A minute of your time
There's a lot of stats as an NBA observer that I'd love to be able to calculate. Which players, for example, are the best at drawing a foul and completing a three-point play? Which players foul the most with their teams already in a penalty situation?
Prompted by a conversation today, I decided to try to answer another question: What does it cost on average for an NBA player to log one minute of game action? Believe it or not, it's not that difficult to come up with a pretty good estimate.
For starters, there are 1,230 games each season, multiplied by 48 minutes a game, two teams in each game, and five players on the court for each team. That means there are 590,400 available minutes to be played in the NBA each season.
If you add up the salaries of every player currently on the active roster of an NBA team - - and trust me, you'll burn out a calculator trying to do so - -you get $2.058 billion. That's 30 teams with an average payroll of $68.6 million.
If you divide the two numbers - - $2.058 billion in player salaries by 590,400 minutes - - you arrive at $3,487 per minute. Next time you watch a game, ask yourself if the five players on the court just gave you $17,436 worth of effort in that minute.
Keep in mind, this is just a rough number. In all likelihood, the average cost for a player-minute is probably higher. I'm not taking into account the various buyouts around the league, like Portland paying Steve Francis $14.4 million not to play for them this season.
On the other side of the equation, I can't take into account the extra minutes played in overtime games. There are others who can do a more sophisticated analysis, but I think $3,487 is pretty good for what, again, is a rough estimate.
Why am I interested in this number? Because I think it's a great way to put in perspective how a player is performing relative to how much the rest of the league is spending and what kind of return a team is getting for its money.
It would cost you $112 per minute to play a minimum-salary rookie (making $442,114) in all 48 minutes of all 82 games. By comparison, Kevin Garnett's per minute cost based on his $24.8 million salary is $6,288, and that's playing every minute of every game.
Deron Williams played in all 82 games for the Jazz last season, logged 3,059 minutes on the court and made a little more than $4 million on his rookie contract. It cost the Jazz $1,311 per minute to have Williams on the court, a bargain compared to the league average.
Even Carlos Boozer, who made more than $11.5 million last season, cost the Jazz per minute close to what the rest of the NBA is spending on average. Boozer played 2,827 minutes in 81 games, costing the Jazz $4,101 a minute.
On the other end of the spectrum was Kyrylo Fesenko, who spent the bulk of last season in the NBA Development League. He played only 70 minutes for the Jazz, but made $750,000, or $10,714 a minute, more than three times the league average.
What made me think about this was watching the Jazz put a lineup of Ronnie Price, Morris Almond, Kyle Korver, Paul Millsap and Kosta Koufos on the floor to start the second and fourth quarters of Tuesday's victory over Sacramento.
The Jazz outscored the Kings 32-21 in the 13 minutes that unit played together. Those five players combined will make $9.2 million this season. The cost for those five players to be on the court together for a minute is about $2,325. Keep in mind, the average cost in the NBA for five players to log a minute of time is $17,437.
Not only did the Jazz outscore the Kings by 11 points in the time those five players were together, they did so while costing Larry Miller $196, 456 less than what the NBA as a whole would pay on average just to have any five players out on the floor.
* * *
The blog has eyes everywhere, including one reader who e-mailed to say he got to Wednesday's game early and saw Fesenko injure his back during warm-ups. Apparently, Fesenko was shooting 8-footers when a ball boy came up from behind, and I guess messing around, caught him on the shoulder or arm.
Fesenko threw the ball at the ball boy, who ran up into the stands. Fesenko tried to get loose, took a few more shots and went back into the locker room, according to the witness. It happened about an hour-and-a-half before tipoff, with Korver on the court shooting with Scott Layden.
--Ross Siler
Prompted by a conversation today, I decided to try to answer another question: What does it cost on average for an NBA player to log one minute of game action? Believe it or not, it's not that difficult to come up with a pretty good estimate.
For starters, there are 1,230 games each season, multiplied by 48 minutes a game, two teams in each game, and five players on the court for each team. That means there are 590,400 available minutes to be played in the NBA each season.
If you add up the salaries of every player currently on the active roster of an NBA team - - and trust me, you'll burn out a calculator trying to do so - -you get $2.058 billion. That's 30 teams with an average payroll of $68.6 million.
If you divide the two numbers - - $2.058 billion in player salaries by 590,400 minutes - - you arrive at $3,487 per minute. Next time you watch a game, ask yourself if the five players on the court just gave you $17,436 worth of effort in that minute.
Keep in mind, this is just a rough number. In all likelihood, the average cost for a player-minute is probably higher. I'm not taking into account the various buyouts around the league, like Portland paying Steve Francis $14.4 million not to play for them this season.
On the other side of the equation, I can't take into account the extra minutes played in overtime games. There are others who can do a more sophisticated analysis, but I think $3,487 is pretty good for what, again, is a rough estimate.
Why am I interested in this number? Because I think it's a great way to put in perspective how a player is performing relative to how much the rest of the league is spending and what kind of return a team is getting for its money.
It would cost you $112 per minute to play a minimum-salary rookie (making $442,114) in all 48 minutes of all 82 games. By comparison, Kevin Garnett's per minute cost based on his $24.8 million salary is $6,288, and that's playing every minute of every game.
Deron Williams played in all 82 games for the Jazz last season, logged 3,059 minutes on the court and made a little more than $4 million on his rookie contract. It cost the Jazz $1,311 per minute to have Williams on the court, a bargain compared to the league average.
Even Carlos Boozer, who made more than $11.5 million last season, cost the Jazz per minute close to what the rest of the NBA is spending on average. Boozer played 2,827 minutes in 81 games, costing the Jazz $4,101 a minute.
On the other end of the spectrum was Kyrylo Fesenko, who spent the bulk of last season in the NBA Development League. He played only 70 minutes for the Jazz, but made $750,000, or $10,714 a minute, more than three times the league average.
What made me think about this was watching the Jazz put a lineup of Ronnie Price, Morris Almond, Kyle Korver, Paul Millsap and Kosta Koufos on the floor to start the second and fourth quarters of Tuesday's victory over Sacramento.
The Jazz outscored the Kings 32-21 in the 13 minutes that unit played together. Those five players combined will make $9.2 million this season. The cost for those five players to be on the court together for a minute is about $2,325. Keep in mind, the average cost in the NBA for five players to log a minute of time is $17,437.
Not only did the Jazz outscore the Kings by 11 points in the time those five players were together, they did so while costing Larry Miller $196, 456 less than what the NBA as a whole would pay on average just to have any five players out on the floor.
* * *
The blog has eyes everywhere, including one reader who e-mailed to say he got to Wednesday's game early and saw Fesenko injure his back during warm-ups. Apparently, Fesenko was shooting 8-footers when a ball boy came up from behind, and I guess messing around, caught him on the shoulder or arm.
Fesenko threw the ball at the ball boy, who ran up into the stands. Fesenko tried to get loose, took a few more shots and went back into the locker room, according to the witness. It happened about an hour-and-a-half before tipoff, with Korver on the court shooting with Scott Layden.
--Ross Siler
4:55 PM
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1 Comments:
So what happened to Fesenko?
"Fesenko threw the ball at the ball boy, who ran up into the stands. Fesenko tried to get loose, took a few more shots and went back into the locker room"
or was it this that injured him?
"...caught him on the shoulder or arm."
I didn't understand how he got hurt from your description. Can you clarify? I am curious.
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