[外電] A Matter of Length

看板Kings (沙加緬度國王)作者eliczone (C'est la vie)時間15年前 (2010/07/17 23:16)推噓3(3推 0噓 0→)

留言3則, 3人參與討論串1/1

http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1187 "It isn't the high price of stars that is expensive, it's the high price of mediocrity," former Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck once famously observed. I've borrowed this quote, which I remember learning from the Baseball Prospectus annual, in the past. More and more all the time, however, I'm not certain Veeck's quote really sums up the issue. It's not even the high cost of mediocrity that kills teams--it's the duration of it. 「明星的大約並不貴，平庸的人的大約才貴」這是前白襪隊老闆Bill Veeck說的很有名的話。但我不是要用這句話來做出結論，我認為並不是平庸的人的大約殺了球隊，而是它的長度。 This jumped out at me over the course of compiling my position-by-position rankings of free agents. Sprinkled throughout these lists are players who have long since ceased to have any value to their team and have hung around solely because of their contract. Now, this is not any sort of criticism of the guaranteed contract in general or player motivation. Often, like Antonio Daniels or the more extreme case of Cuttino Mobley, injury is a culprit. Sometimes, the player just aged. And occasionally, as in the case of Trenton Hassell, the contract was simply a mistake from day one. 這次不由位置來分，而是由合約的長度來分門別類。這不是要批評合約或者球員的動機。通常像Antonio或者更極端的例子老貓，受傷真的是個罪惡。有時候，球員只是老了。以 Trenton Hassell來看，這合約從第一天開始就是個錯誤。 Instead, I see the takeaway as how teams can get themselves in trouble with the lengths of the contracts they offer as much as the yearly salary. To try to gain some insight into this phenomenon, I went through and looked up all the contracts of five years or longer that were signed in free agency (no extensions) and concluded at the end of last season. 現在來看球隊是如何讓自己因為給了多長多大的合約而陷入麻煩。為了試著去獲得一些觀點，挑了到去年球季結束為止所有五年以上的合約， I found 23 such contracts, with the biggest (Ray Allen for $80 million over five years) and smallest (Damien Wilkins for $14.5 million over five years) both handed out by the Seattle SuperSonics during the summer of 2005. The majority of the deals (13) were for five years, with several six-year contracts and a couple of seven-year ones signed during the 2003 offseason by Brad Miller and Kenny Thomas rounding out the group. 發現了23個這樣的合約，最大的(雷槍的超過五年80M)和最小的(Wilkins的超過五年14.5m) 都是超音速在05年暑假所簽的。而大部分的約都是五年約，有幾筆六年約還有兩筆六年約都是在03年季外簽的，分別是大米和KT。 Even without going to the numbers, it's obvious that teams came to regret many of the long-term offers they handed out. Of the 23 players, just four spent the duration of their contract with the team that signed them, and even one of those comes with an asterisk (Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who was bought out of his contract and returned to Cleveland after being traded to Washington). While not all of the decisions were made because of performance, nearly half the 23 players (11) were either waived or bought out before their contracts ended. And five players (Daniels, Mark Blount, Jerome James, Darius Miles and Cuttino Mobley) did not see a single minute of action in 2009-10. 就算不看數字，很明顯的球隊都後悔他們所簽的長期約。23個球員中，只有四個待在原隊，甚至有一個有個星號(大Z，之前被交易到巫師後被買斷才又回到騎士)。幾乎有一半球員在合約結束前被waive或買斷。而有五個(Daniels、Blount、James、Miles和老貓)在09-10 完全沒有上場過。 The summary statistics reinforce this conclusion. I looked at both average minutes played by year and average WARP totals to provide two different perspectives. Note that I only looked at the first five years, so for Miller and Thomas, for example, this ignores their performance the last two seasons so the pool of players remains consistent. 數據加強了這個結論。由每年所打的平均分鐘和平均WARP來提供兩種不同觀點。注意這邊只看前五年，所以忽略大米和KT過去兩季的表現。 Stat Yr1 Yr2 Yr3 Yr4 Yr5 ------------------------------------------ Minutes 2183 1859 1985 1508 1170 WARP 3.7 1.9 2.6 1.5 1.4 The first three years, players averaged about starters' minutes (26-30 minutes a night) and posted WARP totals around league average. Things went downhill the next two seasons, when free agents' minutes plummeted and their WARP totals dropped. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that most NBA contracts escalate year over year, so these players were making progressively more money for less production. 頭三年這些球員上場時間跟先發差不多(一場26到30分鐘)，而且WARP和聯盟平均差不多。接下來兩季就急轉直下，上場時間和WARP都直直落。 One other way to break down the numbers is by the annual salary, separating the star players like Allen from the role players. Are long-term contracts more of an issue for one group or the other? I came up with four groups--star players (at least $10 million on average over the life of the contract), those above the mid-level exception ($7 million-$10 million), the mid-level exception ($5.7 million to $6.3 million) and everything below. Here's how they compare in the same breakdown. 另外一個分析的方式是由每年的薪資來看，將明星球員(像雷槍)和一般球員分開。長期的合約真的是問題嗎？這裡分出四個區塊 1)明星球員(至少平均10M) 2)高於MLE(7M-10M) 3)MLE(5.7M-6.3M) 4)最低。 Type Yr1 Yr2 Yr3 Yr4 Yr5 ------------------------------------------ Stars 2340 2067 2555 2414 1871 AboveMLE 1638 1842 1189 898 1061 MLE 1615 1486 1479 1050 846 BelowMLE 2366 2438 2297 1626 1252 Type Yr1 Yr2 Yr3 Yr4 Yr5 ------------------------------------------ Stars 7.4 5.0 6.7 6.9 3.3 AboveMLE 4.5 1.4 2.2 0.2 1.4 MLE 1.1 0.6 0.8 -0.6 0.3 BelowMLE 2.6 1.3 1.4 0.5 0.9 The sample sizes are small here (no more than seven players in any group), so drawing any strong conclusions would be dangerous. Still, what we see generally confirms conventional wisdom. The star players remained good values through year four before finally dropping in year five. Everyone else dropped considerably after year three. 這邊sample sizes很小，所以下太絕對的結論都是危險的。我們所看到的通常都是來證實以前的觀念。頭四年明星球員還是保持很好的價值，但第五年掉下來了。其他都是在第三年後就掉下來。 Two sidenotes. First, players in this group signed to mid-level contracts were uniformly awful. This ties in nicely to my breakdown two summers ago of how poorly mid-level deals have failed, which I speculated might be partly due to the length of the contracts handed out to them. Surprisingly, players on smaller contracts actually faired quite well, with Rafer Alston, Raja Bell and Kyle Korver all proving bargains among this group. 有兩小點。第一，簽MLE的球員表現爛透了。這和我之前分析的結果不謀而合，我那時候就推測可能是因為合約的長度。很驚訝的是，簽較小合約的球員表現相對很好，像是 Skip to my lou、辣椒標、KK。 Looking over all the data, it appears the sweet spot for free-agent contracts is about three years. Past this, the risk escalates quickly. Predicting performance next season is hard enough, so trying to figure out what a player will be like five years down the line (or even whether they'll be healthy then) is nigh impossible. For stars, that risk is an acceptable part of acquiring an elite talent. Among the NBA's middle class, it's difficult to justify going much more than three years. A four-year deal can be justified because the expiring contract becomes valuable as a trade asset the last year, but five-year deals to marginal talents simply aren't worth it. 再來看所有資料，對FA而言合約的甜蜜點差不多是三年。超過這個，風險迅速提升。預期下個球季的表現已經夠難的，所以試著去理解一個球員五年會怎麼樣是不可能的。對明星而言，因為獲得最棒的天份，所以風險是可以接受的。在NBA的中間階級，很難來說明簽超過三年是合理的。四年約還說得過去，因為到期約滿有價值的，但和非頂尖球員簽五年約真的是不值得啊。 Looking at the contracts handed out so far this summer, several fall into this category. Phoenix's Channing Frye, Milwaukee's Drew Gooden, Denver's Al Harrington (only fully guaranteed for the first three years), Toronto's Amir Johnson, Portland's Wesley Matthews (an offer sheet the Jazz reportedly will not match), Miami's Mike Miller and New Jersey's Travis Outlaw all got five-year deals right around the mid-level exception. Meanwhile, even if Brendan Haywood's sixth year only becomes guaranteed based on conditional performance, his contract is both too long and too lucrative. 來看看今年暑假截至目前為止的合約，很多都是屬於這個類型。太陽的福來，公鹿的古登，丹佛的哈靈頓(只有前三年是保證約)，暴龍的Amir，波特蘭的馬嫂，熱火的MM和籃網的法外都是五年中產左右的約。此時，就算黑伍的第六年保證約是有條件的，他的合約還是太長太大了。 By next summer, six-year contracts may be a thing of the past. The last CBA limited teams to six years when re-signing their own free agents or five years for other teams' players, down from seven and six, respectively. The league will surely look to cut down contract lengths again, and they'll probably use data like this. But there's already a simpler answer for intelligent teams: Don't make long offers and let other teams deal with the painful consequences. 明年暑假，六年約也許會是過去的產物了。上個CBA限制球隊簽自己的FA最多六年，簽別隊的球員最多五年，之前分別是七年和六年。聯盟將會試著再次縮減合約長度，而且他們可能會利用像這樣子的資料。但對於聰明的球隊已經有個較簡單的答案：不要提供長約，讓別隊承受這個惡果。 -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 219.70.206.103 ※ 編輯: eliczone 來自: 219.70.206.103 (07/17 23:17)