout DeMar DeRozan and Detroit Pistons forward Tobias Harris — were big-ticket acquisitions in free agency.
And who else was bidding for DeRozan or Harris?
Granted, Isaiah Hartenstein made his season debut for the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, the same day Paul George hyperextended his left knee for the second time in five weeks. We should expect then that Harris has made a greater impact on the Pistons than George has on the Philadelphia 76ers, though that is no less disheartening for the Sixers fans who rode Harris out of town.
Pause to consider how concerning the signing of George — the most skilled player in a shallow pool of big-ticket free agents — could be for Philly. He is the only player still active from the 2010 draft class, and he has played more than 56 games once in the past five years, his contract season. He has had major injuries to every one of his extremities, and will be paid $56.6 million in 2028, when he turns 38 years old.
It does not help that maximum-salaried teammates Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey cannot stay on the court, either. At some point the three of them will play sustained minutes together. Presumably they will win games. But it bears repeating: The 76ers have so far paid George $9 million to contribute one-tenth of a win share.
2024 mid-tier NBA free agents
|
PLAYER |
AAV |
WS |
CPW |
|
1. Kris Dunn, LAC |
$5,426,400 |
1 |
$1,058,810 |
|
2. Chris Paul, SAS |
$10,460,000 |
1.7 |
$1,200,574 |
|
3. Buddy Hield, GSW |
$9,439,024 |
1.2 |
$1,342,951 |
|
4. Naji Marshall, DAL |
$9,000,000 |
1 |
$1,646,341 |
|
5. Malik Beasley, DET |
$6,000,000 |
0.7 |
$1,777,003 |
|
6. Jonas Valanciunas, WAS |
$10,098,333 |
0.8 |
$2,001,194 |
|
7. Derrick Jones Jr., LAC |
$10,000,000 |
0.9 |
$2,168,022 |
|
8. Jalen Smith, CHI |
$9,000,000 |
0.4 |
$4,390,244 |
|
9. Caleb Martin, MIA |
$8,760,176 |
0.3 |
$4,985,466 |
|
10. De’Anthony Melton, GSW |
$12,822,000 |
0.3 |
$7,297,073 |
Four of those aforementioned 88 players received mid-tier contracts this past summer.
We also had 88 games of film on Kris Dunn in Utah, where he was his usual All-Defensive-caliber self and added a 3-point shot (40% on 147 attempts). Imagine not lining up for those services on short money. Yet the L.A. Clippers landed him on July 1 for the taxpayer’s midlevel exception. Pays to be early — and right.
Same goes for Naji Marshall, a hard-scrapping wing whose 3-point shooting spiked to a career-high 38.7% last season. That has dipped to 13% in this season’s early going, but the Dallas Mavericks should be encouraged that he is still generating significant value as they wait for his shot to progress to the mean.
Chris Paul, Buddy Hield, Malik Beasley, Jonas Valanciunas and Derrick Jones Jr. were known commodities when they entered free agency, and they are delivering on their promise for mid-tier salaries. They are all on pace for a handful of win shares this season, what Sixth Man of the Year Naz Reid provided for the Minnesota Timberwolves last season. In other words, $2 million a win is good value for a mid-tier salary.
2024 low-cost NBA free agents
|
PLAYER |
AAV |
WS |
CPW |
|
1. Jay Huff, MEM |
$2,527,660 |
1.1 |
$448,365 |
|
2. Tyus Jones, PHX |
$3,003,427 |
1.2 |
$488,362 |
|
3. Guerschon Yabusele, PHI |
$2,087,519 |
0.7 |
$509,151 |
|
4. Taurean Prince, MIL |
$2,988,550 |
0.7 |
$780,980 |
|
5. Cameron Payne, NYK |
$3,003,427 |
0.6 |
$915,679 |
|
6. Javonte Green, NOP |
$2,425,403 |
0.5 |
$946,499 |
|
7. Mason Plumlee, PHX |
$3,303,771 |
0.6 |
$1,074,397 |
|
8. Alec Burks, UTA |
$3,303,771 |
0.4 |
$1,309,421 |
|
9. Jordan McLaughlin, SAC |
$2,425,403 |
0.3 |
$1,478,904 |
|
10. Monte Morris, PHX |
$2,800,834 |
0.3 |
$1,821,681 |
The…
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